December - End

Shortly after returning home from visiting with the girls, my new camera arrived. Christian took us out to Kelso Sand Dunes to try out our new cameras. Christian got my old camera...which isn't really that old but it is the last DSLR that Canon is making, so Christian is hoping to be able to stick with that for some time to come. 

We had not been to Kelso in a very long time. We actually have never even taken the girls here because it has gotten too popular. It has changed a lot...and not for the better. As soon as we arrived, we had a problem with the Jeep's brake lights. We parked and started to lock up before heading out when Christian noticed that his brake lights were still on for some reason.

Christian had to do some serious contortions to get under the steering wheel and check on the switches and electronics to see what the problem was. He managed to get it sorted out though and we headed out to take some pictures.

We found a ton of varmint tracks all over the sand where people haven't obliterated the tracks with their own. We think that the Kelso Dunes have become a sanctuary to all the Kangaroo Rats in California. There were just tracks everywhere.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a few remaining flowers leftover here.

We had a nice long walk, which is also what we wanted. It wasn't exactly peaceful since there were some very loud parties at the top of the dunes, but overall, it wasn't too bad, all things considered.

When we got back to the Jeep, however, we found a couple of vehicles had parked right next to us and had basically taken over the campsite that we were parked at. We were not there to camp but they didn't know that and we were there first. They just intended to shove us out of the way. We were happy not to stay there. We got dinner at our Ludlow Cafe on our way back home. This time it was open but just barely. Apparently, they also close super early, so something to keep in mind.

Christmas - Part 2

The next morning, Emily went to work, as usual. Since there was supposed to be a lot of snow this week, we told Emily not to worry about adjusting her work schedule since she only works mornings and needs the money. So far, we'd only gotten a few dustings of new snow here and there but we woke to some real snow this morning. 

We decided to head over to the campus with Caitlyn and take some pictures. The wind had stopped blowing and we were getting a nice peaceful snowfall. The conditions were pretty perfect. Christian had planned to get me a new camera for Christmas. He got the kids to help him justify it since I got a new camera only a few years ago or so. He wanted to get me one of the new mirrorless cameras but we were not ready to make the change last time since you basically have to get new lenses as the mounts are different. They used to have converters for a real good deal to entice people to move over to their new system, but apparently, enough people have made the change that they don't really care anymore and the converters are not really cheap anymore.

So since I would be getting a new camera system, Christian got to take over my camera and all its corresponding lenses and accessories. Since Christian was getting an upgrade to his system, Caitlyn would get to inherit his old camera, which is still an upgrade to what she was using, which was my very first DSLR. Emily was not part of the chain of camera juggling because she never put much effort into taking pictures. She had gotten Christian's old Kodak camera, but as far as we know, never used it the entire time she has been in college. We are lucky if she snaps a couple of pictures with her phone to share with us. Caitlyn showed much more interest in taking pictures, so she was the one that got to take over my old camera last time. 

However, since Caitlyn doesn't really need so many cameras (she also got an old camera that Cheri no longer used over the summer...it's kind of like the Kodak that Emily got), we asked Emily if she was interested in trying to get into photography now. We told her that if she was interested, she could take Caitlyn's old camera on a trial basis. If she used it, she can keep it....but if it just ended up in the back of her closet or wherever she has her other camera, she needed to return it to Caitlyn, as she would be happy to keep it. She has to take pictures and post the proof on her blog that we've been trying to get the girls to post regularly on since they went off to college (with very limited success). Everyone agreed that that was a fair enough deal and she would give it a try.

Anyway, we determined to bring Emily back later in the afternoon. First we had a quick errand to run in town before meeting Emily for lunch after she was done from work. We went out for our usual Mexican Burritos. Unfortunately, the best place the kids found was all the way in Idaho Falls. Afterwards, we picked up a few groceries for dinner before we could go back on campus. 

Unfortunately, it was a bit colder by this time so it wasn't quite as pleasant out here.

It got even colder as the sun went down shortly after. The wind also picked up a little bit.

Caitlyn was still having fun but I don't think Emily was quite prepared to be out here. She only had a couple of thin socks on and her feet were getting cold. Plus she hates gloves and I've never been able to get her to wear them, even when she was just a little tike.

We went into one of the buildings on campus and warmed up a bit before finishing up.

We had some nice hot chicken noodle soup after returning to their apartment. We also got our junk in order as we planned to head home the next day as some more serious weather was moving in.

The next morning, we said our goodbye's as Emily got ready for work. On our drive over the mountain passes to leave Idaho, we saw at least three vehicles that had wrecked. One of which, was a jack-knifed semi truck. There was ice and snow on the road. This is why we needed to leave before it got worse and why we don't really want the kids to drive this road in the winter when there is any chance of weather.

