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. 

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.

Projects

Christian has been trying all month to get his Jeep back together. He has had to reinstall his transmission and transfer case a couple of times already. The service manual is less than helpful and the internet is full of morons pretending to know what they are talking about.

At some point, he thought that he had gotten it all back together but it was not running right. After some more investigation, he found out that he did not install the oil pump for the transmission in all the way, so it was not engaging, although he installed it exactly as the service manual described. Apparently, the manual is full of shite.

Once again, he had to drop the transmission and take a look to see if the oil pump is damaged or not. When he took apart the pump to inspect it, he found that the gears in there was totally broken in at least two spots. I mean, they were sheared off! We don't know if this could have happened when we put the transmission back in or if this is actually the reason for the horrible noise that we've been chasing. We are thinking at this point that it might be the latter.

So, now the parts are on order. And since the oil pump was not engaged when Christian started it earlier and we don't know the condition of the rest of the transmission, he is thinking that he needs to take the rest of it apart and rebuild it, just in case. Regardless, it is old and it is out, so we might as well make sure that it is not worn or damaged. 

Regardless, we won't have the TJ for some time to come and Christian's "vacation" is almost at an end.

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When Christian isn't out toiling away on the Jeep in the mornings, he can usually be found at his desk toiling away at his Micron. Another project with little to no manual to support it. What little documentation there is has lots of errors and omissions. 

Slowly, but surely, he is managing to get it together but the frustration and headaches has taken all the joy out of it.

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Emily has taken over the Moron (Christian's first 3D printer which has been vastly over-hauled and improved). We are a little jealous because it works so well now but she is slowly learning how to use it and find uses for it.

She is actually working on some curtains for her room because it is too bright in the mornings with just the blinds. She found an old curtain rod we bought some years ago in there. It was defective because the two sides of the rods do not join. We found out way after the return window had passed, so we stole the mounting brackets out of the set to put up curtains in the office some years ago. She designed and printed a sleeve to join the rods together and printed new brackets to hold the rod. 

She is currently working on sewing the curtains.

In addition, she and her dad have started working on beefing up our tire changer. One of her tires is really worn, so she got a new one. Christian's truck tires are already a bit too large for what our tire changer was built for. It's just a cheap one from Harbor Freight but it mostly did the job with some modifications Christian already put on it. But since Emily's truck tires are even bigger, we know that we will end up breaking it if we don't make additional modifications and reinforcements.

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Caitlyn got her first jury duty notice the weekend before starting her internship. After only two or three weeks of working, she had to stop to go to court. At first, we hoped that she could just call in and they wouldn't need her but she got called in that first Monday. Then we had hoped that she would just have to serve for a day and be done with it, but she got put on as an alternate for a criminal trial that was scheduled for nearly a week! In the end, she only had to serve about 5 days. She got to take one day off in the middle to show up for work because the Judge was scheduled to be at a different court that day. After they started deliberations, she went back to work, although, she was technically on call in case something happened. 

The jury was able to come to a decision in one day and she is now off the hook. It was an interesting experience for her but the timing was unfortunate as she lost some valuable time and money because of it.

She finished her summer online classes except she had some trouble getting into her internship class since it doesn't exactly align with BYU's schedule for some reason so her counselor is making some modifications in order for her to take that now. 

She's also been on an anklet making craze.

She's been making one in each color. I think she has plans for several more colors.

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As for me, it's apple season. The weather has been relatively mild...for Riverside, so the apples didn't start to ripen back in June like it has in the past couple of years. But it is still summer and so when the apples start to ripen, it goes fairly quickly and I spend most of the month canning apple pie apples, apple sauce and drying apple slices. And despite giving away bags of apples, the animals gets lots of them and bushels seem to end up in the recycling bin as well.

Terry

Terry was still in the hospital at the beginning of the month. We don't really know why his release was delayed. The next time we checked in with him, he was hoping to get his catheter out before going home. I don't know what the issue was, but he ended up having to leave it in as he was not able to urinate normally still.

