Greetings and happy holidays to all!
2024 was another busy year for us, with some travel, more than a few challenges, and, sadly, two losses in the family.
It began with a NY’s Day hike with friends to a remote cliff house in Redfield Canyon in the Galiuro Mountains that was built in the 1930s. It’s a beautiful riparian location and remarkable to consider the effort required to build in such a remote and inaccessible area.
Mid-January we celebrated Kathleen’s 70th birthday with a short trip to Patagonia, AZ. Kathleen swam with friends at Patagonia Lake State Park (water temp 48F!), and the next day we hiked and did some trail maintenance on Kathleen’s section of the Arizona Trail. Kathleen has been a volunteer with the Arizona Trail Association since 2020, and this year started a new position as Regional Steward of Passages 4-6 in the Santa Rita Foothills, a 2 hour drive south of Tucson. (More info and photos are in separate posts.)
Our two family losses were heart-breaking. Kathleen’s sister-in-law, Nikki, lost her 3-year battle with lung cancer on March 28. We traveled to Akron, OH for her funeral service at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on April 2, and spent several days with Kathleen’s brother, Dr. John Bober, her nephew Stephen, and her niece Christina and husband Stephen Pirovolos. Nikki was loved and admired by family, friends and her community for her devotion to others and her loving, positive spirit. Memory Eternal.
Kathleen’s aunt, Beret Betty Bober passed away on August 2, 2024 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada at the age of 92. Betty and her husband Henry (Kathleen’s father’s brother), raised nine wonderful children. They and their children, who all live in Canada, gave much love and comfort to Betty throughout her life.
Our major trip of the year was in September – two weeks to the central California coast. We stayed in the San Luis Obispo, Thousand Oaks, and Santa Cruz areas. Talk about hot! Our first few days in Thousands Oaks the temperatures set record highs of 107F – hotter than Tucson! Fortunately Santa Cruz was 30 degrees cooler on average, as Kathleen completed her first 70.3 Ironman there. (More info and photos from the trip and the race are in a separate post.)
Alastair finally decided the stress and headaches from both tenants and rental management companies were not worth it and, after much refurbishment, sold his rental property. He’s actively resisting doing the calculation of whether the whole ownership experience was better than just putting the same money into a low-cost index fund…
Alastair continued in the same role at Roche Diagnostics throughout 2024, where his research team of engineers and scientists continues to develop new technologies for cancer diagnosis. Much of the work is generating the foundational intellectual property for products that will impact pathology labs and cancer patients in more than 5 years. It was a banner year for the team, with multiple patent filings, internal awards and new technologies developed.
Kathleen is in her 8th year working part-time work at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Clinical and Professional Skills Center. Her role is as a Standardized Patient. SPs are trained in physical exam and interview techniques so they can portray specific situations and illnesses to students of the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, Veterinary School and other departments. Very rewarding work!
Kathleen also spends time as a volunteer with Tucson’s Watershed Management Group. Her primary role with WMG is as a Flow365 Monitor, tracking the status of flow in the Cañada del Oro watershed channel. The CDO collects watershed from the western face of the Santa Catalina Mountains and flows southward through Oro Valley, where we live. Several times a year, this typically dry wash, and others in our area, can transform into raging rivers. It’s exciting to see!
Among our joint hobbies and fun, we continue to garden, frequent our local craft breweries for both beer and yoga, orienteer, and “collaborate” on our home improvement projects. None always goes according to plan, but it gets us doing stuff together (often working out our left/right engineer/artist communication challenges! 😂). MVP of our garden this year was our shrub-sized lime tree producing well over 100 limes, with eggplant a close second. It wasn’t all positive, with our kumquat and pomegranate trees struggling and many, many seedlings eaten by our persistent desert critters. We also continue to eat mostly plants, steadily improving our repertoire of plant-based dishes and places to eat. Our top discovery of the year is Houlden’s Rise Above, an all-vegan bakery on the east side of Tucson, producing classic patisserie/viennoiserie of the highest standard!
Our major home improvement project was redoing the living room — new furniture and lighting, repainting, and replacing the tile around the beehive fireplace (long overdue!). Kathleen has long been a fan of figuring out how to do something by jumping in feet first, so the first step was knocking off the old tile, which was surprisingly the easy part. Using irregularly shaped slate tile was a design challenge, but the two of us managed to work it out together. Alastair wisely lets Kathleen call the shots in these situations (but…Alastair rules in the kitchen!).
Alastair’s love for video games continues. In multiplayer, the ambitious mess that is Star Citizen provided both infuriating and delightful experiences of interstellar exploration, combat and getting stuck in elevators. For solo play, the base-building of Oxygen Not Included and AAA storytelling of Baldur’s Gate 3 were both memorable. On the board game front, we finished the “legacy” style game of Mechs v Minions with a very satisfying campaign win.
We continue to live year-round in the Sonoran Desert, where human-driven climate change is driving ever-hotter Summers. Many new Tucson temperature records were set this year, including most days (112) over 100°F/38°C and a previously unheard of streak of 13 consecutive days in October over 100°F!
We still both love the harsh beauty of the desert and the creatures we share our property with – coyote, bobcat, deer, javelina, snakes, hawks and others (after all, they were here first). Here are some of our favorite images from the past year.
With Alastair off from work the last 2 weeks of the year, we’re enjoying relaxing at home, spending some time outdoors, getting together with friends, and making plans for next year’s adventures. We hope you are well and enjoying the holidays.
With best wishes for a happy & healthy 2025!
Alastair & Kathleen
(No, we’re not mentioning the election.)