More in August

 We were able to get together with some of my family members one weekend. My sister and her husband were in town, so we went out to see my mom while they were there. My brother and his kids came out as well. Christian stayed back home to continue working on the JK or there was no chance of finishing before the kids go back to school.

We went to hang out at a nearby park as some of the members of my brother's family was either sick or getting over sickness but we left after a while when we all started getting bit up by mosquitos. We returned back to my sister's house to chat some more but my brother and his son were hesitant to come inside. After a while, we decided to go out to dinner. We went to a Toisan Restaurant in Hacienda Heights. It was pretty good and we all ate way too much. We brought some of the food back for Christian. After dinner, we returned to the house once again to chat. My sister wanted Emily to try this weird roller thing for when her back hurts. It was uncomfortable, but it seemed to help afterwards, so she gave her one to use. It was a good visit and the girls and their cousins did a lot of catching up since they hadn't seen each other for a while and probably won't see each other for a long time after.

We stopped by the craft store to get a few supplies and look around and Caitlyn found some yarn that she absolutely loved and wanted to make a blanket out of. She ended up buying a whole cartful of this thick chenille yarn to finger knit a blanket. She finished it in less than a week. She has mixed feelings about how she made it as it seemed a little loose to her but she said that she is going to live with it until the winter and see how it performs and then she can decide whether she wants to take it apart to tighten the stitches. It is pretty big, so I think it should be fine whatever she decides. It is very fluffy and soft. 

Both girls are still working on their cross stitch. Emily is dabbling into embroidery a bit to make me some neat kitchen towels.

Caitlyn and Ty seem to take turns visiting each other nearly every week since they have come back from college. Caitlyn has also reconnected with her best friend from high school, Aubrey. Aubrey was out of the country when they initially came back from Idaho.

During most mornings and weekends, work is continuing on the JK. Emily had to change the fluid once again in the transfer case since they had topped it off with the wrong fluid, we replaced it, ran it going to Oregon and then they wanted to dump it once again to fill it with clean unadulterated transmission fluid. She also had to drain the transmission again and change out that fluid since it was old and burnt. When you drain the fluid, you only get about a third of the fluid out before replacing it with new stuff. You can't get all the fluid out unless you have a super expensive machine to simultaneously pull out the fluid while filling it with new stuff. So after the Oregon trip, she drained it once again to infuse the tank with some more new transmission oil. It's starting to look much better.

The other big thing they had to do was to bleed the brakes as it looked pretty dirty as well. In doing so, Christian found that they probably topped it off with window washing fluid as it looked green and should be a light yellow at most. And her window washing fluid reservoir was just half filled with water. It just gets more and more ridiculous as they work on it.

In fact, after we came back from Oregon, she noticed that the light bar seemed kind of loose and wiggly. It was irritating her because we could not wash the windshield when we stopped at gas stations as the light bar would get in the way of the squeegee so she took a look at it when we got home and ended up taking it off. She doesn't like the look of it anyway and it is just a nuisance. When she unbolted it, most of the screws were just finger tight and apparently, the original bolts were not quite long enough to hold it in place so instead of getting longer bolts, they filled the cowl with some janky spray foam to try to reinforce the bolts that were too short!!!

Christian's dad and his wife drove up to visit with the girls at the end of the month. We made them lunch but his dad barely got to eat anything before feeling sick. He was having trouble swallowing and kept wanting to throw up. We found out that he has been sick on and off for a couple of months now. He went to see a doctor and found out that he had kidney stones or something a while back. Then he went up to Oregon some weeks before we did and he ended up in the Emergency Room or Urgent Care. They seemed under the impression that he had food poisoning or something, but it didn't just pass in a day or two, he was sick for some time and was finally able to make it back home again.

The long and the short of it seems to be that after his last episode with his heart some years ago, they restricted his water intake but the lack of water damaged his kidneys because he was constantly dehydrated. They have him on new medication now and they have removed all restrictions on his water intake and he is feeling much better. He has some additional tests they want to do, but so far so good.

The girls took a day off to go to the beach while they are home. They went to Crystal Cove. It wasn't too crowded so I think they had a good day out.

Marian also came out to see the girls. We actually met up with her after work (she went in for half the day) in Ontario. She took us out for all you can eat lunch at El Torito and then we did some shopping. We brought back this giant box of crabs for dinner from Costco. It was pretty sweet and tasty but so much work to get into the shells! We only managed to get through a little more than half the box. She had also gotten a bunch of snacks and some food stuffs for the kids to take back to school with them.

And speaking of food poisoning, I don't think that the AYCE Mexican food agreed with me too much! I definitely prefer quality over quantity.

August

Christian had to go back to work at the start of the month. The girls and I had things to take care of. Caitlyn and I had to get our SMOG checks on our vehicles. We all had to go to the dentist. 

Emily has to go up to Oregon to visit her grandma and get things settled a the DMV for her JK, so she and Christian had to spend a bunch of time prepping the vehicle for another long trip. First and foremost was changing the transmission fluid as it is black as soot and smells burnt to boot. We don't know if they have ever changed it. While they were down there, they changed the transfer case fluid as well. They found out that the idiot mechanics at the Jeep dealership put the wrong fluid in it. They did not drain the fluid, they just topped it off or something and they obviously put the wrong fluid in it. Her transfer case is supposed to be filled with transmission fluid, which is red. They obviously put gear oil in it (which is yellow). It didn't mix very well as you can tell some of it has a reddish hue, some of it was thick and yellow and some of it was orange. The viscosity was all wrong. Some fluids don't mix at all and turns into a thick sludge. Luckily, hers did not do that and we got it out, but she drove nearly a thousand miles on it. 