He was home for a few days but he was barely eating. He had some medication so that his esophagus would not close up on him and one of his medications was causing him to be nauseous. He was not doing very well. A nurse was supposed to go check up on him but would not be able to schedule him until after the Fourth of July weekend. They told Jackie to bring him back in but she wanted to wait for the nurse or something. In the end, they had to have him taken to the hospital anyway, but this time in an ambulance as he had a small seizure. He had a worse one on the way. The ended up intubating him. We were afraid that this was the end.

They said his seizure was from an electrolyte imbalance. Basically, it was a side effect of him starving to death. I really don't think the hospital really takes in what its patients are going through. They deprived him of water and food before at least two procedures in the prior week. He was so hungry, he tried to get up and leave the hospital. They had to have security come and restrain him. I do't know for what reason his second procedure was delayed, but I'm sure they had to starve him again until they could do the operation. Then, they give him medication that makes him unable to hold down his food.

They adjusted his medication and Aron came back to make them take out his breathing tube so that he can have a chance to have his body recover. Afterwards, they were able to get him on a liquid diet. After he was able to eat solid food again, they were hoping to move him back out of the hospital later that week. Of course, as the day approached, they said that his heart rate was irregular and weak. They talked to his heart doctor. Eventually, they had him moved to the cardiac unit back at Kaiser. It was at least another day or so until they moved him. They took his staples out from his surgery. 

Aron came back down to make sure he had decent food prepared and stocked up at home that he would hopefully be able to eat. Christian went to visit him to keep his spirits up after so many setbacks. They found out that a lot of his troubles from what started all this was not a simple infection or gall stones but the result of his body attacking itself because of some problem he had when he had his stomach blown apart when he was a young man checking on some unexploded ordnance!

At some point, the next day, they discovered that he couldn't move his left side. Apparently, he had a major stroke. He had the stroke while already on blood thinners from when he had heart surgery several years ago. Again, we thought the worst, especially since it has been difficult to get any details about what is actually going on. It has been really stressful waiting to hear about what is going on.

Once again, they got him stabilized and he doesn't seem to have suffered any major permanent problems from the stroke. He is able to talk and walk again.  After a couple more days, he was finally able to go home once again. Hopefully, he is starting to actually recover this time. He has been sleeping a lot. I am almost afraid to get an update as it has been so difficult for him lately. I think he is just taking it a day at a time now. Although we now know what was causing his original health problems, we don't really know what caused his stroke.

June - Part 2

The girls and I have been making our rounds to the outlet stores lately. We started out at the Dessert Hills Outlets in Cabazon mostly prompted by trying to get Emily outfitted for her internship. Then Caitlyn wanted to find some more and we went to check out the ones in Orange on our way from the beach last week. When Emily came home for the weekend, we planned to head out to the Ontario Mills Outlets.

It turned out to be less of an outlet than it used to be. I have not been there for quite a few years, but it feels more like unique mall with a few outlet store scattered throughout. It is also a lot bigger than I remember! We were pretty exhausted by the time we got through it. As an outlet mall, it was a bit disappointing but we did find a store that all three of us liked there. 

For Father's Day, we got Christian some Lizard Skin for the bucket of the Jeep. All the carpeting was pulled out long before we ever got the Jeep. It is starting to rust in spots where the paint has been worn away from people's feet. The seals on the doors aren't great, so when it rains, water gets in and pools. It used to be worse, but we've figured out the leaks from the roof. That part is mostly sorted out now. The other problem we have is from the heat emanating from the bottom of the Jeep. 

The Lizard Skin will protect the tub from rust and is supposed to help with the heat somewhat, but it will also help with some sound dampening as well. 

