Scott and Jessica

Last week my family came to Arizona and we all hung out at Grandma Jean’s house in Phoenix for the week. It was a nice relaxing time filled with tennis, multiple trips to Sonic, lounging outside, and eating. All in all, a good visit. Too bad they had to leave and go back to the cold and snow. I don’t want to make you jealous, Mom and Dad, but it’s still roughly 70 degrees here. And sunny. So, when are you coming back?

Recently we took a trip to Bisbee, Arizona–a tiny hippie town tucked away in the mountains about two hours outside of Tucson.  On our way to Bisbee, we decided to stop in Tombstone and maybe get a glimpse of the OK Corral.  Sadly, the tour was sold out, but we did see plenty of horsedrawn carriages and Tombstone (the movie) merchandise.  Unfortunately, our brief stop in Tombstone didn’t end well because it involved Scott stepping in horse poop.  I guess that’s just the chance you take when you go back in time to the Old West.

After our brief detour, we were on our way to Bisbee.  Bisbee is a quaint town, with lots of weird little town charm (i.e., the house with a bunch o’ crap stuck to its exterior).  We had a good time geocaching and exploring, but I would have to say my favorite part of the trip was going on the mine tour.  Bisbee was a big copper mining town so there are lots of abandoned mines dotting the area.  We also had an amazing meal at the Cafe Roka.  All in all, a good little weekend getaway.

I was not done traveling after we got back from Bisbee.  A day after we returned, I was scheduled to go to San Luis, Arizona, for work.  San Luis is a small border town roughly four hours west of Tucson.  Anyway, the trip there was fairly uneventful, but the trip back was something I will never forget.  My coworker and I got stuck in a sandstorm and had to be escorted out of the storm by Arizona DPS officers!  As you can see in the photos below, it was like blizzard whiteout conditions, but everything was orange.  At times we couldn’t even see the cars pulled off to the side with us.  Let’s just say I hope I never have to go through a sandstorm again!

You’ve probably noticed the new design to scottandjessica.net. Well, this is something that I’ve had on the back burner for a little while now, and decided to finally pull the trigger. My dad took some good photos of us when we were in Iowa over Christmas that I stuck in the header. In addition to the new design, I’ve also changed our photo gallery to something that is a bit more clean (and faster too). The new gallery also allows users to leave comments on photos (it was turned off in the old gallery because of spam). So, take a look around, leave a comment (or two), and let us know if you notice something broken.

Well, we’re back from the great white north, and finally settled back in after a couple weeks of holiday travels. We flew to Omaha in mid-December, and spent about a week in Atlantic, then drove to Iowa City (through the great blizzard of 2009) on Christmas day. We spent another week in Iowa City and then flew back to warm Tucson the second day of 2010. It was a nice trip, and was good to see friends and family. We’ve added holiday photos to the gallery.

The tree is up, the presents have been purchased (most shipped to their recipients), and we’re ready for Christmas! The weather doesn’t quite feel very Christmasy (we went for a drive with the convertible top down last night and were pretty comfortable). I’m sure we’ll be longing for the warmth when we get to Iowa in a few days. I hear it’s COLD… and there’s a good amount of snow on the ground. I’m ready for it, but I don’t think Jess is looking forward to the cold. It will be good to just relax with family for a while (cold or not!). Happy Holidays!

(more Christmas photos in our Flickr account)