Hit The Ground Running- Part 1

Alisha says: So there was no easing into the new year, it felt like we hit the ground running and now it's almost February. My pro cycling friend Lauren has been staying with us to do some training in the great Tucson weather so I have been having fun getting out a lot and enjoying my last winter here of riding in the sunny warm desert :(.

Dave has been substituting for the early morning seminary class for about two months now. It is a bit hard to get up early but he is a great teacher and gives some really good lessons. They are studying the Book of Mormon this year. We have a small group of 10 students that come regularly. They are fun kids and Dave has fun thinking of different challenges for them to do while learning scripture mastery. We have had some good games that include trash can basketball.

Speaking of basketball... The University of Arizona is currently undefeated (21-0) and ranked as the number 1 team in the nation!! Lauren and I were treated to get to go to a game with Kathryn, George, and Peter (Kathryn's Dad) where the U of A crushed in state rival Arizona State. Go Wildcats!!

A weekend adventure included traveling to Phoenix and going on a nice day hike with Tom in the Superstitions. This hike included a little bit of everything, trail, walking up a dry stream bed, scrambling, and bush whacking while trying to avoid all the cactus. We really enjoyed a beautiful day hiking around.

The next day of our weekend to Phoenix we met the youth from our ward (Dave is in the Young Men's presidency) at the Mesa Temple to do some baptisms.

After that and some pizza for lunch we went through the open house of the newly completed Gilbert Temple. It is really beautiful both inside and out.

We are moving to...

...Seattle, Washington

Dave says: It's official. After 4 years of undergraduate course work, 3 years in law school, and another 4 spent working on a Ph.D. the end of my formal education is finally in sight as I have recently accepted a position as a professor at the University of Washington in the Foster School of Business.

It was a busy fall with trips to six states in six weeks. The job market is grueling but having this fabulous opportunity at the University of Washington makes it all worth it. UW is a good fit for my research interests related to ethics and I will also get to teach in this area. The position is for next fall and so we will be staying in Tucson through the spring as I finish my dissertation and teach a course related to leadership.

No doubt there will be a transition going from the desert to the evergreen state. However, we were in Seattle this summer and had a great time with all the outdoor recreation. Alisha has been tremendously supportive throughout this whole process and we are excited for this next stage of our lives.

O Christmas Tree

Alisha says: What a great Christmas we had this year, it was wonderful! We kicked things off by traveling with Dave's family to the Grand Canyon. Nine of us hiked down the Bright Angel trail  for a two night stay in a cabin at Phantom Ranch. The most impressive hiker award goes to my six year old niece Kaylee, who hiked the entire 17 mile round trip. The only time she cried was when we were eating dinner in the canteen and the only option for dinner was the stew, apparently she hates stew. Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed the hot stew dinner after a long day of hiking. I absolutely love the beauty of the canyon and enjoyed spending a few days there. We hiked up the Kiabab trail on Christmas Eve.

The hikers: Parker, Dave, Anne, Reena (Daniel's girlfriend), Kaylee, Daniel, Bailey (Katie's friend), Katie.

Christmas day was spent in Phoenix where everyone enjoyed opening gifts and the awesome sunny weather.

The day after Christmas, Tom took Dave and I hiking in the Superstitions. We did a fun loop that included some route finding. The scenery was beautiful and I enjoyed the uphills while Tom enjoyed the downhills. He hikes so fast going downhill that I was getting dropped. The last thing we did before heading back to Tucson was a stop at the Mesa Temple to check out the light display.

Thanksgiving

Dave says: October and November were both busy months for me. I traveled to several universities for campus visits and also worked on my dissertation. I finished my interviews just before Thanksgiving and was excited for a break. The original plan was to go to Moab like we did last year when we enjoyed sunny weather in the 60s. This year, the weather grew considerably worse right at the time of our trip. Our two-wheel drive vehicle barely made it through falling snow into Monticello and when we arrived at Moab there was several inches of snow on the ground. We changed the plan and headed over to St. George instead where they had been receiving rain but no snow. 

While Alisha spent some family time in Cedar City, Aleks and I hit some of the best mtb trails in the area for a couple of days. We started with Church Rocks and Zen on day 1. Day 2 was Barrel Roll along with some new cool trails in the area like Sidewinder and Suicidal Tendencies (ya, there is some exposure on this one) in the morning and Guacamole in the afternoon. We spent all of Day 3 at Gooseberry Mesa for some classic slickrock riding until we were absolutely exhausted. My Pivot trail bike excelled on all this terrain and it was a blast. I even got Alisha out for a loop on the Jem trail.