We gave it to him a week before so that we can make a plan and the kids can help him prepare and clean up the Jeep. We will need to remove the seats and center console in order to do it. So Christian took all the pieces off during the week. Caitlyn helped him clean the Jeep to prep it for the next step. Christian put a bit of primer on the worst of the bare metal spot that had some surface rust developing on it. When Emily came home on the weekend, Caitlyn and Emily helped scuff and clean the rest of the paint. They were also going to help paint the Lizard Skin on, but when we opened it, we found that it was super thick and extremely difficult to work with. It has the consistency of pumice filled peanut butter. Christian decided to just do it himself. It took another week nearly to get it on because we didn't get the sprayer, so he painted it on in layers and letting it dry for the rest of the day before putting on another layer. We were not sure how far the stuff would go, so after the initial thin layer, he concentrated on building extra layers in the problem areas first to insulate the worst of the heat. It went farther than we thought, but at some point, he got sick of working with the stuff. It was kind of a nightmare. We have a little left for touch up in case we have problems once we get everything bolted back in.

All of it took a couple of weeks to do. We also took the speaker module out while we had everything apart. The light cover rattled around a lot so we wanted to print a TPU gasket to reduce the extra vibration noise it makes. That worked really well. I had also gotten Christian new speakers for the back of the TJ. Unfortunately, while the speaker was the right size, the protective shield did not fit. Instead of returning it, we decided to print our own. We mocked one up in PLA but that one is obviously not going to work in the long run, as it is already distorted from the heat out there. We plan to eventually print it in ABS but Christian is not completely satisfied with the fit of the model yet. 

When Emily came back the next weekend, we had not put the vehicle back together yet and we wanted to go for a drive. We were hoping to go on a short hike. We ended up taking my Trooper to the San Jacinto Mountains but it was a total disaster. The freeway was a mess and we got stuck in some bad traffic. Then, when we finally got to the area, a bunch of morons were stopped in the middle of the parking lot blocking everyone's way, even though there were plenty of parking spaces and they could have pulled into it to do whatever the hell they were doing before. We went to Lake Fulmor. We have not been here since before we were even married, but it was very pretty and there were not so many people there in the past. 

There were a ton of people there. Lots of people fishing in the Lake. Lots of other people walking around the Lake. Those were mostly young families with screaming kids that they made absolutely no effort in controlling. Some of them just went out there to take a quick selfie and others just seemed to loiter around. We went passed them to find a small waterfall that used to be on the side of the trail but found that most of the trail seemed to be gated off now and we could not even get to the area we were looking for.  We ended up just going back around to leave. Since we couldn't think of another place out there that we could go to, we ended up just leaving. The only other area that we considered needed a 4x4 that had better clearance and flex. The Trooper is not the right vehicle for this.

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The other things that we worked on this past month was to try to decouple ourselves from Adobe. Like many people, we are not happy with the direction the company has taken. After decades of using them, we are no longer happy with their programs. Christian started a couple of years ago by switching from Adobe Premiere to DiVinci Resolve for his video editing. Then he dumped Adobe Acrobat. The biggest thing that was keeping us tied to Adobe now, is Lightroom. We use it for our photo catalogs and editing. We had not found anything to replace it with. 

However, Christian has been trying to get the girls to try DarkTable for a number of years now. Caitlyn was too invested in Lightroom and did not want to try it. She has been using a very old version of Lightroom on my old Mac except for when she took some Photography and design classes which gave her temporary access to the new cloud versions. Emily tried DarkTable but barely used it because we have not been able to get her that interested in Photography still. This past Christmas, since Christian got me a new camera, we shifted everybody into a newer camera...which meant that Emily finally got access to an SLR which she wanted to try but never made enough of an effort at taking pictures to justify getting her one. In order to get her more vested into using it, he dove into trying to figure out DarkTable in order to help her with it. The work flow is very different from Photoshop or Lightroom. It is not as intuitive for a Photographer, so there is kind of a high learning curve. 

After we came back home, he continued learning little bits about DarkTable in the evenings before bed, pretty soon, he discovered that it can do a lot more than we initially thought. Not only that, but if you can figure out how to do it, it can do it better than Lightroom. 

