General

Boy, it looks like all we do is go skiing. I wish that were true! We took another ski trip a couple weeks ago. This time we traveled a bit further than Northern Arizona (that trip was just for training). We flew out to Denver, and met up with friends Jon and Liz, for a weekend of skiing. We got a condo up in the mountains, and skied for two days. The snow was good, and we had a great time (minus a small encounter I had with a tree). We’ve got new photos up in the gallery.

You’re probably asking yourself right now whether it actually snows in Arizona (can it be?).  I can attest to the fact that snow does in fact exist in Arizona because I have seen it with my own eyes.  A few weeks ago, we went skiing in Arizona’s  White Mountains, which are a few hours northeast of Tucson.  We skiied at the Sunrise Ski Resort just outside of Greer, which is the little town we stayed in.  We rented skis at the resort and hit the slopes for the day.  I have to say the snow was pretty good–nice and fluffy.  However, it was a lot warmer at the bottom of the mountain waiting for the ski lift than I thought it would be.  I probably could have done without that extra layer, but such is the fate of an Arizona skiier.  Otherwise, the skiing was great. We went skiing because we (well, mostly me) needed to dust off our skiing skills before going to Colorado next month to go skiing with Jon and Liz.  Luckily, I only fell once and it was on a blue run so there is a little dignity in that.  At least it wasn’t a green. 😉  Check out our pictures from our trip to the White Mountains.  (Also, our 2008 holiday photos are up in the gallery.)  We’ll post more skiing pictures late next month once we get back from Colorado.

We’re in Atlantic, getting ready to open presents (Santa has been here!) before heading to Iowa City this afternoon to open MORE presents! Merry Christmas everyone!

It’s that time of year again when the officie supply stores bring back their heavy-duty viral marketing campaigns. ElfYourself.com is back! Here’s a lovely video of us (as elves, dancing the Charleston). Enjoy! Better yet… make your own!

Whew… four holidays in one week! Ok, three of them were the same (Thanksgiving), and one is made up (National Cake Day). We drove up to Phoenix to see Grandma Jean on Wed night after work, and had a big Thanksgiving dinner on the actual day. Then on Friday, Jess had to work 🙁 but Scott got the day off 🙂 and did a little Christmas shopping. When Jess got off, we celebrated National Cake Day with a delicious whippped cream-topped angel food cake (see last year’s post on the origins of National Cake Day). Saturday we had to put on our Thanksgiving hats again and head over to Aunt Nancy and Uncle Robert’s for another dose of the Gobble-gobble Bird. It was a house full of people again, fortunately there was enough food to stuff us to the gills once again. We went home full. Sunday we headed back to Nancy and Robert’s with Brian (he had to work on Thansgiving) so he could celebrate with everyone as well. As always, there are new photos in the gallery. Needless to say we’ve had a lot of food in the past few days! Turkey + Cake + Turkey + Turkey = VERY FULL Scott and Jessica.

We have been pretty busy this past month.  Three weekends ago we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and we had a great time!  We had been to the museum a few years ago when we visited Tucson, but we decided to go again.  Check out our photos here.  My favorite animal was the bighorn sheep who seemed to effortlessly scale the rocks.

Two weekends ago we went to the U of A v. Cal football game.  The Wildcats pulled through and beat the Golden Bears.  It was a beautiful evening of college football, but I must admit that it was rather weird to me that it was October and very much unlike the normal fall football weather I’m used to.  I think it hit around 85 or 90 degrees right before the game.  Thankfully, it was an evening game with a 7 pm kickoff so once the sun went down it was a lot cooler.

We were also busy again this past weekend!  On Saturday night we went to a corn maze that’s about 45 minutes from our house.  Yes, there is corn in Arizona.  What’s interesting is that I never went to a corn maze when I was in Iowa, the land of corn.  Yet, I’ve been to a corn maze in the Southwest.  The next morning I walked with some of my co-workers in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk.  It was a gorgeous day to do a 5k walk.  Afterwards we went to one of my co-workers’ house for a potluck.  Her cat just had kittens and Scott seemed to really bond with one of them.  I had to check his pockets before we left to make sure he didn’t steal one of the kitties.

Last night we carved our pumpkin.  We decided to pay homage to the Wii and carved a Wiimote into the pumpkin.  I know…we’re geeks.

We recently had some more visitors from Iowa!  My parents came for the weekend and hung out with us.  We watched the Hawkeye football game (I don’t want to talk about it) and Mom took me shopping for my birthday (awesome!).  Needless to say I got plenty of good outfits at my favorite store…Ann Taylor.  We also went to Mount Lemmon and hiked around a bit on Sunday.  Mount Lemmon is one of our favorite places in Tucson because it’s always cooler up there on top of the mountain.  Oh, and there’s a pie shop at the top that serves amazing pie! (see Scott’s last post for more pie fun).  Check out the pictures from their visit here.  It was nice to see you, Mom and Dad!

We had some visitors in from the midwest recently. My parents, and my aunt and uncle came downto spend some time in the Tucson area. We had our first overnight houseguests (in our house!) the first night when mom and dad got into town, and Brian also came down from Casa Grande for the night. Tom and Marj came in the next day, and everyone (excluding Brian, who had to go back to work) moved to a condo in Marana. We had a good time while everyone was here. We went out to one of our favorite restaurants in the area, Poca Cosa, with the whole gang plus Nancy and Robert. The following day we took a trek up Mt. Lemmon, did some geocaching, and of course, everyone had a big piece of pie (pie coma photo). My parents headed back to Iowa, but Tom and Marj stuck around for the rest of the week. They explored the area a bit more, and took an overnight trip up to Sedona before heading back to Wisconsin. It was good to see everyone, and have some visitors. We’ve got a load of new photos in the gallery.