San Diego

After Christmas, we headed down to San Diego to spend some time with Christian's family. We arrived late in the morning, the kids ran around playing together while we figured out what we were going to do. We ended up going to Coronado Beach, but it was chilly and windy. Only Christian and Austin, one of the older nephews, went into the water itself.

The rest of us just strolled along the beach collecting shells and playing bocci ball.

We had originally considered staying at the beach and having a bonfire but ended up going back to Christian's sister's house after a couple of hours.

The next day was Sunday so the kids just hung out and played together until church started in the afternoon. Christian and I got dinner going as Christian's mom bought a huge rack of prime rib for our Christmas feast that evening.

We had dinner and handed out a few gifts.

We made a lot of Shutterfly gifts for everyone this year. Christian's brother is basically bed ridden at this point so he and his wife have not joined any of our gatherings including the dinner. We went over to visit them for a while at the end of the night.

The next day, we went out to the Anza Borego desert with Christian's dad to do some shooting. 

We have not gone in a very long time. A couple of the kids cousins came out with us. The girls also did some archery practice. We had gotten Emily a bow and arrow for Christmas and Christian's mom also had some that the other girls used.

Christian's sister packed us some snacks and lunch for us. She has to work in the evening so she did not end up coming with us. We left for home afterwards. We were originally going to explore a little more in the desert before leaving but we did not have much gas left and could not find anywhere to procure more until we were on our way back so we cut our afternoon short in search of gas before we got stranded!

Christmas

On Christmas Eve, Marian came over for our traditional Christmas celebration. She loads the tree with gifts and has activities with the girls ready. After lunch, we had a bit of time before working on dinner so Marian took us into Costco to do some shopping since I dropped our membership this past year.

We stuffed ourselves with rib roast, braised carrots and potatoes. We were tired and turned in a little earlier than usual this year. In the morning, we opened presents and had our annual Belgium Waffles for breakfast.

Of course, we had to clean up the melee that was now our living room! The kids played with some of their gifts while we chatted and got ready for the next part of the day. Soon Marian had to take off and we had to get ready for Christmas dinner with my family. 

After making our offerings for Christmas dinner, we packed up a few gifts and headed over to my brother's house.

All the cousins played games together. It's nice to see everyone getting along so well. Even my sister's older boys played with their younger cousins more now that they are not so very young any more.

We had another feast. Luckily, my brother decided on salmon as the main dish this year so we didn't have to have more meat after the feast we had the night before! My dad wanted to leave early for some reason so my mom took him home and came back for dessert and presents.

As usual, we visited longer than we planned. We didn't leave until nearly midnight I think and we needed to get up to head to Christian's family the next day!

December Musings

I am getting woefully behind on my posts. I am starting to forget what we've been doing so I will put down what little I can remember of what we've been doing in December really quick so that I can catch up.

On the second weekend of December, we stayed in town and went to our ward Christmas party. Emily was taking her time, enjoying her dinner thinking that she would no longer have to rush off with the other kids to get ready for the Primary Christmas Program halfway through dinner. Caitlyn finished her dinner and took off. Some minutes later, the Primary Chorister comes over and taps on her shoulder to see if she would stand in for Mary during the program as she could not find any of the older girls remaining in Primary. She reluctantly consented.

One of the older Primary girls was, in fact, standing next to Caitlyn. I guess she got overlooked in the chaos of kids getting dressed for their parts! Emily was a good sport though and after the musical numbers, Mary and Joseph each had a speaking part that she was not prepared for either. But it was okay, she just read from the paper they slipped her with her fake baby Jesus doll.

I think we had spent most of the day prior to the party trying to catch up on work around the house...especially on our woefully neglected yard.
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The kids had their last week of school before the break. On the last Friday, we had dinner with a friend. The next day we were having dinner for the missionaries. We ended up inviting two different people over to join us but both cancelled separately for different reasons.

The girls did their chores and helped get the house ready for company all morning. There was no problem but after lunch, Emily seemed to be excessively tired and sedate...very unlike her normal behavior.

About an hour or so before our dinner guests were to arrive, she threw up. She had not said anything about not feeling well but we knew something might be up since she was acting so weird. She did not have dinner with us and spent most of her time in bed after greeting the guests. She attempted to eat a piece of mantou (steamed bread) after the missionaries left but that just got her throwing up again.

