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It's spring in our backyard.

I love spring. And I love our backyard.

The peach & pear blossoms are in full swing.

Soon to be followed by all the orange blossoms.

My favorite !

Right now our oranges are ripe & there's oodles of them......since we have 9 mature navel trees.

Please feel free to stop by if you want some. We have way more than we could ever eat or juice.

But it makes me so happy to look out our windows to see our trees polka-dotted with oranges.

They are super-yum.

It's raining right now as I type this, and I love it! Like most Arizonans, we all love it when it rains, because it's such a treat.

It doesn't happen that often.

Something about gray skies & raindrops makes me want to bake bread.....or brownies.

That's why Brian & I were so excited to go to Seattle for Dental School. It rains like 95 % of the time! It sounded absolutely dreamy. The complete opposite of Arizona!

And it was. For the first year or two......

I made alot of soup & bread in our tiny apartment's kitchen.

And then it got old.

Really old.

We craved the sunshine.

Brian would practically have a panic attack when a sunny day would come along when he was stuck inside at school!

We had Marlee & one of her first words was 'wet', and the very first phrase she learned to say was 'its' cold out there'. We spent alot of time at indoor playgrounds like the mall & McDonalds.

It was raining the day we packed up our U-Haul & left for our next adventure in Los Angeles. So happy to be leaving the miserable rain behind us.

Then our first year in California ended up being an El Nino year & L.A. got more rain than Seattle! Go figure.

So that was a long time ago & we're desert people again......and loving the rain again.

Bring it on!


The Stapley Talent Show

We were a little surprised when Mars told us she & her friend were going to sing & play the guitar in the talent show.

Because she doesn't know how to play the guitar.

She just got it for Christmas & hasn't had any lessons!

They practiced mostly at her friend's house, so I had no idea what they were going to sound like.

We were a little worried, I must admit.

So we go to the Talent Show and......

they

were

AWESOME !

I really believe I'm being objective here.

They sang & played 'Jesus Take the Wheel' by Carrie Underwood.

We were so proud.


I never posted this picture of what Marlee got for me for Christmas.......

The belly's alot bigger now.