Pictures from my phone

As you know, we are in the middle of an international move. I say we are in the middle, because even though we aren't moving until the end of July, there has been paperwork and organizational details and all sorts of things to do since we made the decision in January. Or even before that.

What do you do in the middle of an international move?

Me, I agree to give a talk at a whirlwind weekend conference in Philadelphia.

And then I fly back to the Mountain West, but not to go home. Instead, I immediately carpool to a conference I am organizing in the desert.

The conference was great, by the way, with lots of great talks. And no, they weren't really held at the location shown above. They were in Moab, Utah, which is very close by, however. After the talks, we were close enough to take a few hikes.

The deserts out here in the western United States are gorgeous places to visit. Kind of bleak places to live, though.

The road in this picture below, I read on a nearby sign, was improved in the 1950s to facilitate uranium mining.

Definitely gorgeous, but not really somewhere you want to live long term. You know? Or maybe that's just me.

When the conference was over, my dear sweet parents came back from Eastern Europe where they had been living for the past 20 months. This is my mom, jet-lagged, hanging out with some other family members just after her return from the airport.

And my dad.

The next weekend, we drove to Boise because my brother was getting married there.

And while we were standing on the grounds of that lovely facility above, we got a call from our realtor that someone had made an offer on our house, and we had until 5pm to fill out paperwork. Yup. While in Boise. At the wedding.

But the hotel had internet, so we skipped out between photos and reception and drove back to sit in the dark hotel room and read over contracts and initial and sign and call the realtor and whine a little. And now our house is under contract.

And we made it back in time to help set up for the reception with this guy, my cute nephew in his fancy seer-sucker suit.

Hmm.... The picture from the phone doesn't really do that one justice.

On the drive back from Boise we stopped here:

Shoshone falls outside of Twin Falls, Idaho. The stop was greeted by happiness and joy by all the 11-year-olds in our car.

But finally, finally, we made it back home.

That last picture isn't really home. It's a picnic up in the canyon near our house with some people I know and love. But it is much closer to home than any of the other pictures in this post, from my phone.

I like having pictures on my phone. It helps me remember where I spent the whole month of May!

Ok. Back to the whole moving thing now.