We eventually figured out that she had the stomach flu. She was not well all of Sunday but started recovering Monday. She still had hardly eaten anything of any substance (just a bit of toast, crackers and rice porridge) to this point but ate a small dinner Sunday evening. She seemed almost back to normal Monday (albeit with her stomach a bit shrunken). We were supposed to have my brother and his kids over for a visit on Tuesday but ended up cancelling because it was supposed to rain and Emily did not have an appetite again for dinner Monday. It was just not worth the risks with the holidays coming up very quickly. The kids were very disappointed.

Except for the small setback Monday evening, Emily still appeared to be on the mend and seemed fine Tuesday after all.

I had planned to be using the time before the holidays (since Christian had to work) to make treats and take the girls to visit with friends we had not seen in a while but it was not in our cards. No one wants treats from a house full of sickness. There were a couple of times here and there that Christian and I thought that we were not feeling that good but nothing became of it.
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On the 23rd, our friends came by to carol for us.

They always put us back in the Christmas spirit. They even got super cute costumes this year!

Joshua Tree

On the first weekend of the month, we took the opportunity to run out to Joshua Tree for the day. All the rest of the weekends for the month will soon be filled with festivities for the coming holidays.

First on our itinerary for the day was an easy climb on Outward Bound Slab in the Wonderland of Rocks area (North). Christian had us doing leading practice again. He went up to set the anchor and then we all took turns leading the route.

The route is a 70' climb called Mastering Five-Two. There was one small section that was a bit difficult to protect.

Emily went up first and then Christian would go up and critique her placements. Since it was a relatively easy climb, he didn't bother even roping up.

After which, Catilyn took her turn.

She had a little trouble so, Christian was able to climb up next her and instruct her as she went.

I went up last and repelled down while the girls walked up the back and took down the anchor. We had lunch before continuing on. Outward Bound Slab got pretty crowded with a big group shortly after we began but they spent most of their time on the backside setting up and giving instructions. By the time we were done, they were swarming all around us which made us want to find our next area all the more.

Our next climb was a short way off (still in the Wonderland North area) on Bear Island. The climb is called Shardik (5.3) but we found it was much easier than the 5.2 that we just did. I went up in my hiking shoe and stayed up there to take pictures. It was just a short 55' pitch.

Caitlyn went up next with her sister belaying her.

She enjoyed the climb a lot better as it was super easy! Emily followed after.

After we were done, we did the climb that Christian wanted to do, which was Ursa Major (5.7). This was an even shorter 40' route but considerably more difficult as the first section could not be protected at all.

Emily and I did it on top rope as we are not anywhere ready to lead anything like this.

As usual, we were racing the sun back to the car as we lost the last traces of daylight.

I love Joshua Tree sunsets but the days are considerably shorter in the winter.

Caitlyn

When we got back to school, Caitlyn had her first trimester award assembly. We almost forgot about it! Caitlyn remembered and reminded me just as I was dropping her off to school. It's hard to get back into the swing of things after a week off!

She made the Principal's Honor Roll again. She also had perfect attendance. We are so very proud of the hard work she has put in to maintain her grades.

Before the break, Caitlyn was working on a poster for a contest the Metrolink was promoting for the grand opening of the Perris line. All the schools near the tracks got to participate to create "awareness" of the safety issues involved with having more traffic on the tracks next to the school. We found out that she won 3rd place and got a $25 visa card. She is so excited! It took them a while to announce it and there was a rumor going around that no one in her school won anything but there were a bunch of kids at her school that won prizes.

See tracks? Think Train!

Thanksgiving

After we got back from Yosemite, we got some rest and then hit the kitchen to start preparing food for the feast. Emily made bread and Caitlyn made a Swedish visiting cake. Both turned out really good.

Dinner this year was at my sisters house with her in-laws. There was a lot of food! My contribution was some pumpkin pies and garlic mashed potatoes. It is so neat that the kids are starting to cook now and are learning but sharing a small kitchen with so many cooks is not quite so fun. We had a big potluck.

While everybody finished their dishes, the kids got to hang out and play.

We were there pretty late and did not get to bed until very late again. 

The rest of the vacation was spent working on school projects. Caitlyn had to finish her science project and Emily had to do her history day project.

We took a break to decorate the Christmas tree and take our annual Christmas picture, but that's about it.

Yosemite

For our Thanksgiving break, we planned on another trip to Yosemite National Park. Last year it went so well, we planned to go again this year. It was touch and go at first as we were recovering from being sick and there was a storm moving in towards the end of our trip but we forged ahead.

We packed up Friday and got ready to go. We got a few hours of sleep and everyone got loaded up in the car by 2:am or so and we were off. Christian stayed up and drove the entire way. I tried to nap as I did not sleep very well but the road was rough and I could not get any good rest.