For Thanksgiving, most of Alisha's family came into town in Cedar City and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them. The kids have a lot of energy and are fun to play with. Every time we see them they seem to have grown quite a bit. After Thanksgiving, we stopped to see my family in Phoenix and had Thanksgiving part 2. We stayed with my grandparents which is always enjoyable and watched Arizona beat Duke. We hung out at Christine's and played with her kids. We also saw my parents and Daniel and Katie as well. So despite some questionable weather at the beginning, it ultimately turned out to be a great Thanksgiving break.

A Week of Fall

Alisha says: As much as I love Arizona there really isn't a big change in the foliage from season to season and they all kind of blend together. I was able to travel to spend some time in Utah visiting family and enjoying the beautiful fall colors.

Almost everyone in my family (minus Richard, Brittany, & Arley) were able to get together for a trip to the pumpkin patch. I wish I would have had a scale to weigh all of the pumpkins and squash that we gathered because it was a lot! It would have been interesting to see how much we paid per pound because they only charged us $40. I think Mandy had the biggest item, a banana squash that I'm sure weighed more than her two year old does.

After the pumpkin patch outing I went with Amber and Devin to Lake Powell to watch them run the Lake Powell Half Marathon. I was so proud of these two, they have really put a lot of effort into getting ready for this.

My last adventure included a really fun trip to Zion with my childhood friend Shannon. It was so beautiful! We busted a move up Angels Landing and then when we were done with that we decided that rather than take the shuttle back to the car we would just run. We enjoyed a magnificent sunset while running down the canyon and got back to the car just as it was getting dark.

Not so Fun

Alisha says: To follow up Dave’s latest post about what we’ve been up to since returning from our great summer adventure I’ll add my own post. I’ve debated writing this but decided to because I don’t think anyone reads our blog anymore and because we just always blog about the fun things we do and let’s face it, sometimes you get to do some not very much fun stuff in life also. So shortly after returning from our trip we discovered that I was pregnant! Yay, we were both super excited and I began trying to learn everything I could. At 11 weeks I finally got to go to my first doctor’s appointment. While I entered the appointment filled with much anticipation on seeing the heartbeat, that excitement quickly turned to feelings of sadness as we learned that there was no heartbeat and development had stopped a few weeks earlier. The doctor had me wait a week to see if anything would happened and then come back. At the next visit I was presented with the choice of having a d&c or using medication. I decided on the medication and was very thankful that my mom was able to come and spend a few days with me as this was a very emotional and trying time.  

We took my mom up Mt. Lemmon for a nice walk while she was here.

Back to real life

Dave says: Since the big adventure, the blog has been neglected. The last two months have been a busy time as I am on the job market applying for faculty positions. Here's the brief highlights of the last few weeks.

Even though we didn't miss the heat while we were traveling for the summer, we did miss sitting out front in the evenings and enjoying some gorgeous sunsets and panoramas.

We drove up Mt. Lemmon with Sam in his sweet new Mustang and did a hike from the very top.

The hike had some great views. This one is from the fire lookout.

We also did the Wilderness of Rocks trail on the hike which has some cool rock formations.

We made it up to Phoenix for my grandparents' 60th anniversary. I built a mega-fort with Christine's kids. As a bonus, they could even watch TV in the fort.

We did a nice scramble up Soldier Canyon which is the first switchback of Mt. Lemmon. The route ultimately comes out at Prison Camp. As you can see, there were some great boulders to scramble around on.

Can you see the curled up rattlesnake? I was climbing up this wash and reached around this rock putting my hand only a few inches from it. When I looked up, I was pretty scared. Fortunately, he was just sunning himself and didn't hardly seem to notice.

This was the big boulder jam on the hike that we climbed around. After the hike, we went out for some tasty custard at Culvers which has been a recent favorite of ours.

I also taught seminary for the first three weeks of the school year. It was a fun time however since I didn't take any pictures of the class, the closest thing that I have is a delicious tray of cinnamon rolls that Alisha made for the class. Right now, things are very busy with my PhD program as I am going on the job market a year early and trying to do a 5 year program in only 4 years. It is an exciting time but it can definitely make things a bit crazy at times. More updates on this in the future...