General

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)

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a fun (and filling) trip up to Sun City to celebrate Thanksgiving with Grandma.

…and a Happy National Cake Day (the day after Thanksgiving) as well!

The temps are starting to cool a bit, and that means a few visitors from the North start to arrive. First Jess had her birthday, and as part of her birthday surprise we went to the Arizona Sky Center on top of Mt. Lemmon. Tom and Marj just got into town so they joined us on our star-gazing adventure. We drove to the top of the mountain around 4pm, and then spend the next several hours looking through various telescopes. The top of Mt. Lemmon is home to quite a few observatories controlled by different groups around the world. We did most of our looking through a 24″ telescope at various celestial bodies. The next day we took a trip out to Biosphere 2. Jess and I had been there before, but the tour we took this time was different than our last one. They’ve recently opened up the rain forest section to the tour, which was pretty (wet) cool.

Later in the week my parents arrived after spending some time at a conference on San Juan Island near Seattle. We had dinner with Tom and marj a couple nights, then took a tour of the Titan Missile Museum. The museum was an actual Titan II missile silo that was active during the cold war. We got up close and personal with the missile and Jess got to sit in the commander’s chair and participate in the launch sequence.

As always, photos are up in the gallery.

Jess returned from work on Friday to find a tree lying in our driveway. Apparently the thunderstorm (yes, we really do have thunderstorms here) that came through earlier in the afternoon took out the tree. I grabbed the saw when I got home and we cut the tree down. The yard actually doesn’t look too bad without it. We’ll probably find a smaller bush or something to replace it in the fall.

Jess made a couple (alien) friends before going into Half-Blood Prince.

We’re coming up on our 1-year home ownership anniversary and we finally finished our backyard. Our backyard project started last summer when we spread 4 tons of rocks (or 36 wheelbarrow trips). We also laid patio pavers and planted bushes. The latest addition (and my personal favorite) is a Eureka Lemon Tree. I’m a fan because it blocks the neighbors behind us. Check out our finished backyard below. I have to admit…it’s nice not having to mow the lawn.

I hit a milestone last weekend with the big 3-0 birthday. For several months now, Jess has been telling me not to plan anything for my birthday weekend since I had a surprise coming. Up until last Friday night, I had no clue what was going to happen (despite my relentless prodding).  She told me that Nancy and Robert were going to come over for dinner, so I was in the back yard preparing a shrimp boil. The doorbell rang, and Jess told me to answer it. Brother Brian was at our door, here to join us for dinner. He went out back with me to help with the boil. At a little bit after 7,  we heard a yell around the corner of the house. Apparently Nancy and Robert were here, and we weren’t answering the doorbell since we couldn’t hear it out back. I went in and opened the door, and Kieran (along with Nancy and Robert) was standing there on the front porch. Jess had used her frequent flier miles to fly Kieran out to Tucson for the weekend… I was pretty surprised.

We all enjoyed dinner together, then opened some birthday gifts before Nancy and Robert took off. The next day, we explored Tucson a bit with Kieran. We went up Mt. Lemmon geocaching for most of the day. We were four for four on the caches, and of course had to have pie at the top. After stuffing ourselves with pie, we came back to Tucson, cleaned up a bit and then went to Ra for sushi birthday dinner (sushi is the exact opposite of our pie lunch). After stuffing ourselves again, we headed home and played a few games I received as gifts. The next day, we went down to campus and walked around there a bit before a little mini golf and go cart racing. Then it was home for dinner and a few more games. I dropped Kieran off at the airport before work on Monday, and he was off to Iowa again. We had a good weekend, and Jess planned a great surprise! Take a look at photos in the gallery.

This past week we had a few more visitors from Iowa. My parents came out to spend some time in the Arizona sun. They did see some nice weather, but we put them to work. Brian’s new house needed some TLC, so we went up to Casa Grande on Saturday to help paint. They’d already done a good deal of painting and patching before we arrived. A fresh coat of paint really made things look nice. Then on Sunday they came back to Tucson (Brian came too) to help out with another house project. We installed a glass tile backsplash in our kitchen. That involved quite a few steps, as well as renting a tile saw. So on Sunday we cut and stuck the tiles to the wall. Brian manned the saw. Then on Monday, we finished with the grout. Jess and I have been finishing up little odds and ends up until today with sealing the grout, and re caulking the wall/counter break. We are finally done. You can see some photos below, and of course, another time lapse video of the process. Thanks to everyone who came and helped!

We recently had a round of visitors from Iowa, Indiana, and Ohio.  Needless to say it was a full house!  Jo, Mom, Laurie, Mary, and Katlin all came to the Southwest for some relaxation and sunshine.  We had a blast going to the Desert Museum and dining on Mexican food at Cafe Poca Cosa.  The only bad thing about it was that they eventually had to leave!  Check out photos from their visit here.  Thankfully, we have more visitors to look forward to in the near future.