We're Home!

:o)

Hello, dear friends.

♥

Carrie and I are home safe and sound and exhausted from our trip to England. We arrived home Saturday evening and Doug was waiting for us in the International terminal at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. We loaded our bags into the car and headed straight to Macayo's for some Arizona Mexican food that Carrie and I had been craving. We were both so tired, running on pure adrenaline, sad that our trip was over, happy to be home, and very glad to see Doug.

Perhaps you were expecting to see a post containing photos from our trip, and you can bet there will be plenty of those in the future of this little blog, but these photos that I snapped yesterday afternoon of our yard in full spring-time-bloom are going up today instead.

Carrie and I both took a ton of photos last week, on four different sources. We each had a point-and-shoot camera, and our cell phones. I took just under 1,000 shots, and I'm not sure what Carrie's final count was. Once I get my hands on the photos she took, and we can combine them and sort through them, I will be posting a whole bunch for you to see.

Oh, friends, we had so much fun! The weather was super cold {we saw falling snow every day but one} so that was a bit of a shock to our systems. {And I will admit to whining about the cold temps way more than Carrie did.} But no amount of cold weather and snow and gray skies could put a damper on our spirits! We were so thrilled to be in England {and one day in France}, so excited to see the sights we'd been dreaming of, so honored to meet up with dear blog friends we've known online for years, and so happy to be spending the time together - we hardly even noticed the weather. ;o)

And after 10 days of being bundled up, wearing a heavy black coat that hadn't been out of our closet in years, gloves, scarves, and ear-muffs, I woke up yesterday morning and looked out our kitchen window to see all these lovely poppies in bloom. I hadn't picked up my big-girl-camera in a week and a half {I packed it but never took it out of my suitcase. Yes, Carrie, you were right.} so I went out and soaked up a little sunshine and took stock of how my garden grew in my absence.

Our Lucky Dog taught Carrie's dog, Marcus, the fine art of digging {no photos of the holes...} but these little flimsy fences still did the trick in keeping them out of my little garden area.

Tomato plants are looking good, and our blood orange trees are covered in luscious smelling blossoms. And bees.

I love this time of year, and so do snapdragons.

And here's a little peek at this year's crop of sunflowers...



And there you have my random "We're home!" post and my way of jumping back into blogging. As I move through the process of recovering from our trip {jet lag is an interesting thing to process} you can expect more random posts along the way. But, what else would you expect from PaperTurtle anyway - right?

♥

PS: Tune in tomorrow for the first installment of The Strawberry Project.