Last year, Christian updated his computer to make it more powerful in order to process videos...but he was having problems with it crashing all the time. He had taken everything off in order to try to pin point what was crashing his computer. He was reluctant to reinstall All the Adobe Software and decided that this was a good opportunity to dump it all together and try DarkTable instead. If he liked it, he would rid himself of Adobe forever. Since I still use it, he figured he would let Caitlyn use the other license. In transferring all his catalog, he found that Adobe had lost (deleted) a lot of his pictures. We don't know why or how that happened. It still had the previews for them but the actual files were missing. Anyway, it was a huge mess.

We found that our backups were not sufficient and had to stop to back up everything that we still had. We partially hadn't done this to our satisfaction because we ran out of hard drive space and were reluctant to buy new drives because we had other things we wanted or needed to spend our money on.

In the end, we got everything backed up finally. Christian still lost a lot of his files but managed to keep screenshots of his missing pictures and he was ecstatic to rid himself of Adobe. Plus, he really likes DarkTable.

Since we currently have the entire Adobe Creative Suite, I wanted to get rid of some of my Adobe products as well, so I spent some time trying to rid myself of everything except for the Photography package. I figured that those would be easier to replace and spent some time investigating some of the free open source programs. I only use Adobe InDesign to put together my journals, so that was the easiest to get rid of since Blurb has their own software that I can use. It is what I started off using. Illustrator was a little more difficult to replace as I don't use it for making vectors that much. I mostly use it as a desktop publishing type program. I tried a couple of different options but was very unhappy with the first one I tried as it did not work properly, even though it is the most popular alternative for people making vector drawings. The second one I looked into was more for desktop publishing but it didn't do some of the things that I really needed that Illustrator did with ease. I finally decided to just stick with using Photoshop  for this purpose and abandoned all the other options and it is always packaged with Lightroom anyway.

After all that, I found that they no longer have just the Photography Suite deal on its own...or they don't have a deal on it anymore. Christian usually gets a better deal doing the Education discount but now it is all or nothing. You can't choose only certain programs or packages. I can just get the Photography package with no discounts or get all the programs with the teacher discount for the same price. It was not like this even last year. I found I just wasted a whole day looking into this. So, until I am ready to move over to DarkTable as well, I am still a slave to Adobe.

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While Debbie was in and out of the hospital, dealing with my brother's stroke back in May, her mother was also complaining of a constant stomach ache. They had finally gotten her in to get her checked out and they diagnosed her with colon cancer. They had started chemo treatments for her, but last month, they had found that the cancer had already spread. She was moved to hospice by the end of the month. She passed away a couple of weeks later. The cemetery was apparently booked up though, so they could not hold her funeral for another couple of weeks.

Through most of June though, they also thought her dad might have alzheimer's! He was not doing well but they later found out that he was taking too much insulin. I guess with everything going on, there was no one to make sure that he was checking himself and taking the right amount. They finally got that sorted out and he seemed much better by the time we saw him at the funeral of his wife.

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While all this was going on, Terry has been in and out of the hospital all week. He seemed to have some kind of infection. Part of his body turned yellow. They said that he had a number of stones from his gall bladder. They set him up to have them removed. Meanwhile, they had him go home. But after seven stones were removed, they recommended that he remove his gallbladder all together. After deliberating for a bit, they decided to go ahead and take it out. That operation was scheduled but got pushed back for some reason. Once they finally got it out, they had him stay until the weekend so that they can monitor how he is doing since he is old and his health has not been that good for a while and because they live so far from the hospital. 

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One weekend, we tried to take the TJ out for a test run to see if the Lizard Skin made any difference. We took two vehicles because we were a little unsure of how the TJ is running right now. After Christian's trip on his first weekend off, the TJ was making a lot of disturbing noises and we have not been able to diagnose what the problem is yet. We took it down to the local auto parts store to recycle some oil and to gas up the vehicle and it seemed to sound and drive perfectly fine.

