Chinglishly In Love: Tucson Fun

We stayed in Tucson for about 4 weeks not including a week in Rocky Point Mexico. I have write another blog about Mexico just because there were way too many pictures. I'm going to list all the fun things we did in Tucson at the best of my memories:

(I've decided that it's too frustrating to add pictures with the texts as I go, so I'm going to write out texts and then overload with pictures. Bare with me...)

1, Went to two pre-interview dinners with Sam without kids. I do enjoy going out with my husband and we probably should do that more often.

2, The boys visited Russell and played with his train set. It's funny that last year they played with Russell's train set and this year, before we even got to Russell's house, Enoch had asked if he could play with Russell's train set. Dang memory!

3, Alison and Russell came to visit us at grandparents' house and make candy with Jayne. The boys got to watch Charlie Brown's Christmas together. Russell was laughing so hard during the movie, it was fun to watch him.

4, Decorating Christmas tree with grandparents. Played with the noisy train set under the Christmas tree.

5, Went up to Phoenix for Rogers' family dinner. Mike and Holly's house is right next to a small lake. We got to see Christmas boat light parade, go boating with Uncle Mike, enjoy great food that everybody brought, watch Peter ran down to the lake in less than 30 seconds from the house (it was a little scary for little kids if I do admit), meet the little babies that were born last year and the love birds that got married last year. A little overwhelming but all good.

5, Leslie and Clay and their kids coming down from Moab. The boys loved playing together. Going on exploring tours in the dessert together. Chasing around the house. So glad to meet Eva, she was tiny and beautiful!

6, I cut my hair! That was something! And I even donated my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. It was a great feeling for sure. Hopefully they'll make something out of my hair to help out little kids in need.

7, We went to Winter Haven to see Christmas lights. We haven't gone for two years so it was nice to go again. Some lights were amazing! We had a great time.

8, Leslie organized a play date at a park. We got to see some friends that we haven't seen for a while. I think it was a great idea!

9, Had Christmas Eve dinner at Alison's. Alison was a great host. The boys loved making their own Christmas trees with icecream cones, green frosting, and all sorts of decorating candy. We did it last year at Alison's house too, but the kids loved it this year any way. Owen, Sam and Peter got to do it for the first time.

10, Christmas morning was filled with lots of presents and yummy food. Jayne made savory casserole and Clay made sweet cinnamon rolls. They were a great combination and so yummy! Then Alison, Brandon and Russell came, we opened more presents. Brandon threw at me some interesting and controversial political questions about China, and then we all moved on to talk more about politics in general. I think that was kind of fun. The boys loved riding scooters together.

11, Christmas dinner. Everybody made delicious food. Of course I made pies: a chocolate cream pie and a coconut cream pie. I think they turned out good.

12, Jumping house! Jayne and Alison planned this jumping house thing for the kids to do. They had a foam pit where the kids can ran and jump in, they also had balls at some jumping areas which the boys loved! Peter was obsessed in shooting basketball hoop. It was cute to watch him.

13, Went to a nice ranch for dinner. We drove to the place where they picked us up by jeeps and sent us to the ranch. We did a little hike up a big rock mountain. It was absolutely beautiful! Dinner was served there, with cookies and smores for dessert, completed with a visit from a snake and a tarantula. Enoch and Michael were scared of the tarantula but touched the snakes bravely. I let the guy put the tarantula on my neck. I totally felt electricity going down my neck when the little thing touched my skin... It was sad that Russell threw up on the way there so Alison and Brandon had to go back home.

14, My birthday. Birthday dinner was good and so was the cake Jayne made. More presents to open! Sam stayed up all night puking and was super sick all day so we were on a low key. Oh well, that's life.

15, Due to the storm and snow in Utah we stayed a couple extra days down in Tucson. We made it to our friends' pre-new year party which was awesome. I still remember how delicious their rolls were, man those were the best rolls I've had so far! I should totally ask my friend for recipe! And these friends were the friends we invited to Mexico beach which I will talk about in my next post. We just love them and their kids!

16, Went for a hike in Sabino Canyon with Sam's friends Jared and Karl. They were easy to talk to, fun to hang out and they entertained our boys really well. We had a great time!