Christmas - Part 1

We finally headed out to Idaho. We were originally going to try to take it easy and take two days to get there, camping along the way. However, a storm was supposedly moving in and we didn't want the camping equipment to get soaked before we even arrived to the frigid temperatures of Idaho. We hoped to stay with the girls because of the snow and because all the roommates were supposed to be gone but we didn't know if it was really going to work out. 

One new roommate moved in a few days ago and the worst roommate was supposed to move out but her stuff was still there. She was supposed to get married and move away but towards the end of the semester, she postponed the wedding. She also got a contract supposedly at another complex but they were also saying that she was moving upstairs for the winter break so nothing was definitive.

We got there without running into much weather. There was actually a lot less snow than we anticipated and less than there had been in years prior at the same time. The new roommate was supposedly on her flight home for the holidays. The dreaded roommate that was left had not been seen for two days and so we thought we were in the clear.

Caitlyn made us dinner and it was waiting for us when we finally arrived. After we settled down to relax, the new roommate returns from the airport because her flight was delayed because of fog. Emily talked to her and told her we were there and she was totally fine with that, although we were still a little uncomfortable with the situation as they didn't know her that well yet. We stayed up chatting kind of late and when we were talking about calling it a night, the dreaded roommate returned to move her crap. It was 11:00 pm! She spent the next couple of hours thumping around, going in and out of the apartment and making all kinds of racket. I think she was a little ticked that some of her stuff was moved to make room for the new roommate. But here's the thing, the new roommate payed to be there and she was supposed to be out four days ago! We just stayed in the kids' room until she stopped stomping around. It's not like anyone could sleep through all that noise anyway. We could not even start to try to sleep until well after 1:am and we did not know when she was going to come back as she left a handful of things behind, probably just so that she can keep coming back in, even though it was no longer her appointment. Emily is super ticked and e-mailed the apartment manager that they need to just get the rest of her stuff out and get the key back for the apartment from her because she didn't want her coming back in to her apartment when she no longer lives there at any time of the day or night as she wished and that if she didn't do it, she was just going to leave her stuff outside in the hall for her to collect because she is not allowed back in the apartment.

The next morning, Emily had to get up for work (now with very little sleep, by the way). The new roommate heads out shortly after to head back to the airport, but then the dreaded roommate comes back in to retrieve the remnants of her stuff and is looking for other furniture that she stashed in the other empty room (not her previous room). She makes all kinds of more noise and now Caitlyn is extra ticked and e-mails the apartment manager to get the key back from her. We found the desk she stowed away in the empty bedroom and I helped her move it out to the hallway with some other furniture that was stuck out there for the manager to retrieve. The dreaded roommate was just supposed to be upstairs for ten days and then she supposedly was supposed to move to her new apartment complex but her moving the stock apartment furniture out of her new room for her own is not something someone who is leaving is going to do...especially since she has to carry it down the stairs! At least she is not staying in Emily's apartment but the girls had so much trouble with her that they will not be happy that she may be staying in the same building. It is not that big of a complex.

So, everything was not going well. Everyone was tired and disgruntled. While Emily was at work, we went shopping for some groceries for our stay. Marian arranged with Caitlyn to buy everyone steaks and stuff for our Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Christian went out to just work on Caitlyn's XJ. She needed an oil change and Caitlyn had not been keeping track of how many miles she had driven since the last one. I didn't think she should have had that many miles on it already but had forgotten that she got her oil changed when she got home for the summer. Since then, we had take the big camping trip in the Sierras and she and Ty had been driving back and forth visiting with each other every week during the break...then she had driven over 800 miles to get back to Rexburg, so yeah, there were quite a few miles logged in since her last oil change! 

After Emily got back from work, we had lunch and we tried to relax and settle down again...and what do you know, the dreaded roommate returns once again to get the rest of her stuff because the manager contacted her and basically yelled at her to get her shit together because it was "inconveniencing" her old roommates. Emily went out and talked to her and tried to be nice an not confrontational. The girl tried to make excuses about why she had not taken care of all this stuff before. She was looking for the desk again and wanted to finish cleaning her room so that she didn't get penalized for leaving it dirty. Emily told her not to bother because the manager had already started cleaning it (and besides, she didn't pass one single clean check the entire semester, the likelihood of her actually doing any real cleaning was nil). Emily told her the manager already retrieved the missing desk so the dreaded roommate supposedly went to turn in her key to the manager.

