Mission San Xavier

After the fam and I checked out El Nacimiento, we headed to Mission San Xavier Del Bac. It is located on the Tohono O'odham reservation near Tucson, and was built between 1783 and 1797. It's a really beautiful building.

It is unknown why one of the towers was never completed.

The mission is currently undergoing a restoration process. You can clearly tell which side of the exterior has been restored and which hasn't yet.

I love this nativity scene.

Although I had been to the mission before, I had never noticed that the door handles were a snake and a mouse.

Exterior door handle

Some of the local Native Americans cook and serve food underneath these shelters in front of the mission. Although the weather looks really nice, it was unbelieveably windy on the day we were there. We bought some frybread with cheese on top, and the wind would've blown the cheese right off if we hadn't folded our plates in half.

El Nacimiento

I spent Christmas vacation in Arizona with my parents. One of the things we did was take a trip to downtown Tucson to see El Nacimiento.

Nacimientos are traditional Mexican nativity scenes that are usually displayed in families' homes. This particular nacimiento is huge. It was started 32 years ago by a woman as a way to honor her mother's memory after she passed away. She used to make changes to it every year, but this year after some cleaning and spiffing up it is being installed permanently. There is an article here that gives a bit of background on the artist and the project.

I could've spent an hour looking at all of the intricacies of this display.

Here is the devil playing a fiddle. Just like Charlie Daniels.

You can get an idea of the size here.

Season's Greetings

Happy Holidays! I hope you have a wonderful holiday no matter what holiday you celebrate.

I actually put up my Christmas tree this year for the first time in 3 years. I rather enjoyed the atmosphere it brought to my living room.

A lot of these ornaments are ones that my grandmother bought for me. She would buy me one every year and put it on her tree until I had a tree of my own to hang them on.

Kaboom!

It had been a really long time since I had seen fireworks in person, so I decided to motivate myself to go see the local fireworks show in honor of the Fourth of July last night. I thought it would be a good chance to try out my new lens too. It was fun watching and shooting, but unfortunately today I have really been feeling the effects of spending an hour or so in the middle of a grassy field. My allergies have been going crazy, and I'm still sniffling. No pain no gain, I guess.

I know there are too many photos here, but I had a hard time editing them down. Feel free to skim through them quickly. If you want to view any of them larger click on the image.

Here's the requisite after-show traffic. I like that you can see the fireworks from the town to the south in the distance.