It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Two weeks ago in an obscenely early holiday display, we set up and decorated our first-ever Tucson Christmas Tree. We were "real tree purists" in Pittsburgh but decided it wasn't worth the ridiculously short life-span (not to mention messy clean up) in dry Arizona. Not willing to let another treeless year go by, we decided to bite the bullet and go with the fake tree. We had lots of fun decorating and even Charlie helped!

Beachy Thanksgiving

Since our last post, it's been a whirlwind of fun around the Hoffman House.

Lovely Natalie arrived into Tucson Wednesday evening after a day of hopscotching across the country from New York. We picked her up from the airport and drove directly to San Diego for Thanksgiving at the Beach! She was a good sport about adding 6 hours of driving time onto her already long day of travel.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel in the Gaslamp District that we would highly recommend checking out if you're ever in the area (Sofia Hotel). Thursday morning we watched a little of the Macy's Parade (we couldn't bear to buck tradition completely!) before heading out to our favorite bakery with sidewalk seating for brunch and coffee (Bread & Cie). After life-changing sandwiches of brie, honey and bacon and lots of people watching we headed to Balboa park for an afternoon of exploring, relaxing, and stopping to smell the roses.

Balboa Park

Sunset on Coronado Island was next on the agenda. We enjoyed cocktails on the patio while watching the sun set over the Pacific. B-e-a-utiful! During our walk through the town of Coronado we stumbled upon the Rhino Cafe (which looked like it was part of a movie scene) advertising a Thanksgiving Special. We made reservations and returned to a fabulous traditional feast for Natalie and Ben and pasta for Kara.

The highlight of Day 2 in San Diego was La Jolla. We watched seals and sea lions sunbathing along the coast. I think even Ben would agree this is better than watching football!
Back in Tucson, we packed in the activities before Natalie's midnight departure on Sunday. We went for a long, fun, freezing hike on Mt. Lemmon (it even snowed!) during which Charlie showed off his athletic abilities.






It was sad to have the fun end with Natalie's red-eye departure, but Christmas is only 4 weeks away!

Here are the rest of the photos from Natalie's visit. Enjoy!

San Diego Pictures

Arizona Football

So now that we started this little blog, I (Ben) feel compelled to write my first entry, and it is of course about sports. For those of you that don't know, Arizona played Oregon (the #2 team in the country) on Thursday night and pulled off the upset, 34-24. I had the pleasure of attending the game (sat at the 40 yd. line, back row of student section), but unfortunately forgot to take my camera. It was a great atmosphere, and probably the most exciting game I've been to. So, those of us in Tucson finally have something to cheer about with regard to UA football. Go Cats!

P.S. - Be sure to check out at least the last 30 seconds of the video below. I didn't rush the field, but sure enjoyed the view...

Welcome to our little blog. We thought this would be a fun way to keep our family and friends up to date on our adventures in the Wild West. You can expect to see a lot of pictures (we’ll try to limit the ones of just Charlie) and updates on the happenings of the Hoffmans. For now you can check out our favorite pictures, online obsessions, books we are reading, and of course, the cutest puppy on the planet. Enjoy!