It's always a challenge getting back to our little slice of heaven in Palestine. Last time my taxi home from the airport broke down, forcing me to hang out on the side of the highway for an hour while a replacement came.

This time, our first flight was late, meaning our entire trip became delayed by almost 24 hours. Then upon our arrival in Tel Aviv, we discovered that the airline lost all three of our checked bags (one was filled with books donated to a local library, but yes, we still traveled with a rather un-minimalist amount of stuff).  After filing an incident baggage, we jumped in the special cab reserved for us (not one in the regular queue, which can only travel within Israel) . After a trip free of engine problems, we finally arrived home.

Home to our garden gate, that is. Morgan, our neighbor, rushed out to meet us at the entrance, explaining that we couldn't go into our house yet and it would be best to wait in the cafe for ten minutes or so.

Apparently, the bees, who live in a hive on the roof, had escaped. A swarm of them was filling the hallway

entrance to our apartment, thereby blocking our entry.  Exhausted from our voyage, we just had to laugh. We waited ten minutes, and then gingerly stepped our way through the remaining cloud of confused, tired bees to our apartment. It was wonderful to be home and great to see Jelly Bean.

The last leg of our USA trip included my brother's beautiful wedding and then a trip to the family cottage at Holden Beach.

I practiced my photography a lot at the wedding, snapping some portraits with Prince Charming's 50mm lens.

NOTE: These photos are in a very small size because the internet is very, very slow right now, which means each photo is taking several minutes to upload. I will wait as long as it takes to upload my favorite photo from the wedding in a larger size, so when you see the bigger photo, you know that's my favorite.

I also handed over the camera for this shot.

Then I stepped back to get the bigger picture, ending with the late, late Chinese lantern send-off attended by partygoers who had more stamina than I.

I took these from the balcony of the B&B on the farm where the wedding and festivities were held.