Christmas in July

The girls and I have slowly been going through all the outlet stores. We even went out to Barstow! That was a huge disappointment. It was a pretty sad little collection of outlet stores. Even though Caitlyn actually found something there, it was not worth going to and will probably never bother going back. We went through it so quickly, that as we headed home, we decided to stop back in at the Ontario Mills store as we were unsatisfied. 

Caitlyn found a bag there that she wanted and I ended up getting it for her for an early Christmas present. It was a Samsonite travel bag that she can use now as she is going back and forth from her grandmother's place during the week. 

Since we got the major part of Caitlyn's Christmas present early, we decided to go ahead and get Emily's present early as well so that she can play with it over the summer.

We got her a little portable photo printer. It makes little Polaroid-like prints from her phone.

I guess Caitlyn decided to get into the swing of things as well. While she was trapped downtown for jury duty, she went shopping and got some little gifts for us as well. She got her dad a fancy bar of natural soap, as he hates the chemical's that are passed off as soap these days and a little antique oil can. And she got me these really neat wildflower honey beeswax lotion bars.

Since the TJ is out of commission for the summer and our small attempts to go into the wilderness has been one disaster after another, we haven't really gone anywhere this summer. Christian has been toiling away at trying to figure out and fix the Jeep. The girls are busy working or doing schoolwork still.

We did attempt to go for another drive on one of the weekends. This time we took Emily's Jeep and headed out to explore Pleasant Canyon for the day. We removed the top off the Jeep for the first time. It was pretty hot out though and the road was pretty rough. We had water and our shamaughs though so we felt pretty good as long as the air was blowing across us in the moving vehicle. At some point, we had to get out and trim the trees as it was encroaching on the trail. It seemed pretty well used at first but became impassable for a full sized Jeep at some point.

There trail joins a streamed so despite being in the desert, there was a lot of vegetation here. The JK's transmission oil got a little too hot trying to drive this big heavy Jeep up the steep trail. Emily will have to change the oil again before heading back to school. 

At some point, we found a place that we could turn around on but first Christian decided to investigate what the trail looked like further on. The girls and I waited at the car and it got pretty hot when the wind wasn't blowing and we were not moving in the Jeep.

We later found that we missed a bypass that would have gotten us to the top of the mountain.

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One weekend, the girls and I decided to head out to the San Clemente Outlets next. It is adjacent to the beach, so we thought we could hit two birds with one stone. On a whim, Emily ended up getting a skim board. It was much more affordable than any of us would have assumed and we were headed to the beach to try it out!

We headed to the San Clemente, North Beach. The parking was surprisingly fair and not too crowded. The beach was just down below but we discovered that the tide was in and the beach was thin and rocky. Emily didn't want to destroy her skim board on her first time out so we left it in the car and took a walk since we had already paid for two hours of parking. 

The beach was beautiful but we couldn't even get down the beach to the pier. We tried to get farther down by taking the walking/biking trail that runs parallel to the beach but found our way blocked at some point from a landslide. 

We stopped to watch some of the surfers. There seemed to be pretty nice waves out for surfing. Unfortunately, that's not what we were looking for. After watching some of the surfers for a while and taking some pictures, we found that we were almost out of time.

We went in search of a beach that would be better for skim boarding. The girls found that Aliso Beach was  a popular place to try and we headed over there. Parking was a bit of a nightmare though as it was already late in the afternoon and there was not a lot of options for parking as it was completely filled. We finally found parking up the road a little ways on the street.

We were excited but soon found that we might have made a mistake by going to a beach recommended for skim boarding. There were quite a few people doing it but that just made the girls super nervous about trying it for the first time. We watched a few of the others to try to get the gist of their method, but in the end, it is just something you have to try.

After some humming and hawing and walking a ways down the beach to where there were less people, Emily finally worked up the courage to give it a shot. It was a bit difficult at first but she persevered.

After a couple of hours, she basically got the hang of it. Caitlyn was a bit more timid about it but finally worked herself up to trying it once the crowds thinned out a bit.

The waves were a bit rough and she was afraid the board would get away from her and get sucked up into the ocean. She did't even have a full swimsuit to get wet in. Emily said that she would help her to make sure the board didn't get lost but Emily was pretty tired after a couple of hours in and out of the ocean herself. Plus, because it was now late, the ocean seemed to be a lot more violent. After a few tries, we called it quits for the day as it was more than we bargained for. It was getting late and the girls were getting hungry so we left in search of some dinner on our way home.