We hoped that that would be the last we would hear from her but we were not holding our breath. We tried to salvage our visit with the kids and decided to celebrate Christmas. Marian got us a prime rib steak dinner. We prepared and had that. Then we had the kids open up their presents on Christmas Eve.

Much to our relief, we had no more interruptions from former roommates.

On Christmas morning, everyone slept in a bit as no one has gotten a whole lot of sleep thus far. We eventually had to get the kids up if we wanted to do anything. It was Emily's only day off from work and we would likely be leaving soon, so we would not have a ton of more time together. 

Eventually, we decided to go for a drive to investigate an area in Idaho. With such a late start, we knew we would not be able to get too far down our trail but we wanted to at least make sure we can find the area we were aiming for. It isn't that close though so it would take some time to get there but the predicted weather was supposed to be nice Christmas day, but they hadn't been that accurate about the weather thus far.

The view from the Middle Butte area was stunning with clouds that would flow over the mountain ranges. There was mostly blue sky early on, but the clouds increased as the day went on. We stopped in the Cedar Butte area. Since the kids got up late and we didn't know what we were going to do, I didn't make and pack the sandwiches that I had planned for the day. We had water, but basically didn't bring any food for the trip. All our portable food was in our truck and we decided to take Emily's JK.

So since the days are short, combined with the fact that we started late and everyone was starting to get hungry and we had no food, we decided to call it a day and go back to have dinner.

December

The winter break could not come soon enough for Christian. As soon as it was over, we had Marian come over for dinner. We did not know when we would be able to visit with her as we did not know what our schedule was going to be like for the rest of the month. We were anxious to go up and visit with our girls but they had nearly another week of school.

We had a nice dinner and exchanged a few gifts with Marian. We got to catch up a bit as we do not see each other as often as we used to. She brought over some things for us to take over to the girls as well.

I didn't put up a tree or even put up lights on the outside of our house this year, but I did put up a few token decorations on our mantel. 

Over the next couple of days, Christian worked on getting the back seat of the TJ put back in so that we could take his father out for a drive. The back seat has never quite worked right since we got it. We would take it on and off depending on what we were doing. It is such a little vehicle that there is very little room for storage with all the seats installed. The last time we took it out, in was such a pain in the butt that we swore we would not put it back in until we figured out a way to fix it. On top of that, a bolt broke off and will need to be drilled out or something in order to fix it.

Christian had taken the seat apart last month or so and finally figured out what the problem was. A spring had popped off. That is what releases it from the bracket that holds it down. Actually there is one on both sides and both were not engaged. Luckily, it was still attached though, so Christian had to figure out where it was supposed to be attached to. Then he removed on the rust on the frame and painted it so that it would be protected. We also steamed the foam at the back of the seat so that it restored some of the fluffiness. We didn't end up doing the other part though because it was too difficult to remove from the covering without possible damage. All this took a lot longer than we anticipated and we frankly put it off for weeks after that because the dog next door would just bark and bark at us as we tried to do anything in our own garage or driveway.

When everything was ready, we drove down to visit with Terry. We drove him out to Coyote Mountain. We came here with the girls a couple of years ago and it was really neat. Christian wanted to bring his dad but I thought the trail might be a little too rough and scary for him. The trail turned out to be worse than we remembered. It has definitely taken a beating over the last couple of years. 

We explored a bit trying to figure out the trails. It didn't really pan out as we expected and it took us a while to backtrack back out. We picked up a quick dinner on the way back as it was getting a little late. We visited for a few minutes with Jackie when we dropped Terry off at their house and headed home.

Christian spent most of the next week working on his 3D printer. He has not had the time or inclination to touch it in months. He mostly needed to wire up all his components. He actually got it up and running...at least mostly. It was enough to at least print PLA. And even without really tuning it, it was printing better than the tuned Ender...which was already pretty damned good (at least when it worked, which was not consistent or often).

We had been watching the weather all week, trying to decide when to make our trip to Idaho. Of course, as our luck, there was a storm system moving in for the week we intended to be there so that we could actually spend Christmas with them.

Christian printed me a few ornaments. They were pretty neat. He printed a few kit cards to send out to a few friends. We had plans to visit my mom the next day to celebrate the winter solstice. My sister and her family were driving down from S.F. Since the printer seemed to be working quite nicely, we decided to print the younger niece and nephew a puzzle for them to work on. I say "younger" but they are in college. We only got Collins done in time. It was a saber toothed tiger.

Anyway, we went early to help my mom with the food. Norman and Lauren showed up shortly after. Debbie and Collin were working and would arrive later and Wendy and her family were a little delayed from the traffic but all made it safely at some point.