This year (or I suppose it is this past year at this point) Scott and I made the long drive to Tucson for Christmas to spend the week with some of his family. His sister, brother-in-law, and two nephews live there, and his parents flew in from Kansas as well.

Scott and I have spent a decent amount of time in the Catalina mountains, and we were both really looking forward to getting out to climb quite a bit while there over Christmas. On one of our first days in Tucson, we went out exploring with Scott's nephew and their two Australian Shepherds to scope out some climbs for the next few days. They had a fairly wet fall in Tuscson, so things looked much greener than the other times I have been there. There was also water running down the entire wash area, which I had not experienced there before. The water made everything much more lush and beautiful, and the dogs loved having the water to cool off in.