September came way too quickly. It was time for the girls to start thinking about packing to return to school. They seriously dreaded it for more than one reason and put it off until the last minute. Christian spent every spare moment double checking to make sure that their cars are in good working order. Emily had to do one last oil change after all her commutes to her grandmother's house and work, shopping trips, and trips to the beach...which seemed pretty crazy since she changed it with her cousin shortly after starting her internship. She also had to change her transmission fluid as we know it got overheated on our one trip out to Pleasant Canyon.
Both of the girls also had to wash and wax their cars before heading back. We've been able to maintain the paint of our twenty year old cars if we do at least one good coat of wax on the cars once a year. There is significant damage if we don't get to it at least once a year. We probably had to do it at least twice a year before the new ceramic waxes.
I was thinking that he went a little overboard until I saw the images that came out of the camera. We walked around the neighborhood and took samples of the flora and fauna.
While Christian was a work, the girls and I took off on a quick trip back to the Bolsa Chica Ecological preserve for more pictures of birds with my fancy new lens. It was a bit of a disappointment really as there were not as many birds around as the first time Caitlyn and I came here. I also had some serious issues with motion sickness after tracking the birds in the electronic viewfinder. The slightest movement makes a big difference when using such long lenses.
I still thought I got some pretty good shots and was excited to see them. We made it back home before Christian got back from work and was able to download them to surprise him with what we managed to get. The pictures were a bit disappointing, to say the least. If I got some of these shots last time, I would still be pretty happy with them, but the focus was a little off or soft on every single picture and I could not understand what the problem was since I took some in my driveway earlier that morning that was as sharp as a tack. 
But alas, playtime was over and the kids had to get ready to go in earnest now. It was so sad. They headed out on a Tuesday morning. They were very eager to get to their apartment as early as possible to claim one of the better situated rooms in the apartment. They were each getting private rooms for this last stretch of school. It would cost a little more but both of them wanted some space and when Emily returns, she won't be able to share with her sister anyway. With the nightmarish experiences she has had with bad roommates
so far, she didn't want to share a room with anyone besides her sister. They stopped by Mesquite to visit with their Aunt Aron. She caught up with them over dinner, after which, they continued on the short distance to their cousin Austin's house where they planned to stay the night. Coincidentally, Austin and his family were actually going to be in San Diego during this time but he invited them to stay at their house anyway. That was super nice of them since their house is better situated for the girls' long drive to Rexburg. Aron is not that far away but 45 minutes makes a big difference over a 13 hour trip. St. George is a lot closer to us than Rexburg, so their second day of driving is always the worst.
They usually leave on or before the crack of dawn to get to Rexburg in time to check in to their rooms during the check in window. Because they were fighting for a decent room, they had to get there even earlier. So the plan was to get a decent night of sleep and leave at a more reasonable time on Wednesday and get to Rexburg before the sun goes down. They planned to unload one of the cars into the storage facility and car camp out in the dunes. That way they could get up in the morning to check in first thing in the morning. They tried to get the manager to let them check in early and pay for the extra day or days but the manager was unwilling to let them check in early, even though the apartment was basically empty already. All this was to basically avoid either of them from ending up in the dreaded room next to the kitchen because it is extra loud in there as people are banging away in the kitchen at all hours of the night and day.
I love the ability to track their progress as they go up. It really helps to know where they are. When they used to drive together, at least one of them can respond to a text and keep us somewhat updated but when they started driving separately, that made the information pretty scarce. Anyway, they were about 30 minutes or so outside of Provo when I was checking their progress and looking at the traffic ahead of them when I heard the news that Charlie Kirk had been shot. The UVU campus is just above Provo near the freeway where the girls would be traveling up. That was pretty stressful. So I frantically checked for updates on whether they caught the shooter, Charlie's condition and what nightmare the girls will have to drive through on their way back to school. The girls had actually pulled off to make a rest stop at a gas station when all this came about. By the time they got back on the road, the traffic accident in Provo mostly got cleared up and they drove through Orem without incident. Unfortunately, Charlie did not make it.
The next drama came when they arrived in Rexburg that evening to find that it was oddly quiet and empty. The girls double checked their schedule and found that in their hurry to make it up there in time to get a decent room, they got their dates wrong. Okay, Caitlyn was the one that apparently got the date wrong and Emily just went along with it. She thought she read that the check in day was on the 11th, but it was actually on the 12th. I thought it was weird and questioned them on it and they said that they checked and it was on the 11th, so we just proceeded with that in mind. So the long and the short of it was that they had a whole extra day in Rexburg with nothing to do and no where to stay. Basically, they spent the day homeless. Luckily, with all their camping experience, it wasn't such a big deal but they were kind of pissed about it and we were just worried and uncomfortable that they had no where to stay. They spent most of the day just hanging out on campus for the WiFi.
The next morning, they cleaned up, grabbed some breakfast at Maverik and headed into town. Luckily, they were running early and stopped by their apartment and found that it was open. They went in and claimed a room ahead of time. Shortly after, the rest of the roommates all showed up to claim a room as well. If they waited until the actual check in time or if they arrived in the afternoon as they normally have been doing, one of them would definitely have been stuck with the dreaded kitchen room. They were so relieved!
Anyway, they were better able to relax once they got their rooms situated and took their time with everything else. They had to move all their stuff from the storage facility, unpack everything, go shopping for the week, get their books and everything they needed to do on campus that weekend so that they would be ready for school on Monday morning. It turns out that they seem to have pretty good roommates this semester, for once...at least they all seem normal so far. So they spent some time getting to know their new roommates as well. I hope it works out well for them.
However, after the first day of school, Caitlyn wrote to us all upset because she doesn't feel prepared for the Web Services class she has to take. She has maintained a 4.0 gpa throughout her college career. She only has 18 units left before she graduates, and one of the remaining classes she needs to take requires knowledge that they didn't prepare her with! We were so pissed and flabbergasted, we didn't know what to tell her. This is actually the second time she had to drop this class. The first time she attempted to take it, the curriculum was seriously outdated. That is a big deal when you are dealing with software. She wrote to the department to complain and hopefully get them to look into it. Apparently, they did update the class this time but it heavily relies on knowledge of JavaScript which she feels that they barely touched on in her other classes. They used to have a class just on JavaScript, but got rid of it a little while ago.
She is so close to graduating and is so sick of school that she doesn't want to change her emphasis because it will require her to take a bunch of additional classes but how is she supposed to get through her remaining classes with this glaring hole in her knowledge?! After some discussion and contemplation, we referred her to some alternative sources. She is going to drop the class and teach HERSELF JavaScript so that she can continue and finish her requirements to graduate. We are so NOT happy with BYU-Idaho. She also is losing a lot of financial aid because she will not be going to school full time and she will have to probably now have three semesters of being at school part time instead of two semesters left in order to graduate. She had actually already planned not to be in school full time in her last semester as she will have to work on a senior project in order to graduate so she definitely doesn't want to cram everything in next semester in order to finish. The whole situation sucks and we are none too happy about it but at least she has a path forward now.
The bad news continues though as Christian's dad suffered another seizure. Actually, multiple seizures! He had a seizure at home, they called an ambulance, he had another on the way to the hospital and then a third after arriving to the hospital. We can't seem to get any clear information from them as to why, since he is on anti-seizure medication. While at the hospital, they are again registering his irregular heartbeat and before he could be released again, he has another series of strokes.
He is now back at home, but we still haven't really gotten any real information about his health or condition.
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