January in Review

Not too much happened in the rest of January. I spent half the month sitting on the recliner and watching movies. There are a few things I wanted to note though.

Near the beginning of the month, Caitlyn got the results for this year's science fair. She got first prize and since they thought her project was so good, they dug out a best of show award for her as well. She will be moving on to the district level again.

I did not make it to this year's Science Fair. Although I was able to get around now, I did not want to get jostled by the crowd or run into by some kid running through the narrow isles.

--------

Christian and I got new callings. We will be teaching in Primary again but we will be able to team teach together this time. We have some mixed feelings about the change.

--------

We attended a parent information meeting on the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma program at North High School since Emily will be moving on to high school next year. We were fairly impressed and decided that Emily should apply.

-------

Towards the end of the month, Christian got a really good sale on a new haul bag and could not resist it. It is huge! Since we have not been able to do any climbing this past month, he decided to try out his new bag by lugging it to the anchors that we had been working on last year in the local Box Springs Mtns. 

After school on Friday, we had dinner as usual and then Emily and Christian packed up to spend the night on the portaledge. They hiked out in the middle of the night from our house. We were able to keep in communication with them using our walkie talkies with no problem.

They had a great time and came back down in the morning in time for breakfast.

Pendulum

After we returned early from Yosemite and got some sleep, we decided to head out to the Quarry to slip in a bit of climbing since we cut our trip short. The place was pretty crowded. We headed to the back and found the route "Fear the Smear" (5.8), a 45' sport route. Christian lead the route and the rest of us top roped it. It was a pretty difficult route and I wasn't quite feeling it that day. I ended up going up a couple of times because I refused to let the route beat me. I did better but I still didn't do it as well as I would have liked. Emily did a couple of laps on it as well.

We still had a little daylight left and Christian has been wanting to try a route called Fun Factory (5.7). Christian thought the route was pretty fun but it seemed a little scary to us as some of the loose blocks were bolted so that it would not fall. When Christian got near the top, there was a crack with bats squeaking inside. I think that they were readying to go out and Christian was blocking their way. We were afraid that he would get bit. In the end, he decided to just put the ropes through the rappel rings and come back down since it probably wasn't a good idea for any of us to go through tonight.

Unfortunately, as Christian was coming down and cleaning the pieces of protection that he placed, we had a bit of an accident. I was belaying Christian from a spot that was some 20' left of the line that lead up to the anchor. The ground was rocky and uneven. As Christian cleaned his last piece, and I was going to finish lowering him back to the bottom of the route when the rope pulled me off my perch and I went swinging. I tried to stay on my feet but I hit my shin on some rock and my elbow too and went spinning, stopping only after slamming my back into another boulder and landing on my side. Christian was helplessly dangling from the other end of the rope. He swung out in a pendulum too and hurt his leg a bit but he couldn't get to me until I finished lowering him. Emily was hysterical. I was in a great deal of pain. Luckily, I missed my spine and had hit on the right side of my lower back. I was finally able to let Christian down and he gave me a blessing and helped me up. Everything seemed to be working. It was just very painful.

After the initial shock, Caitlyn got to work, clearing a path for me so that I would not have to stumble over loose rock to get back down. Christian put Emily to work putting away our gear to give her something to distract her. It was slow going but we were able to walk back to the truck.

The kids made dinner while Christian tried to make me comfortable and distract me. I pretty much lived on the recliner for the next 5 days or so. Christian had to take the kids to school and pick them up while going to work in between. On the 5th day, I was finally able to drag myself into the car to pick up the kids so Christian could get more work in. It was all pretty traumatic but nothing was broken and I seemed to be getting better everyday...slowly but surely.

Ringing in the New Year in Yosemite

The day after we returned from San Diego was spent shopping, preparing and packing for our trip to back to Yosemite. We've never gone to Yosemite in December but since we survived the cold and snow back in November, we thought that we knew what we were getting into.

As usual, we slept a couple of hours and then drove through the night. I took a turn driving so that Christian could get in a power nap and we arrived in Yosemite with the sun. We stopped to take some pictures at the overlook after tunnel view. It was icy and cold out!

Most of the waterfalls were even frozen. Yosemite Falls was still flowing but the water was supercooled as it fell and turned into a pile of ice/snow at the bottom.

It was pretty neat to see. When we were here last month, we were taking pictures at the base of the upper falls. It would have been interesting to see the difference now.

We arrived at Camp 4 to pick out and register for our campsite. The whole campsite was covered in snow. I forgot to take a picture of it. We were dismayed to find out that the rangers closed off the main restrooms and left only two stalls in the back for the 40 or so some odd groups of campers to all share. It was kind of ridiculous. Although, it was no where near to being filled to capacity, there were still plenty of people in the campground.

We knew that we were in for it when we arrived into the valley. It had just snowed again a couple of days before we arrived and so there was snow everywhere. Unfortunately, we had decided, for some inexplicable reason, not to bring our snow boots! We even brought them in November, although we didn't really need them, but we definitely would need them on this trip! We had to pack down a patch of snow just to set up our tent. We paid for two night and left the third up in the air.

Originally, we were going to do some climbs either on Swan Slab or on Glacier Point Apron. We found both walls to be wet and icy so that wasn't going to happen. We decided to go grab some hot cocoa and consider our options.

We went out to the El Cap Meadow to check out who might be climbing and to warm up in the sun.

Of course we took a lot of pictures and the girls got to play in the snow a bit. We could not let them go too crazy though since we did not have our snow boots and only Caitlyn brought her snow gloves (although she didn't wear them most of the time).