We took the TJ and the JK out to the San Bernardino Mountains, but by the time we got to Mentone, the noise was definitely back. Since we do not know what is making the racket, we decided to keep it safe and return home instead of heading up the mountain. The interior of the TJ did feel much nicer with the Lizard Skin coating though. 

Christian spent the next week dismantling the vehicle. Our first thought was that it might be the flex plate in between the transmission and the transfer case. The transmission itself is running flawlessly, so we didn't think it was that. Anyway, he had to drop the transmission in order to get in there to look at it. Once it was all out, he still could not find anything wrong with it. We thought that it was possible that it might be something in the exhaust that was disintegrating and rattling around, but after he removed all that, he still was unable to identify anything that could have been making the noise.

Since everything was taken out of the bottom of the TJ, we decided to put extra shielding above the transmission tunnel and the bottom of the Jeep. That was our original plan to reduce the amount of heat going up into the interior of the Jeep but we had been putting it off since you had to take the transmission out in order to do it!

This was a bigger job than we expected as well since everything had to be cut to fit and we ran out spray adhesive and had to put a hold on the project to order more, but I think it is going to make a big difference.

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Caitlyn had started her internship this month finally. She had to have the whole nine yards of background checks and drug tests just like Emily did. I wasn't that surprised that Emily had to do it because she is working in the aero space industry but I was kind of surprised that Caitlyn had to as well. I guess it is just normal practice nowadays.

She seems to like the company and the people she is working with. She spent the whole first week doing tours and a lot of training videos. She is finally getting to do a little actual work now. So far so good.

June - Part 1

Christian finished school at the end of last month and it couldn't come too soon. We were supposed to take a several day camping trip together that first week off, but a series of unfortunate events aligned to keep us from going. Mainly a package that was en route but delayed and another package that we ordered and asked them to delay the shipment but our instructions were ignored, left us with  several packages that would arrive while we would be away. At the last minute, I told Christian to just take off on his trip and that I would stay home with Caitlyn to receive the packages.  That way, he can get away without having to worry about anyone else and having his packages stolen. We actually had most of the camping gear out and ready to go already. We just had to repack to take all the extra stuff Christian wouldn't need by himself out. 

He left early the next morning, heading out to the border of California/Nevada. Caitlyn had prepared for the trip by getting a jump on her homework for the week, so technically, she was free to do anything we wanted. After I was able to track our incoming packages to find out exactly when they would be delivered,  it was determined that they would not arrive until the next day. After Caitlyn woke up, we decided that we would go out and do something but neither of us had any idea of what we wanted to do. We went over several ideas over breakfast but still didn't come up with anything. 

After our trip to the outlets out in Cabazon, Caitlyn kind of wanted to go find more. The only other place that is relatively close-by is the Ontario Mills Outlets and we had already made plans to go with Emily the next weekend.  There was another one in Orange, but that seemed a little farther than we wanted to go for just shopping. The rest seemed significantly farther, so we scrapped that plan and started looking for some other diversion. We briefly looked into places that we might want to go hiking in. Perhaps some place that Christian wouldn't normally want to go to because it was too crowded but not so crowded that we would  also find it unpleasant. Most places that seemed interesting was either a bit farther out and it was getting late and/or maybe more challenging than I could currently handle. In the end, we decided to go out to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve to take pictures. That would get us close enough that we could also take a walk on the beach afterwards. We did realize that that was farther than we were initially considering going to but we thought it much more worth the effort than shopping.  

Decision made, we hurriedly through some things together and got dressed. By the time we made it out there, it was already lunch time. We packed a quick lunch and had our sandwiches in the parking lot before heading out.

Parking was limited, but not too crowded, so we did not have any issues. The preserve is actually right across from the Bolsa Chica State Beach. It is just divided by the Pacific Coast Highway. The day was partially overcast, so it wasn't too unbearably hot. I was hoping there might be a few trees on our path but it is just a coastal wetland surrounded by neighborhoods on one side and facing the beach on the other.

