Dec/Jan in AZ & Friends

December flew by as we worked our two jobs each.  As I continued to look for furniture, I found a couple small storage tables/cabinets for the kitchen and bedrooms and an armoire for our bedroom.  Gary trimmed the trees back in the yard before they dropped all their leaves and put the weed control down.

Tree trimming

We talked about getting an artificial Christmas tree for the house, but decided to wait and get one on the clearance sales.  I put our little motorhome Christmas tree up on the wall and found other decorations to add to make our home festive for the holidays.  We visited friends and family when we had time and enjoyed entertaining a few times at our house.
We both worked Christmas Eve, but then went over to Wally & Jan's for supper.  Their son Dustin and his daughter Emme were visiting for the holiday.  Christmas Day we joined the Saddlebrooke group at the Komar's.  We enjoyed visiting with our family via Facetime when they were all together.

Christmas decor (and college football)

January slowed down a little for us.  I continued to work at World Market, just on Wednesday mornings and had that day off from Miraval.  My Miraval schedule settled down to about four days a week, but were never the same each week.  Gary worked about 28 hours a week with different time schedules on the days he worked.  January 7 we sat and watched snow fall, covering the ground for that day, gone the next.

Mid January we had our first overnight guests!  Dear friends Lyn & Diane stopped on their way from Sioux Falls to their winter spot in San Diego.  The first day Gary had to work, so I went with them to visit the Desert Museum.  The museum is one of the top sights visited in Arizona.  It is a great place to learn about the animals, night creatures and plants of the Sonoran Desert.  Finishing there, we met Gary at the Thunder Canyon Brewery for supper.  We took them on a desert hike on the Honey Bee trail, drove by the mines near San Manuel and stopped to explore the Ore House pub in historic Oracle.  We spent our evenings and mornings sitting on our deck and had a chance to have them meet all of our friends at the Junction.

At the Ore House with Lyn & Diane

Largest saguaro on the trail

Desert trail view

Late January another visitor from the North!  Jean Klein called and said she wanted to get away from the cold and came down to visit.  She enjoyed the warm weather and we took her out on a hike and showed her the area.  She and I went and explored the Tucson Botanical Gardens where they have beautiful desert flowers, bushes and cactus types from all over the world.  We picked Gary up from work and had a bite to eat and refreshments at the San Carlos Grill.  One day we ran errands, had lunch at the brewery and stopped at some interesting shops.

Beauty at the Botanical Gardens

Jean and the pink mountains

Happy Hour with friends

We really enjoy having our house, because now we do have room for guests to stay with us.  Our home is set up so the guest room and bathroom are at one end of the house and our room and bath are at the other.  It was great to see friends more than once a year as it had been with our travels.