Also, on their way home from Idaho, they noticed that the lights would flicker on her vehicle. She thought that her headlight was going out and got a new bulb, but when she took it apart, she found that the connector of the wiring harness for the light was actually broken and had been replaced but the bulb was fine. So, she had to order a new harness along with some bulbs for the interior that was also flickering because they replaced several of them with LED lights that were not working well with her system.

With some of our housekeeping items completed, the girls and I headed to Oregon for a few days. Emily drove her JK up to get her plates and take care of some things there. It's a grueling fourteen hour drive to get there. When we got there, we had a late dinner, chatted for a little while and headed for bed as we were all pretty tired.

In the morning, we went to the DMV to add Emily's name to the title of the JK. That took longer than anticipated as no one was aware that the DMV wasn't open until late on that day of the week normally...which was strange. Afterwards, we picked up some lunch and loaded up the kayaks to take the girls to the river. That also took longer than we thought because we loaded up and headed to the river, only to realize that we forgot the paddles! We had to take both Jeeps as we could only fit one kayak in each Jeep. We dropped them off. Caitlyn had her lunch when we were loading up the kayaks, so she was fine, but Emily had waited and she was hungry by the time they got in the river and was trying to eat her sandwich while we were casting her off.

We then drove the Jeeps 25 minutes down river to meet them. We set up chairs at the edge of the river to eat our lunch while we waited. After the drive and settling in, the girls were not that much longer before they came paddling over. We had the whole place nearly to ourselves. There might have been one or two other small groups there and the girls didn't see anybody on their journey down the river, so it was really nice. Plus the weather was nearly perfect as well.

We hung out by the river for a bit afterwards. The girls got snacks, skipped rocks and tried to catch one of the many fishes that were swimming around our feet as we sat at the edge of the river.

It was a pretty relaxing and pleasant afternoon. We went home to unload the cars and clean up. Cheri made us dinner and we watched a movie to end the night.

The next day, Cheri had booked us ride that afternoon on the Hellgate Jetboat Excursion. It's a two hour, 36 mile trip on one of their giant speedboats. We had a pretty leisurely morning except for when the girls helped clean her back windows since the house painter had just finished before we got there. The girls had been working on learning to cross stitch and had brought their projects to work on during the downtime. Cheri decided to take the girls to JoAnn's to get more supplies as she thought it was pretty neat and wanted them to continue. We ran a few more errands and had lunch before heading over to the boat dock.

The Jetboat Excursion was pretty interesting, because the boats glide over just inches of water in some places. It proceeds down the Rogue River to the Hellgate Canyon. It speeds along fairly fast, but they will slow down in certain areas to give us some history of the area, show us some of the wild life living there or when they get near others along the beach or in the water. In some of the wide open spaces, they will do  some tricks spinning around 360 degrees and splashing through the water with some of the other tour boats we are traveling with. The splashes were always fun, but you are never quite comfortable pulling out the camera when we are moving along. 

Cheri had dry sacks for us to use, so I brought my camera but only pulled it out when we were drifting along looking at the wildlife.

We left early the next morning to head back home. Caitlyn slept more than half the time, drinking and eating almost nothing. She seriously stressed me out. She finally took a few sips of water when we were back in Southern California but complained of a headache after. When we finally made it home, we got her to eat a little bowl of food. She cleaned up and went to bed after. She seemed pretty normal in the morning so not sure what was going on with her.

That same morning, Emily had to go a second time to get a filling and repair a chip on her tooth from her accident. They are also having her get a mouth guard to where at night. 

The next week, Caitlyn had to go back for a consultation from the surgeon as they want to take her wisdom teeth out. They have not progressed much from last year and she doesn't have much time left, so we are just going to keep an eye on it and check again next year. Plus, it's going to be pretty expensive so I think we will have to save up for it. Originally we thought maybe she could keep them but the surgeon doesn't think that she will have enough room in her mouth even if it does come out straight. At this point, he is worried that they won't actually come out at all and the root will just grow at hit a nerve in her jaw. So we are pretty sure she has to get them out in her future.

Meanwhile, Emily and Christian needed to continue trying to get the maintenance done on her JK since the Jeep dealership in Oregon was so inept (or criminal) that we can't rely on them to have actually done anything on the Jeep (certainly not done right if they did). Emily changed the differential fluid in both her axles. They were clearly not done. Christian worked on changing the spark plugs. That opened up a new can of worms since you have to take the intake manifold off in order to get to half the spark plugs. In the process, he found out that they removed a big insulation/spacer under the manifold which supports it and keeps the air intake cooler. The spark plugs looked like they have never been changed out as they were in pretty bad shape and were all gapped wrong and different from each other. A wire on her main wiring harness was damaged because some insulation was removed. The drive belt was cracked and near falling apart. We had to stop working and change gears continuously to search for and buy replacement parts. He ended up replacing her tensioner and idler pulleys as well. She needs new timing belts as well, but you have to take apart the entire front end of the engine apart to get to them. We just don't have that kind of time so we left that alone for now.