2014 Wrap-Up

If 2013 was a life-changing year, then 2014 was the aftermath. 2014 was the year of taking stock and moving forward.

I spent much of the first third of the year, dealing with my aunt's estate. This was emotional and stressful. It was my first experience with selling a house. Luckily, Dan found an amazing team of relators (Team Kociela with First Team in Tustin), who took care of everything and made the process as painless as possible. The house sold fast and for well above asking. My aunt and uncle had bought their house before I was born and it was very hard for me to let go of a home that held so many happy memories. Luckily, a nice family with a new baby bought it and at the risk of sounding sappy, I hope that they fill it with love and wonderful memories of their own. I especially hope that they have epic pool parties!

After selling my first home, I turned around and had my first experience buying a home. Dan and I are now proud owners of a house in Big Bear Lake. We have spent many weekends enjoying our mountain retreat and we have already made friendships with several locals. We are starting to feel like part of the community.

I spent about four months working as a professional dog walker. Unfortunately, the company that I worked for, folded. However, during the short amount of time that I worked, I got to know two of the sweetest dogs around, a Golden Retriever Puppy named Busy and an energetic Labradoodle named Milo. My stint as a dog walker nearly turned me from a cat to a dog person. Nearly.

In 2014, we bought a Jeep Wrangler and took up a new hobby, Jeeping. We attended the Big Bear Jeep Jamboree and Big Bear Forest Fest. It's amazing how many trails are in our new backyard. We learned the real definition of JEEP ( Just. Empty. Every. Pocket.), as we got the bug to modify it, until it looked nothing like it did when we purchased it. We are looking forward to more events and modifications in the new year.

Between heading to Big Bear and our other travels, it felt like we were never home in 2014. We spent fifteen days, over four separate trips in Las Vegas, which included Jeeping in the Valley of Fire for the first time. Beautiful! We did a weekend in Chicago and we spent our first anniversary in Lake Tahoe, a place neither of us had visited previously. Our summer trip to Europe included three weeks in England and a little over a week in Sweden. It was great to finally see the country where my stepchildren live and to see their home/school/city. I ate Reindeer for the first time. Rudolph is delicious!

Life was filled up with other things, so I didn't go to as many plays, concerts or movies as I typically do. I did manage to see Josh Ritter, The Airborne Toxic Event and Britney Spears. The first two were phenomenal and the third was much better than I had anticipated. I finally got to see a touring production of The Book of Mormon. Hilarious!

I read fifty-two books and discovered both Booksparks and Netgalley.

I've finished five writing classes towards my Fiction Certificate at UCLA Extension. More exciting than the actually classes, is I've made progress on a novel idea that I've been contemplating for years. 2014 has been creatively, very productive.

2014 started off a mess, but the maelstrom has subsided and I'm entering 2015 calm and focused. I look forward to 2015!

Big Bear Jeep Jamboree- Day One

Last weekend, Dan and I headed to one of our favorite places, Big Bear Lake, for the 2014 Jeep Jamboree. We are still new Jeep owners and this was our first weekend-long event. It was very exciting!

We arrived late on a Thursday afternoon for registration at the local Elks Lodge.

The first part of registration included a mandatory vehicle assessment. We waited in a long line to have our Jeep checked and to speak with a guide about the trails. Dan has experience off-roading, so we were placed in the moderate group, which is what we had been hoping for. We wanted a challenge, but since we don't have lockers on our Jeep, we were kept back from the toughest trails. Maybe next year!

After the vehicle check, we inside of the Elks Lodge to pick our trail team. We ended up in the yellow group which was led by Sean and supported by Jason and Mike. We were also given stickers, a flag, tee-shirts and an event lanyard.

We immediately found spots for our new stickers.

One of the best parts of the event was walking around the parking lot and checking out everyone else's Jeeps. The only problem with this is that you find way too many things that you want to spend money on. Our Jeep was fine until we took a look at different ways that we could improve it! We have an appointment at Rebel Off- Road this week for a ton of modifications.

We were all ready to hit the trails bright and early Friday morning.

Big Bear Jeeping

As soon as we bought our Jeep in January, we couldn't wait to test it on the trails. Our first off-roading was in the mountains surrounding Big Bear Lake on the North Shore side.

Prior to hitting the trails, we stopped by the rangers station to get a map and to buy our Adventure Pass. We frequently noticed signs mentioning the Adventure Pass while driving in the Angeles National Forest. It's necessary to have if you wish to park your vehicle in the forest, you don't need it if you're just driving through. As we intend on doing a lot of off-roading and hopefully some hiking, the Adventure Pass is a must have accessory for our Jeep. It's also a nice way to support our local parks.

We spent about five hours off-roading in Big Bear, most of the time we were completely alone on the trails. We only saw one little chipmunk scurry in front of us. No other wildlife, except for birds.

It was mid-February and we were really hoping to find some snow, but with the unseasonably warm winter, this was all that we could find. The weather was brisk, but the sun was shining.

The trails were marked with ratings from easy to most difficult. A majority of the trails that we explored were flat and easy.

However, we did go on a trail that was rated the most difficult. This is how I handled it.

And when it became too much, I refused to stay in the Jeep as Dan drove down the steep trail.

Now that we've taken the Jeep out a few times and we've done far more harrowing trails, I'm not so chicken. I know that this picture makes it look pretty mild, but trust me, it was steep! I shouldn't have been walking down it in my Uggs.

Normally, I wouldn't advocate graffiti on nature, but I like this photo.

Our drive included a lot of dirt, tree branches scraping the sides of the Jeep and loud "clunk/clank" sounds as we jostled along. In the end, there were a few minor scratches, but mostly, the Jeep was just blanketed in dirt.

Nemo suffered a dismembered tail during an epic battle with a large tree branch. He just kept swimming.

In early May we will be back in Big Bear for the Jeep Jamboree. We can't wait to tackle the trails and really push our Jeep to its limits. Check out the official website for the event here.

http://jeepjamboreeusa.com/event-detail/62/