We moved back into our house at the end of July, and most anything that was going to bloom already had. Some plants in our garden didn’t survive six years of tenants, and our 25-year-old dogwood was dying and had to be removed (which broke my heart since we planted it ourselves). But the three clematis are still alive and well (although I think there were actually four of them when we left), and one of them just produced one last flower for me.

We left Saudi Arabia on June 5, and it has taken until now to get settled in our house, between shipments from storage in Virginia and Antwerp and our household belongings from Riyadh, much of which I had to give away due to a total lack of space. We finally finished hanging paintings on Sunday, and yesterday a charity organization came and took away the last of the boxes and furniture. Finally, I feel like we have a real home again.

Standoff, posted earlier: