Should we define the year by people, places or things?

We don't meet people by accident

 they cross our path for a reason.

Each year is different. Some years end very very different. Things change. One of the things worth pondering is "who" came into our life that was in or in as much before. What difference did that make? A good way to retreat from this whole subject would be to suggest that the only thing that changes us is ourselves. We can choose how we want to react to everything that comes into our life but then that leaves us choosing options that are about things that came into our life and like it or not those "things" can define the choices too. People, places and things change. People are often behind why places and things change. People can be good examples, inspiring, helpful and all the bad opposites too. We can look back at the year and ponder those that were "new" or we can recognize that those that have always been their may be the most important influences. 

here are some thoughts I wrote down for you, whoever you are

.............................................old jokes and old posts make for a old looking new post, I suppose. Christmas is often the same as it has been but then things do change. The likelyhood of Christmas being the same seems to be a lot less looking ahead. We are happy to have some new faces on the scene. We are happy to be together. It is exciting to find that our home can fill up and be a place where we can be together.

Vacation, Cranes,Bosque Del Apache, ECT

The Sand Hill Crane are big. They pair up for life. The ones we saw we were told had flown South for the winter from Utah and Montana. Some maybe from Canada. They have one or two chicks. Usually only one lives. They fly the chick down for a winter to teach them the way and then encourage the offspring to be independent.

We took a Vacation this week. Not a traditional vacation. No Disneyland, although I think that might be a worthy goal some day, again. Disneyland for 2 seems like an interesting idea.  Not a driving up North to Utah for a Vacation ............(cause we have them coming here in a few weeks). Just a couple of days off and driving somewhere locally is what this vacation was about.  We went to Socorro. We had thought about going on to El Paso or even Carlsbad but decided not too. A little further South, about 11 miles,  from Socorro is a town called San Antonio and then a little more South, 8 miles along side the Rio Grande, to the Bosque Del Apache which is a special place for migratory birds. Woods of the Apache is what Bosque Del Apache means and it was named for the people who often camped there. Hundreds of thousands of birds are in this area but I think we mostly saw the Sand Hill Crane and the Snow Goose. They come in at the end of the day after feeding and land on the water filled pools on the flat land along side the river. The spend the night on these little pools which I suppose protect them somewhat and then in the morning starting with first light they start to take off.

We had been told by a friend that you just watch and that one sort of moves and then the rest follow. We were excited and hoped to really see them all get up at once.  Turned out that the two days we watched this they sort of went off in small groups........................The really interesting thing is that the birds acted the same way? You see one guy would walk off with his big honking camera and then several would follow. Most of the guys had the big expensive lens extensions.  They  hung out together, did a lot of talking and when they moved they just moved in groups. The birds did the same thing, you see.  O yes we did some people watching too. The guys with smaller lens sort of walked off by themselves so as to not be embarrassed. Not many of the women had these "big" lens extensions or even tripods.  Seemed like the women showed up a lot later than the guys too. For what looked like mostly retired people it was odd to see the guys come together and a lot of the women together. Some of the guys had camouflage pants and jackets and their long lens had little covers that were the same. Course Kathy and I went together and were one of the first there in the early morning. We won't talk about our cameras. Kathy has a pretty respectable camera but it was in Utah in Zach's care. I will also add that we didn't slink off to the sidelines just because we didn't have a $5,000 + camera. We were right there in the middle of it all. I also will have to admit that as far as pictures are concerned I took some good ones, however my I phone somehow was on video so couldn't post those. Kathy got some great pictures. The pictures here are all what we saw but then I just copied them from a site.

Not posted but a great part of our vacation was just an afternoon movie, Lincoln. What a great great movie. Good short road trip, Great Movie.  A nice meal out. Not bad and it is only Friday.