We arrived in Yosemite early Saturday morning.

There was a little snow on the higher peaks but not too much. When we got down to the valley, we stopped to take a few pictures on the way in.

It was a bit chilly but not too bad if you kept moving. We went back to Camp 4 to choose and set up our campsite before heading off for the day. Plus stow away all our food stuffs in the bear box and we had to register and pay for our stay.

We drove out towards our climb to sort and pack our gear. We planned to go back to climb the Regular Route on Sunnyside Bench (5.4). An easy multi-pitch route that we have done before. The kids liked it and wanted to go back to do it again.

The beginning of the route starts a little to the right of the bottom of the Yosemite Falls so we stopped by before it got too crowded to take pictures.

Since the kids wanted to come do this route again, Christian decided that the kids should now be able to each lead a pitch of the route themselves.

We all scrambled to the beginning of the climb. Christian lead the first pitch.

Caitlyn lead the second pitch (which is the shortest and easiest pitch) and Emily lead the third pitch. Protecting the third pitch would be a bit difficult because of the traverses so Christian had Emily use an alternate (5.5) route. 

Christian climbed behind each girl checking their pieces as they went and then the rest of us would follow. It was kind of fun climbing together. Usually, just one of us climbs at a time.

The first time we did this climb, we barely had enough light to find the descent trail. It was a bit scary. This time, although we knew where the descent trail was, we still had some daylight left. The climb starts near the bottom of the Lower Yosemite Falls and ends near the top of the Lower Falls. We wanted to go check it out as there is supposed to be some nice pools up there that we could potentially swim at during the summers. We had a very late lunch and headed over to find the pools.

It was a beautiful short hike over to the falls. We looked around and took more pictures before heading down. Although, we were familiar with the way, we did not want to have to rely on headlights to make our way back down again.

We got back down with just enough light. As we got back to the campsite, I saw a robber (raccoon) wandering about looking for an easy meal. We had our dinner back at our campsite and headed over to warm up at the evening Ranger Program which was a film on John Muir. They were doing it in two parts as it was kind of long. Luckily, we arrived in time to watch part one on our first evening.

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The next day was a Sunday so we didn't do any climbing. Instead, we opted for a nice hike up to the top of Yosemite Falls (the Upper Falls). It is actually quite a long and steep hike. Unfortunately, we kind of got side tracked at the beauty of the falls as we stopped for lunch at the bottom of the upper falls that we ended up staying most of our time here and did not actually end up finishing the hike to the top! 

I guess it worked out for us as we wanted to take it easy and we got to enjoy this part of the falls on our own. The trail was quite crowded but we took a slight detour to find a bit of solitude for lunch and ended up right next to the falls. It was beautiful and we all took hundreds of pictures of the falls!

When we were done, we went up a little further on the trail to do some exploring but stopped probably 3/4 of the way up the trail and turned around to head back down as we knew that we would not have quite enough light to finish and get back down.

We stopped by a lookout to see the sunsetting on Half Dome. We were waiting for Half Dome to light up with the fire of the dying light. We usually only catch the end of it as we are always out doing something at the time.

Of course, we found out that it doesn't actually light up like that until the end so we had never really missed anything!

We headed back down to camp with the last of the light, had dinner and went to watch the last half of the John Muir film before calling it a day.

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On Day 3, we found ourselves next to the Pacific Ocean wall on El Capitan. Christian is helping Caitlyn with her engineering science project which is due shortly after Thanksgiving Break. She is doing a project on hauling up the big wall using various mechanical advantages.

Christian did his first (C1) aid climb up to the top of the first pitch on the Pacific Ocean wall. 

Christian had to free climb the first 1/3 of the climb which we had not expected. The rest of the climb was still a bit more difficult that we anticipated as well since it is slightly overhanging and gear placements got more difficult on the last 1/3 of the climb but Christian managed okay.

After he got up, Caitlyn jumared up and they worked on the project for quite some time up there. After belaying Christian up, Emily and I worked on filling the haul bag for them to haul up. I think it worked out to be about 100 lbs of gear. They ended up kind of running out of time, they had to finish up and get back down. By the time they came back down and we packed up to head out, the sun was already starting to set. By the time we got back to the car, it was dark.

Unfortunately, the Evening Ranger program tonight was on "Curry Memories" of which we were not even remotely interested in. We dragged out the portable heater and turned into our tent early. Regrettably, we also had to deal with a rowdy crowd in the camp ground on this night. So we had to endure several hours of bad singing along with bad guitar playing with some hooting and hollering in between.

