Gratitude Friday

I have one word for you: V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N! Woo-hoo! I love this time of year! The weather is perfect, so we'll do some hiking. We're flying down to Tucson for a day to see Jim's dad and stepmother. I'm going to do some more baking. The cookies I baked last weekend were consumed by students:) Best of all - I have time to paint! Yes, paint! And I don't mean paint the walls (although they could use it).

I would like to wish all of you bloggers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Thank you for being my friends in the blogging world!

Tucson

Our trip to Tucson turned out a little different from what we had planned. Jim's dad went into the hospital on Wednesday, but we didn't find out until Friday afternoon. (I think he was trying to keep from telling us in hopes that he'd be out before we got there.) He was having irregular heartbeats. We spent the day with him in the hospital. He kept apologizing to us for that. We told him it was great to visit with him no matter where we were. Everything seems ok now. He looks and sounds great. He's moving around pretty quickly, too. I predict that we'll go on one of his famous 4 mile hikes on our next trip to Tucson.

We rented a cute little red convertible in Tucson. Jim's dad got to ride home from the hospital in style - with the top down and the wind blowing through his hair!

Is this Las Vegas or San Diego?

We have had the most fabulous weather for the last three weeks. The nights have been cool (in the sixties) and the days have been perfect (seventies and eighties). The reason I'm commenting on this is that it's usually in the nineties and even a hundred by now. It's been so nice in the mornings when we walk Briscoe and Rosie. I feel like I could walk forever.

We're going to Tucson this weekend. I'll be taking some pictures. I love the desert around Tucson. I love it here, too, but the vegetation in Tucson is different. It'll be fun to get some photos of the cacti there.