August

August went by fairly quickly. Christian had to go back to school at the beginning of the month already. Of course, shortly after returning to teaching, he got sick. It didn't help that his classes were packed to the gills. There were not enough seats in the classroom with how many kids they tried to pack into his classes. I think one of his classes had like 46 kids in it, which is absolutely insane. When the kids went to the restroom, they took their seats with them so that no one could steal their seats! He was home for a couple of days during the second week of school. 

I usually manage okay when he gets sick, but I ended up getting sick shortly after he went back to work. 

Christian has been slowly dismantling the TJ transmission after the gears in the oil pump broke. It is pretty slow going as there are tons of little pieces involved and we've found that you need a bunch of specialty tools in order to get it apart correctly. We ordered some. Christian was able to make others. We already know that we can't rely on the service manuals to give us all the information we need so he's been searching that out.

Emily finished her curtain project and went on to 3D print some other projects she made.

Caitlyn decided to make a curtain too...a noren (privacy curtain) for her apartment which will still allow her to leave her door open for friends and air.

Caitlyn finished her internship mid-month. It seemed so short...especially since she missed out on a week of it because of jury duty. She enjoyed the experience though and learned some things. She also got along well with the other interns. Plus, it was a nice summer job to make a little money. She took advantage of the gym and trainer available after work most days. Overall, it was a really good experience.

Emily's internship didn't end until nearly the end of the month...and technically, it's not exactly over. They asked her to continue working on a part time basis from school. They got her a laptop so that she can do it remotely. She got to work all Spring and Summer so she was able to earn a decent amount to help her continue school. They got rid of one of the school grants she was getting so the extra income will definitely be needed. She didn't have much of a summer because of it, but we still really enjoyed having both of them home for a while.

Marian got together with the girls and took them out for dinner on Caitlyn's last days of work. They girls also went out with their cousins a few times while they were staying out there.

We managed to go to the beach a bunch of times. The girls went twice more this month. Once with some friends and I went one more time with them. Caitlyn even got herself a boogey board! Unfortunately, the girls didn't apply sunscreen early enough and didn't reapply often enough as they came back pretty sunburnt.

Unfortunately, the surf conditions were not good on our last trip to the beach. There were yellow flags out all along the Southern California beaches and surfing/boogey boarding was not "advised." We also went back to Aliso Beach specifically, so that Emily could skim board but they didn't allow her to do it. They said that she could only do it at this tiny area near the rocks, which is the worst place possible. There were like a dozen other skim boarders all over the beach where we were skim boarding the first time here and the lifeguards didn't say anything, so we were pretty ticked off about the whole thing.

And although the lifeguards said that going in the water was not "advised," what they really meant was that it wasn't allowed, since they harassed anyone going in anyway. It was a pretty disappointing last trip to the beach.

Since we didn't want to drag the skim board and boogey board very far and there wasn't much else to do at the beach, we eventually left and stopped by the Laguna Niguel Botanical Preserve and went for a short walk around the area.

We didn't go too far since all we had were our flip flops on from the beach. We did not bring any real shoes. 

Christian has been getting both of the girls' cars ready for them to travel back to school. Both of their vehicles needed to have the transmission fluid changed out. Their transmissions run too hot so the oil is burnt. The XJ will need a transmission cooler and a bigger radiator in the future. It will not be cheap, so hopefully it will be fine until Caitlyn graduates and gets a job to help pay for it. Christian looked over a bunch of other things. Caitlyn changed her oil. Emily continued to work on beefing up our tire changer. Christian doesn't have enough time of the day to work and do all the repairs so Emily got to help by cutting the metal with the plasma cutter and welding some of the pieces together. It worked flawlessly!

We spent the last weekend of the month visiting with Terry. After suffering from his life threatening infections, having his gall bladder taken out, seizures and strokes, he is finally stable and at home recovering but it has all taken quite a toll on his mental and physical health. He can get around somewhat with a walker, he still has a catheter in and his memory is not as it should be. He has a nurse that comes around to check on him and help, but otherwise, the rest is left to Jackie.