Christmas Time with the Huesgens

Family is what it's all about, and we spent some time with the Huesgens this year. After the girls opened gifts, the girls helped to put the lunch together, peeling eggs, making the filling, and finally squeezing the middles into the deviled eggs for our Christmas feast. We dined on Honey-Baked Ham, potato salad, fruit salad, pineapple spears, deviled eggs, and rolls from Golden Corral. To top it off, we brought out the Walters family champagne flutes and toasted with Martinelli's (our own version of champagne!). Smiles graced everyone's faces and our bellies were pretty happy, too. Jessie and the girls made some cookies for dessert that topped things off perfectly. Giggles, hugs, smiles, laughter, jokes, stories, and the food coma that goes along with every good holiday -- a real winner!

Creativity Abounds!

Our Secret Santas outdid themselves this year. Both sides of the family had some remarkable presentations and everyone seems to have had a good time. Matt found Gator pool float and stuffed the inner airway with shredded paper, hiding a gift card inside since the things on Erick's list wouldn't fit inside. Erynn's stuffed duck on a turkey tray, covered in bacon, with the chick at the rear end was a priceless visual for using the Bone Suckin' Seasoning! Erick had so much fun and I was thoroughly entertained.

Here are a couple of photos from Christmas; I'll try to put together a Picasa album but it's been a long time...we'll see! Hope you all had as blessed a day as we did.

The Best Christmas Eve Ever!

Christmas Eve was an incredible day for us. We hopped on the Spyder bright and early in upper 40-degree temps and headed off to the southwest. Our first stop was Tombstone. Things were pretty quiet down there but the town had placed Christmas trees at every intersection on the main drag and closed the street for an gunfight scheduled later in the day. Erick gets the credit for the awesome photos of the various businesses in the Old West town.

Our next stop was the old mining town of Bisbee. We didn't spend a great deal of time there other than a delicious lunch at the Screaming Banshee, a former gas station turned pizzeria with a fascinating interior and two real personalities working there! Both guys were talkative and congenial, and we watched them create our gourmet appetizer (No Besos Para Ti -- a roasted clove of garlic with bruschetta) presented in true gourmet style and our thin-crusted Italian sausage, mushrooms, grilled onion and white cheese pizza that cooked in the wood-burning, open-faced oven. A real find as far as we were concerned and a fun place to spend our warm-up period over lunch!

After lunch, we were back on the bike and off to Sonoita via Sierra Vista. The scenery was breathtaking: open golden-colored, rolling hills with cattle farms sprinkled here and there. We hit our usual stopping place in Sonoita and after having a warm drink to keep the heat in our bodies we headed back to Tucson. This part of the trip is fun on the bike with lots of curves and hills and twists and turns. Made it safely back to Tucson and beat the 5 o'clock traffic to boot.

A full day on the Spyder with my Sweetie. Life can't get any better than this! So much better than the separation of last year. Thanks be to God that he's home safe and sound this year.

A Hiking We Will Go, A Hiking We Will Go!

Check out our awesome nieces who hiked 5.7 miles with Aunt Char today on the Sweetwater Trailhead! Uncle Erick came along and took some incredible photos (as you can see), and we discovered several unique cacti along the way. The girls spent the day at our house playing games, watching The Santa Claus, and having lunch and dinner with us. What a blast! Just what we needed to boost the Christmas spirit around here!