Caitlyn brought her long zoom lens and was able to get much better pictures than I was able to. I only had my kit lens since I got a new camera for Christmas and I do not have the mount to be able to use my long EF lens. We originally that that would be a possibility, but found that the mount is kind of expensive. When they first started pushing the mirrorless cameras, they had great deals on the conversion mounts and some packages even had it for free to entice you to move over to their new system. Once they were well and underway, they discontinued their DSLR line and they are now just focusing on the RF lenses for their new mirrorless cameras. At some point, you won't have very much choice but to move over and so they stopped giving incentives for the conversion mounts.

We got a nice walk along the paths and took hundreds of pictures...most of which we were afraid would be blurry! But we figured we probably had enough that we were sure that we would have some that would come out okay!

So after a couple of hours, we decided to check out the beach next. We were not sure what the state beach here would be like and didn't think that we would stay that long, so we didn't want to pay the $15 daily parking rate just for maybe an hour at the beach. Plus, there were a bunch of school buses full of screaming children in the parking lot and decided to try out luck elsewhere. We ended up going further down to Sunset Beach. We found excellent parking but initially, we were underwhelmed by the beach. Apparently, we were a lot closer to Long Beach than we thought and all we could see was the shipyard and tons of cargo ships clogging up the waterways. Plus, it was still fairly hazy out and the combination looked somewhat distopian. We walked for a bit and took a few pictures,  found some really nice shells and were thinking of heading out when we discovered that what we though was just a kite was actually kite surfer's coming out. There were several out on the water as we made out way in their direction and got caught up watching them and taking pictures.

We had never seen them before and it was pretty neat watching them. A couple of the guys were really good and were practically flying out of the water as their kites caught the wind just right. We marveled at how they could leap out of the water and seemed to miraculously find their boards and hop right back on.

After following them down the beach, and the zoomed through  the waves, we found that we walked clear back to the border of the state beach. We headed back to where we parked but found more and more kite surfers coming out into the water. Pretty soon the beach was just full of them. They, of course, had to give each other space as not to get tangled in each other's lines.

We caught some more of the birds along the beach. Mostly just seagulls and some pelicans. We couldn't get enough of the kite surfers but after a couple of hours out here, Caitlyn's hands were starting to freeze as the sun started getting low in the sky and so we decided to head out.

It ended up being great timing because as we headed out through Seal Beach, we got caught up in the rain storm that was forecasted for this evening. We heard thunder and saw lightning flashing in the sky. We wondered where Christian was and hoped that he had found somewhere safe to spend the night.

We had also actually passed right by the outlet stores in Orange on our way to the beach and had decided that we would hit that on our way home...you know, since we were already all the way out here. Luckily, the rain had already mostly tapered off by the time we got there, although, I did have an umbrella in the car.

We did find a couple of things, but we were pretty exhausted by the time we made it through all the stores. We made a quick stop for dinner before heading the rest of the way home. By the time we got back, we only had enough energy to clean up before turning in for the night. We had a pretty long and eventful day.

Since we were expecting packages the next day, we planned to just spend it recuperating and going through our pictures.

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Christian was having his own adventures...some good, some not so good. Every time he contacted us, he seemed to be in a very different place than where I would have expected him to be. Needless to say, he covered a lot of ground.

He started off in the Nevada side of the Funeral Mountains. He took a trail back into California heading into Echo Canyon. It was shorter than he expected so he found himself in Death Valley early in the afternoon. 

There are too many tourists in Death Valley, even at this time of year, so he headed out of Furnace Creek towards the Panamints when the weather started to turn. We knew that there was a chance of thunderstorms and flash floods this evening so he couldn't camp in any washes. He made it into Owens Valley by the end of the day to find a camping spot at Alabama Hills.

In the morning, he took a trail up the west side of the Inyo Mountains to the Salt Trams. It was one of the roughest trails that he has been on but it had the best views of the High Sierra.

He was expected back the next day, so that morning, I was trying to get a hold of him to see if he would be back in time for dinner. When I got a hold of him, he was already back and heading into our neighborhood. Apparently, he was back in time for lunch!

