Ring in the New Year (and let the old one DIAF)

Since it's been nearly a month since our last update, I figured it's time to get up with the Times, New Roman.

Alison and I spent our Christmas in the Snorin Sonoran Desert. Well, actually, this time, it wasn't so boring. There's something about bringing in a new person to an area that gives you an excuse to be a tourist in your own home town.

We kicked this sucker off with a traditional trip through Winterhaven, The Premier Tucson Christmas Lights Experience. Seriously, it seems to be getting more popular every year. The standbys were there: karaoke, the big-legged Santa (you just have to be there), the endless streams of horse-drawn carriages, the thinly-veiled political statements, and the light shows coordinated to 120 dB MIDIs. A nice way to spend part of Christmas Eve.

I'm so excited to be here my eyes are devilish

Even the sacred holiday of Christmas isn't exempt from the holier pasttimes

We had our usual singings and storytellings that evening. We then opened ALL THE PRESENTS. I got probably the most dangerous device I've had yet--a Kindle Paperweight Paperwhite. I ended up spending 40% of my time on it, reading 2.5 books over the 8-9 days HP allowed me to be away from work. For those of you who are curious, the first book was A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II. It says it all right there on the tin, folks, it's very good. The second book was the first Hungry Games book (I know it's old). The third is Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I'll be chewing on that one for a while. Somehow I managed to see the Miserable movie during these readings and saw the most people crying in a room outside of sacrament meeting.

I somehow convinced the kids to come with us to visit the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley. I had known for some time that there used to be missile sites scattered around Tucson, but I never really knew much about them. The museum is quite interesting if you're in the area.

Missiles are serious business. Except to Alison.

They take you down into the secured silo, which is isolated from the surrounding earth by large springs. Blast doors are purported to withstand over 200 PSI overpressure, which means that the silo could pretty much take a direct hit from a Soviet nuke and still be running enough to make sure the Commies get some too. They also tell you how the world could have ended.

What the lady doesn't know is that she could doom us all from where she sat

Namely, they tell you how the nuke would have been fired.

The last Titan

The missile rocket motor was good enough to have been used by NASA as recently as the early 2000s.

Apropos of nothing: beagles!

The whole family (including the animals) made the trek to Windy Point on Mt. Lemmon.

Yes, it gets cold, even in Tucson

It Rocks

We made a brief visit of Tohono Chul Park. It's really close to the Reese home, but it wasn't that impressive. A lot of desert plants arranged in a garden, essentially.

Eric was so bored he yawned sideways

This is Tucson, if you ever wanted a summary picture

And no visit to Tucson is complete without a trip to the Sonoran Desert Museum. We happened to pick the coldest day to visit. Still, we managed to seem some cool things like a birds of prey demonstration and Tucsonics in parkas.

The owl contemplates its existence

The kids are fascinated by what lies beneath the plaque

WINTER IS COMING

Where does he keep that tongue?

"Oh goodie, more tourists"

My attempt at photography...apparently I need to do stuff with my corneal stop focus cone before I'm "good"

The kids convinced me to go see a Royal Teeth concert in Scottsdale. I hadn't heard of them before, but they seemed pleased that I came anyways.

How they celebrated their victory in getting me there

Alison just went with the flow...weird inlaws

COME CLOSER TO THE SPEAKER YOU CAN'T HEAR US

Here Eric finally learned the name of his band's singer

My take on the concert

In exchange, I got to request that we go to the Boneyard. I hadn't been there in several years.

Pics so it happened

Dad likes the F4

Of course, who doesn't like the Tomcat?

The DOOM TRUCK of the air, the Thunderbolt II

If a Warthog shoots you with this gun, you will not be driving today

Guess the Titan Missile Museum went to his head

This B24J was gifted back from the Indian Air Force

And of course, the iconic Flying Fortress

As you can see, there was more than we could get to. The Boneyard is where the Air Force goes for spare parts.

We rang in the new year, with families old and new.

Mom and Dad

And our grainy outdoor photo

I'd tell a little more about how we started to spend all of our gifts, but that might be enough for another post...

Just some pine...

Also, Alison got a full-time teaching job at Caney Creek High School shortly after we returned home. Guess we're going to be that much busier from here on out!