Plus, there seemed to be a coyote running around the campground. I chased one out of our campsite before turning in for the evening.

The noisy campers gave us headache and left us rather irritable but amazingly, they did stop around curfew time...we suspect that the chilly temperatures helps the jerks do the right thing and turn in for the night regardless of campfires and belly full of alcohol. It is definitely one good thing to camping this time of year.

However, I did not sleep well still. I tossed and turned most of the night. At one point, either a bear came again and started pounding on various bear boxes all over the campground hoping for an irresponsible camper who did not close their food box well or an irate ranger was walking around finding many irresponsible campers who did not close their bear boxes completely and was then going around slamming them closed! It's hard to tell when it is still cold and dark out and you haven't had enough sleep what might be going on. But as the ranger doesn't normally come in until mid morning usually, I think we had another bear in the campground. I also heard some heavy footsteps walking by at the time and the kids thought they heard some snuffling noises. At another point in the wee hours of the morning, we heard a whole pack of coyotes barking and yipping in fairly close proximity to the campground. I tell you, there was no rest for the weary that night.

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In the morning, after checking on the weather report for the day, we decided not to stay another evening. One, we did not want to camp with these people one more night and two, we did not want to have to pack up the next morning and shuttle all our gear in the rain or snow. Luckily, we only paid for three nights and left the fourth up in the air for this very possibility. We spent the morning taking down camp. We stopped by the mountain shop as we heard that there was a rumor of the shop closing when the new company takes over the concessions in Yosemite next near. The people at the shop, at least, does not think it is possible but there will be a lot of change coming so we will see what happens. We probably spent way too much time in the shop.

It was getting a little late by the time we headed out for out last climb of the trip which was, Harry Daley (5.8) on the Glacier Point Apron. It is a two pitch climb. The beginning of the first pitch was pretty slippery and steep. The clouds were moving in pretty quickly as we climbed. Christian and I had made it to the top of the first pitch and Christian began the second pitch when we first started feeling a drop of two of water coming down. We could see that the rain was already coming down in the distance. Christian did manage to finish the second pitch when we decided that we were out of time and retreated from the side of the mountain. The kids were down below and we had them pack up and head back. We met back up near the car and had a late lunch. The rain was coming down pretty good at this point.

We were eager to see snow in the valley and was hesitant to leave just yet. Also, we did not want to be on the road fighting with the rest of the people fleeing their vacations and trying to get to their destinations for Thanksgiving. The kids wanted to go track some mud through the Ahwahnee Hotel so we went there to use the facilities and to walk around a bit.

Eventually, we headed up the hill towards the CA 41 leaving Yosemite. As we got higher, the rain turned to snow and we were pretty excited. It was just beautiful. Unfortunately, at some point we came to a stop on the road. We thought that maybe it was just a check point for snow chains and four wheel drive but apparently a bus got stuck somewhere up ahead and was blocking both sides of the road! They said that it would be some hours before it could be cleared up so instead of parking on the side of the road for a couple of hours, we opted to head back down and wait in the valley.

We drove back down to see if we could find some shelter to heat up some dinner but our choices seemed to be either snow or rain. We finally just pulled over at the shuttle stop near the Yosemite Falls where they had a covered waiting area to have our dinner. We felt like true climbing bums sitting homeless out in open having our meager meal of ramen. We had to wave the shuttle on a couple of times. It was kind of funny but I tell you, ramen never tasted so good as it did that night!

I tell you, there is nothing like a hot steaming (and salty) bowl of broth in the cold. It was snowing by this time in the valley as well, so the temperature was definitely dropping. We still had some time so we went in for the Evening Ranger Program to keep us busy (and warm). We had checked at the front desk of the Lodge and found that our road was still closed.

The ranger, Erik Westerlund, was the same ranger that gave one of our favorite programs from last year on the art of Charley Harper. It was supposed to be on the nature of the Sierra Nevada but he couldn't get his slide show to work. He ended up just answering questions and playing and singing with his guitar. And even though it was an impromptu kind of program, it was still really great.

In the end, we headed back to check on the road conditions at the front desk of the Yosemite Lodge and found that our road had cleared up and that it was once again open. It was a little later than we had hoped to leave by but we were grateful that the road was once again open and hit the road before another accident occurred. We did stop by a couple of places and Christian took a few pictures of the snow covered park in the dark. We were so amazed at how beautiful the pictures still came out!

It was so nice out that we had some second thoughts about turning around and camping out in the snow after all, but ended up leaving anyway. Alas, all good things must come to and end at some point it seems.