I'm back!

I have been traveling for the past 3+ weeks, first a two day drive to Phoenix to visit family and meet our great grandson for the first time. Here he is with great grandpa.

I celebrated my birthday while there, we went to the Desert Botanical gardens, one of my favorite places. It was free on my birthday!!, actually the second Tuesday of every month is free admission, but we didn't know that going in.

Then we left Phoenix and drove to Las Vegas so that my husband could bowl in the National Tournament. I was there to cheer him on for his first day of bowling, but the second day I hopped a shuttle to the airport and flew to SeaTac in Washington. My daughter picked me up there and I spent the weekend at her place. On Monday we went back to SeaTac to board a flight to Beijing China. Here we are getting ready to board. The group consisted of our guide Ashleigh, my daughter Tina, granddaughter Kayla, son in law Jack and me. A nice small group. Ashleigh has a shop in Tacoma, WA called the Purple Peacock and does small group shopping tours. She combines the tours with her buying trips for the store.

We spent most of our time in Beijing hitting all the must see spots. We had local guides for most of the tour while Ashleigh did her buying. Our shopping days were lead by her and she had great insights on what to get where. We as a group are not shoppers so she tailored it to our desires.
I took hundreds of photos; palaces, temples, trees, old walls, doors, stone walkways, even a few with people in them. Below is a sample of our eight days in Beijing.

We opted to go to the less touristy spot at the Great Wall, it was fabulous, but omg! a very steep climb  up and then back down.

Next we rolled out of bed at 4am to fly to Xian. This is where the Terra cotta warriors are, plus more temples, pagodas, museums, and an ancient city wall.

We spent 2 days in Xian and then made the long journey home. It was a wonderful trip, seeing and spending time in a culture very different from mine, spending time with family members, eating fabulous food and just stepping away from my normal life.

For the first time in five years I did not do daily stitching everyday. I did some on the 2017 piece and almost got three weeklies done, but many days were stitch free.

2017 Daily Stitching
I did a few random areas, I brought limited thread with me.

Weekly Stitching, Signs of Life:The five universal shapes

As you can see the equidistant cross isn't quite done, but it will get there.

Now if I could just power through the jet lag I'd feel much better. My ice maker in the fridge was a solid block, so I tore off a piece of fabric and did a quick ice dye to try and get back to creating.