He made it back okay, but he was complaining about a noise the Jeep was making. We've had this problem  before, but apparently it has gotten much worse on this trip. The vehicle still seemed to run fine, but it made some troubling noises in certain conditions. We originally thought that it might be the brakes since we have had a few problems with it on and off before, but the noise usually comes when it is coasting at a certain speed and not when the brakes are engaged at all. 

May

The beginning of May has started just as busy as April. We started off the month going to a wedding for our niece, Michaela. She got married at the Newport Temple. We joined the family for a reception in back in Ramona.

It was nice to visit with family we have not seen in a long time, although, there were a lot of people there and it would have been nicer to be able to sit down with them and catch up with their lives, you take what you can get when everyone has moved away and has started families of their own.

We left shortly after the craziness of the dancing and stuff started. We still had a long drive home anyway.

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The next weekend, Caitlyn had oral surgery to get her wisdom teeth removed. That was super stressful. They put her under general anesthesia but had trouble getting the IV into her veins. The first one collapsed, they missed her vein entirely on the next one and it was quite painful. They switched to her hand but for some reason they didn't like it. Caitlyn is super stressed at this point and they had to get out some special equipment to find her veins. They also gave her some nitrous oxide to get her to calm down as she was shaking at this point. They finally got in a good place on the fourth try, but she came out all bruised from the ordeal. 

I was waiting for her in the waiting room the whole time but when she came out, they tried calling me on my phone...which didn't ring for some reason and then they had Caitlyn trying to text me while she was all groggy from the anesthesia. I heard them discussing about where someone might be and I peeked up from my seat to see her doctor talking to the support staff in the from but they were across the other side of the office. The doctor was blocking my view of Caitlyn but I recognized Caitlyn's leg and walked over to see what was going on. Apparently, they made a half assed effort to call my name from across the room and then tried to call me but was not able to get a hold of me. No one thought to walk across the room to find me in the waiting area where they told me to wait?! 

Anyway, I had to run out to get the car as the parking lot was full when we arrived with idiots who fill the center on the weekends because they like to go biking from there, and picked her up. They wheeled her out on a wheel chair as she was still not very stable yet.

She was super tired after her ordeal and still somewhat under the influence of the anesthesia. We tried to get her settled in her bed to rest but we wanted to get some Gatorade in her first as she was not able to eat or drink anything prior to the procedure. I ate a quick lunch and headed to the pharmacy to pick up her meds while she rested. Not only did I have to drive across town to get to the pharmacy, but I then had to spend the next hour and a half twiddling my thumbs. They said that it would be about 15 minutes but the screen said that sometimes it would take up to an hour. When it passed the hour mark and the people working the desk asked the pharmacists about how long the wait was currently, they replied about 10 or 15 minutes. That's when I lost it and went up to ask them where the hell my order was. They found two of the three items just sitting to the side. They rang me out for those and put a rush on the last prescription for me. I had to wait another 10 or 15 minutes before they were able to fill it and I headed home.

At the same time as all this was happening, Christian was also home sick. Initially, he was helping me replace Caitlyn's gauze but we realized that it would be really bad if he got her sick on top of all the trauma her body was going through. Anyway, back at home, I had to start dinner but since Caitlyn was now on a liquid diet, I had to make her a separate dinner. Needless to say, by the end of the night, I was so exhausted. So, it was appropriate that we all spent the rest of the night sitting back and watching movies and falling asleep as needed!

The next day was Mother's Day. The original plan was to go visit with my mother. We actually had Emily stay out there for that purpose. She helped Wei, the lady that had recommended her for her internship, clean her house because she was moving. She did that on Saturday, while Caitlyn was getting her wisdom teeth out. But, we realized that we were in no condition to go. I had lots to do to just take care of my two patients and neither of them was in any condition to go out visiting anyone. We didn't do much except recuperate while watching movies once again. I spent some time thinking and preparing meals that Caitlyn could eat for the next week or so.

