Road trip with Casey!

Hey everyone!

Well, what a week it has been around here.

The first weekend of December one of Ben's old roomies got married so we had a grand ole reunion and had a fantastic time celebrating Michael and Sarah. Then, Ben got to hold our niece for the first time (!!!!) before flying back to Tucson for work, when he accidentally left his keys in the car..in GA.

 

This past week, I drove back west and was extremely fortunate to have my friend Casey make the drive with me (she obviously was unaware of the misery of driving through west Texas..sorry, Casey)! Casey and I decided to take a different route than the usual in order to do some more exciting things than the usual drive all day. We got to see her family in New Orleans, hang out at the Alamo, eat on the riverwalk, and bark at statues in San Antonio (maybe that was just Jackson..), and then watch a classic Arizona sunset as we finished the drive. We had this grand idea that we would be taking a lot of pictures on the trip, but there is only so much to photograph while sitting in a quickly moving vehicle.

  

Once we made it back to the desert we were welcomed with really cold temperatures, rain (#elnino apparently..) and Ben's brother Dominic! Because our go-to with visitors is to go up the mountain we were at a loss on how to entertain our guests, but after a brief hailstorm sunshine did eventually come and we were able to show Casey and Dominic a proper Tucson vacation! We experienced a bit of downtown, played jenja with new friends, went to a street fair and ate fried oreos, went up the mountain and got a picture with a saguaro, and went further up the mountain and saw snow and an amazing sunset.

(we have since been informed that hail is a pretty frequent thing out here)