Back Home Again

It's always nice to return home from a trip and sleep in your own bed with your own pillow.

Our business trip to Phoenix was delightful. Over the many years we have met so many truly wonderful friends and it is always such a thrill to spend time with them and catch up on their lives. It's hard to imagine that we all once had small children with all the babysitting issues of being away from them. Now, many are grandparents and enjoying another phase of their lives.

We stayed at a delightful resort and I must share a photo of my salad that came with my lunch. Is this the most beautiful (and creative) bowl you have ever seen? It really makes me want to give it a try. I can't imagine what my family would say if I started serving my food like this. It is actually almost too pretty to eat.

We decided to drive the short distance from home to Phoenix to avoid the nightmares that await for one at the airports these days. As usual, it was a delightful trip. The desert scenery would certainly not be considered among my favorites, however, it was really quite pretty this time. Many of the cactus are in bloom and the desert floors are quite green with the rains that they had this year. The drive to Phoenix was in record heat and the return trip was driven in very rare and cool temperatures.

I have always loved heat, but I must admit that temperatures above 110* for the stay there was even a little hotter than I like. It is a dry heat so it does feel different than a humid climate and residents are all quick to point that out to you.

Since returning home it has been exceptionally cool. I doubt that we will get out of the 50s today and we have had very rare thunderstorms. I heard that California also had two small tornadoes. That is very unique for us.

We have plans for a family BBQ here tomorrow and I doubt that it will be a day where we can all enjoy the outside like we generally will do. What a way to kick off the summer! But.....enough about the weather.

The grandchildren finished school for the year this week. It hardly seems possible that another year has gone by already. Remember those days of summer vacations? Three full months away from books and teachers. Those were the days. Can you imagine someone giving us three months off now? What would we do with all of that time?

Things remain busy in the yard. Our delightful orioles are now bringing their babies to the feeders. They are such a skittish bunch of birds but I was able to secretly snap a photo of one of the males. The males are so tropical looking while the females are much more plain. They have just a small blush of the yellow on them.

The boysenberries are really starting to produce this past week and the grandchildren will be thrilled with that news when they come tomorrow. The garden is mostly planted and will be in grand production in a few months.

I know that California is known for its agricultural production such as citrus, berries, wine grapes, cotton, garlic and much more. However, one of things that they also "produce" comes from fields of wind machines. We passed many of these very large fields of the various machines on our way to Phoenix. It makes for a very interesting scenery along the drive. It's the perfect desert crop since it doesn't appear to require any water.

As we honor all of our great veterans this weekend, I wish all of you a very safe and happy Memorial Day.