On top of all the rest that Caitlyn had to deal with, she had to learn how to swallow pills, which she has never done and has resisted trying. It did not go well and added much to the stress and trauma of the situation. She eventually figured out a way to swallow her meds, but it was not smooth or pretty but did the job.

Caitlyn had prepared for Mother's Day in advance, however, and had bought a couple of nice plants for me  prior to her ordeal. She spent an afternoon helping me clear a ton of weeds to help me plant them. So far they are doing well and are flowering beautifully.

Emily has been doing some 3D puzzle things on her downtime in the evenings while hanging out with her grandmother. She bought and put together a neat Hyacinth one for me for Mother's Day. 

Christian also got me a spare battery for my new camera. While we were out in Utah for his Spring Break, I had left my camera on overnight and it was dead in the morning. We hardly used to turn our DSLR camera's off while out on our trips and never had a problem, so I had forgotten to turn my new mirrorless camera off but apparently, they still eat a lot of power even in sleep mode. Now I have to make sure I remember to turn it off constantly when I am using it but it is definitely necessary to have a backup battery.

Christian had taken the prior Thursday off for his illness but ended up going back in on Friday because the video for the lesson he prepared for his students failed. He ended up getting sicker over the weekend because he pushed himself to make it through Friday. He stayed home again Monday but forced himself to go in once again on Tuesday because he just had too much going on at school and if he is gone too long, his kids would be out of control. His students are usually checked out mentally by the last month of school (actually, probably two months if we are being honest). It is by great effort and sheer will that he keeps his students engaged until the end. Anyway, he never quite gets enough rest to fully recover so he ends up with this lingering illness for weeks.

Caitlyn handles her liquid diet fairly well at first but I think after several days, she is just slightly hungry and frustrated. Towards the end of the first week though, we were able to move her to soft foods. She was much happier with that. 

Emily came home that weekend but Christian had to work all day on Saturday. He had to go help out at some robotics competition. The girls and I decided to head out to the outlet mall for some distraction. Caitlyn's cheeks are still a bit puffy but not nearly as bad as it's been. She still has some bruising along her jaw line, arm and hand from the botched IV attempt. We stopped for lunch but there wasn't much she could eat still as she can't really open her jaw very wide. We figured she could have some fries and we could find some other things that can hold her over but she managed to work some Chicken McNuggets into the side of her mouth. It wasn't ideal, but it worked.

We got back just before Christian made it home. We had thought that we took too long and that he would beat us home, but he had an even longer day than we had expected. 

Afterwards, Christian and Emily worked on putting her new dresser together. Emily was previously using an antique dresser from her great grandmother, who brought it back from France from her tour of the continent. It was useful but we were not overly attached to the piece. Aron had a piece from the same set apparently that we didn't have room for. She decided to gift the set to Michaela as a wedding present, so she wanted to buy it off of us. We didn't want anything but a replacement for Emily's dresser as she still needed something to put her clothes into when she is home. All the furniture shops that we used to use are not really in business anymore, so we ordered one through Amazon. It was cheap and functional but still mostly solid wood. 

Besides that, we just enjoyed the brief amount of downtime together. Christian and Emily are working on building his new project, a new, much smaller 3D printer, the Micron.

Caitlyn is working on learning some elementary sewing skills. She's working on hemming a pair of slacks she found that fit great but is way too long.

Of course, our time together was too brief and Emily had to take off early this weekend as her cousin is graduating from college and wanted her to be there.

Lauren's boss got them special VIP seating in the third row, which was pretty nice for them. 

Emily has been able to spend a bit more time with her cousins lately since she has been living with her grandmother.  Lauren had a art show for her senior art exhibit a couple of weeks ago and Emily went to that as well after work.

Plus, she met up with Collin  to teach him how to change the oil in her car!

And lastly, Caitlyn ended up breaking things off with Ty. We noticed that something between them seemed to have changed from the last time they were home from school. We are sad that things didn't work out between them. Nothing really happened, she just decided that he wasn't the one I guess.