Last week, during the snowmageddon that buried my family under a foot of snow, I was in Phoenix, Arizona, co-working with my team who I usually only interact with online: team Phoenix.

Phoenix in Phoenix.

We named ourselves after the mythical creature that rises from the ashes — not after the city — but somehow we ended up in the city of Phoenix anyway for our team meetup. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I could not get over the cacti. They were adorable. Cartoonish. I kept expecting them to jump up and run skitter away.

I’m terrible about photographing people, so here are my favorite non-people scenes from Phoenix².

Here’s what I think is a prickly pear, which tasted delicious in the prickly pear margarita.

Team Phoenix had one meetup before we changed to a different team structure. Now a portion of us are team Hedwig, like Harry Potter’s owl. Maybe next time we’ll meet up in London?