Unfortunately, there was not much sun to be had as it was already disappearing from our end of the meadow. We then opted to find a climb that we could do. We decided on some practice aid climbing routes on the famous LeConte Boulder.

The first route was called The Hooker; a short 40' A1 route. Christian had no problem going up. I attempted it but only got about halfway or so. It is a slightly overhanging route and I had trouble reaching the next bolts while trying to hold myself up using a fifi hook. In the end, I got too tired and frustrated to continue. Emily went up next and she managed to make it to the top using an adjustable daisy to keep her up. It worked a lot better than the fifi. Caitlyn decided to stay in the comparatively warm safety of the car. Emily spent most of her time in there with her except when she ran over to do the climb.

Next Christian worked on the famous Kor Practice Aid Ladder. No one else made the attempt as it is much more overhanging than The Hooker.

At least the snow kept the crowds at bay. A bunch of cars did stop by to do some sledding next to where we were so that was a bit annoying. I couldn't feel my fingers or toes so we got back into the car to warm up and went to the grand Ahwahnee Hotel. From there, we found the approach for the Royal Arches.

Unfortunately, the start of that route was also totally wet and iced up. The sun was starting to go down by this time and we decide to go back to camp for dinner. We attempted to go to the Lodge for our usual Ranger Evening Program but they were doing some lame promotion for Skiing at Badger Pass with a movie of a bunch of delinquent adrenaline junkies. We left after only a few minutes. We took advantage of the facilities at the Lodge before turning in for the night. We had our heater and our winter sleeping bags so we were pretty comfortable.

--------

We were not in too much of a hurry to get going the next morning as we were not terribly sure what we were going to be able to do. Most of the climbs were wet and icy and most of the hikes were too snowy for us. The thermometer in our car read 13℉...and the sun was already up. We had breakfast and drove out to Knob Hill in the Lower Merced River Canyon to do some investigating there. It turned out to be just what we were looking for. We found a bit of sun and the climbs were clear and dry. We hiked around to see if we could find some of the climbs that we were looking for. Caitlyn came up a little with us but stopped and played at some point while we did our scouting. She made a mini snowman.

We had our lunch and headed back down to the Valley for a Ranger Walk. The walk with Ranger Brandon Adams was a about trees in Yosemite. It was pretty interesting.

Christian went into the gift shop at the Ahwahnee to buy some cards. Then we went back to the Ranger Station. Christian had some additional things he wanted to discuss with Ranger Adams as he was also a climber. We walked back to camp as the sun was starting to set. We had dinner and headed over to the Lodge to see what they were doing. Apparently, they were still doing the promotion for Badger Pass so we did not bother going in. It was New Year's Eve, so there were lots of parties and things springing up. We decided to retreat to the relative safety of our camp and turn in somewhat early. The campers were pretty loud and stayed up quite late. Of course, we were unfortunate to be next to the loudest group in the campground, as per usual. Most of the campground settled down by 11:pm (except for our neighbors). They all yelled Happy New Year and most of them turned in at midnight (except for our neighbors). But eventually, they turned in (or passed out). 

--------

The next morning was New Year's Day and we decided to pack up our stuff. Honestly, we did not want to camp next to those morons another night. They came in in the middle of the night on our first night waking everyone up as it was. Also, it was supposed to be a bit breezy today and it was going to get a bit windy the next day. It is cold enough without the wind blowing at you in those temperatures. We never really found out how cold it was. I got Christian an anemometer for Christmas but it was a piece of junk and did not work at all. I planned to return it once we got home.

After we packed up, we headed back to Knob Hill to do some climbing. We climbed Anti-Ego Crack (5.6).

Everyone did the climb. It was pretty fun. Christian headed up from the climb for a bit to investigate but I guess it wasn't that great so he came back down and we had to traverse over to a rappel station from a tree across the way. That was a little scary but we didn't have too much trouble with it.

It still takes us quite a while for all four of us to climb. The chilly breeze made it a little uncomfortable at times. I think we definitely made the right choice to leave tonight rather than stay for the windy day tomorrow. 

We still had a little daylight left and Christian wanted to do one more climb. It was called Pot Belly (5.7). It was a shortish climb and only Christian was going to do it, so we figured we had enough daylight left but it proved to be a lot harder than they claimed the climb to be. The start of the climb was the problem. A lot of people do not take into consideration the first 15' when rating a climb but if you can't get up the first 15' feet, you can't climb the route! There was no where to protect it either so that made it even more dangerous and difficult. All there was was a thin crack up a slick steep slab. There was an alternate start but it wasn't any easier and had other complications to it. In the end, we ran out of time and gave up. Christian wasn't too happy about it.

Then, as we were driving back down to the 41 to leave, we almost got into a head on collision with some tourists who were driving on the wrong side of the road. We were driving down hill on ice and when we tried to brake, we started sliding down towards them. It is only by divine providence that we did not hit them. Apparently, there was an accident on their side of the road and although they got past that, some of the cars were either going too slow still or decided to stop in the middle of the lane because they didn't know if they wanted to keep driving on the icy road or the moron just wanted to take a picture or text a friend and the car behind him decided to pass them on our side of the narrow icy mountain road.

We got control of our vehicle and continued to head out of the park. The line behind the accident went as far as our eyes could see. We were a little conflicted as to whether we should continue driving with these crazy reckless people on the icy roads or head back in to stay another day. In the end, we just opted to continue on. We were very tense and stressed out the entire way but we did not have too much more trouble and returned home without further incident. There were a few speeding, impatient drivers but we let them all pass and stayed away from them as much as we could.

We did stop in Fresno for some dinner. Christian's sister gave us gift cards for In-N-Out for Christmas so dinner was on them.

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.
--------
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.
--------
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.