Christmas in Arizona

Our last Christmas as Illinoisans was also our first Christmas in Arizona. We packed up the van and drove to Tucson, rented a house with Andrea's brother and his family for the week, met our realtor and looked a few houses, took in a few of the local attractions, and generally enjoyed the warm, sunny weather.

We first had to get out of our driveway, which was being covered in ice by a steady drizzle from a slow moving storm that bumped along our route all the way into Oklahoma. A brief hockey game broke out - I don't know who won.

This is pretty much what New Mexico looks like.

Tucson! First stop was the top of Sentinel Mountain to survey our new domain. Our house is out there somewhere kids! Or not.

The only picture I have of our rented living room also features two other familiar characters; Steve and JoAnne decided to drive down from Idaho to join our adventure.

One of the must-see attractions (especially for a certain teenager in our family) was the Pima Air and Space Museum. It's really very impressive. Plan on spending most of the day.

One of the most impressive of many is the venerable SR-71 Blackbird.

Kenrick slobbered on every plane in the museum

Paxton and Hayden next to some serious landing gear.

We also took a day to go for a hike on the Finger Rock Trail - one of my favorites in the area.

The kids lead the way. Don't get too far off the path, you might get stuck!

Lunch time.

Byron and I took the three older boys further up the trail after lunch. We didn't make it as far as I wanted before we had to turn back, but still managed an impressive climb up out of the valley.

Christmas morning dawned with snow in the mountains! Alas, no snow on the ground in the valley, but I guess that's to be expected. Christmas dinner featured ham and taters, salad and lots of other good stuff. Say cheesy stuffed mushrooms!

After dinner we went for a drive up the mountain. The view from Windy Point was stunning.

A rare and beautiful Snow Bird.

Finally, a trip up Sabino Canyon to enjoy the rarest of sights in the desert: running water!

We had a great trip, got to know Tucson a little better, and are starting to feel a little more connected to our future city. Unfortunately, we didn't find a house, but that's a story for another post.

On our way home we met up with our good buddies Aaron and Jenimae in Albuquerque at Shane and Malita's and traveled most of the way back home together. I miss the sunshine already.

Collarbroke

This post was supposed to be about an epic snowboarding trip to Colorado with Kenrick and Anthony and Aaron and Brad. Sadly, it turned into a story about the consequences of snowboarding badly in Colorado and then having to watch everyone else have an epic trip.

The five of us piled into Aaron's bus about three weeks ago and kept driving until we got to Loveland for a few days of snow and slopes. It was bitter cold, but the lift lines were short and we were in good spirits until I snagged the nose of my board on a rope fence going full tilt down the hill, smacked down on the hard packed groomed run, and broke my collarbone into five pieces. Note to self: stay away from the ropes. Ouch.

The rest of my day looked something like this.

If you look close, you can see that my left shoulder just doesn't look quite right. The break was bad enough that I needed to have surgery, which happened that same evening. One titanium plate, eight little screws, and a healthy dose of Percocet later, I was almost as good as new and Aaron hauled my groggy rear back to the condo to finally get some sleep.

 The next morning was bright and sunny. Everyone felt sorry that I would have to sit in the lodge all day. Briefly. Anthony stole my coat.

Classic Colorado.

The guys spent another day at Loveland and then part of Saturday at A-Basin, so managed to rack up some decent vertical. There were no more major incidents, although we did manage to break a couple of binding straps and Aaron's rig wouldn't start on Saturday morning. And someone kept stinking up the van on the way home...

I had a follow-up exam Tuesday and snapped a picture of the before and after.