Happy Birthday

Alisha says: We celebrated Dave's big 3-0 birthday last week. I really don't know where the time has gone. We rang in the thirties with some big ol' bowls of ice cream at Cold Stone.

My mom also came to visit us for a few days. We had a baking day where we made several different kinds of cookies for a church event and then we spent an afternoon checking out some sights downtown. We ate lunch at one of my favorite places, Cafe Poca Cosa, and then went and saw the Mormon Battalion memorial sculpture where one of the figures depicted is an ancestor of ours, Jefferson Hunt, he is the one in the middle with his hand up pointing.

Snow in the Desert

Alisha says: After living in the desert for a few years now a few of my perspectives have changed. I now think that the 60's are chilly and anything below that is just plain cold. Any amount of water in nature is cause for a pause and perhaps even a few "ohhs and ahhs". Places where people have grass and vegetation that doesn't include thorns, spikes, or other prickly things are considered very green and lush and snow is now a novelty. Tucson rarely ever gets any snow so when it does it is kind of a big deal, hence the snow pictures. A few years ago I would have never thought to take pictures of an inch or so of snow but this is the most snow that I have ever seen in Tucson. I don't miss the snow at all so the great thing about Tucson snow is that it falls about once a year, you get to see it for a few hours and then it quickly disappears. This particular snow stayed almost a whole day and made for some spectacular scenery but I was glad when the sun returned. When first moving to Tucson it took me a little while to appreciate the desert but now I love it. I love all of the varieties of cactus. I love my view of the Catalina mountains from my backyard and the city from the front yard. I love the amazing sunsets and sunrises, the summer monsoons, the smell of the desert after a good rain storm, the wildlife, our "pet quails", Mt. Lemmon, the spectacular cycling, and the sun. I am now an Arizona girl and I love it!!!

 

 

Gem and Mineral Show

Alisha says: One of the big events in Tucson each year is the Gem and Mineral Show. Ivan and Venice came to stay with us for a few days and took us down to see the exhibits. We also celebrated Venice's 83rd birthday while they were here.  Each year the show features a different mineral and this year it was fluorite. It was the first time that I had been to the show and there were some really amazing things to see. Fluorite is cool because there are many different colors and it forms in cubes and sometimes the cubes are made up of thousands of smaller cubes.

The previous weekend we made a trip up to Phoenix where Dave did a mountain bike race at White Tanks. He was looking good until a ripped sidewall in his back tire ended his race. At least it didn't happen until the 3rd of 4 laps so he still got in some good racing. The next day I did the McDowell Mountain circuit race and made a late move from a break of six to win the race.

 Gem and Mineral Show

 We celebrated Venice's 83rd Birthday while they were here

 White Tanks mountain bike race

McDowell Mountain Circuit Race

January Recap

Dave says: We had a lot of fun in January but somehow never got around to updating our blog. The month started on a good note as I had my first ethics paper accepted for publication. I have several more that are in progress right now. I am also done with classes and studying for comprehensive exams that will take place at the end of March. On my living room floor there are 13 giant stacks of readings that I have been reviewing. I am estimating that it is about 10,000 pages of materials that I am expected to review for the exam.

We also did some fun hiking in January. We went up Romero canyon with Sam on a cool Saturday morning at the beginning of the month. It had some good scrambles and some not-so-good bushwacks and we finished up in the snow at Romero pools.

We made it up to Phoenix one weekend to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. We also got to help Christine move some heavy dressers upstairs into her new house.

The weather has generally been great for cycling. We have been doing to Tuesday hill ride and Alisha has been putting in some serious miles. She's been doing group rides or training with her friends Lauren and Katharine a lot. We took an afternoon trip to the Pima Air and Space Museum with Lauren, Katharine, and her husband George who knows a ton about the planes there. The collection is pretty impressive and I think the SR71 is the coolest.

Alisha's cross country coaching has been going well in January. She put on her first meet which was a success and there will be another one this Friday. Alisha also won her first bike race of the season last Saturday at the U of A crit. Despite a flat, four-corner course she was able to make a good move at the end and hold off the competition. We have plans for some more events and I may try a bit of mountain bike racing this season as well.

 Dave and Sam figuring out how to navigate around this cold pool of water

Training buddies, Colossal Cave anyone??

 Pima Air and Space Museum Field Trip Gang: Kathryn's Dad Peter, Kathryn, George, Lauren, Alisha, Dave

 Dave and the SR71 Blackbird

 This was the only one they would let me take for a spin

 We even ended up on the moon

 About half of my runners after one of their meets