Looking back, #2…

In July, Greg and I managed to make it back to Griswold, Connecticut to look at the sunflowers on the last possible day.  The next day we were leaving for our annual trip to Ohio.  We added another leg to our journey by traveling out to Fort Wayne, Indiana first to visit our friends, Misty and Jenna.  It was a wonderful visit with our old friends, who we miss a lot, and we were impressed with Fort Wayne.  Of course, Misty was a terrific tour guide.  And then we headed back to northern Ohio to celebrate our nephew A.J.’s high school graduation and then down to southern Ohio to visit my family.  Whew!  Sometimes you need a vacation from your vacation.

We weathered the dog days of summer by hanging out.  Not much went on in August but we did occasionally make it down to the beach to watch the dogs frolic in the water.

September was the beginning of a graceful slide into autumn and an interesting month for us.  We participated in our neighborhood yard sale, which is something we haven’t done in many years.  We welcomed a new minister to our church, the Brookfield Unitarian Universalist Church.  I was very happy about welcoming Rev. Craig Nowak because I was on the committee put in charge of finding him.  All that work yielded happy results.  And late in the month, we went down to Bangor, Pennsylvania to visit Greg’s cousins and his Aunt Ann, who we hadn’t seen for years.

October was gorgeous here in New England.  It’s my favorite month of the year.  When we weren’t enjoying the spectacular color, we were staying up late watching the Red Sox win.  To say that we enjoyed the World Series is a supreme understatement.  We also attended the wonderful wedding of Evan’s friends Bryan and Stephanie.  It was a very good month.

November was quiet except that I got to meet my sister Susan in Mystic, Connecticut for a sleepover.  It was great seeing Susan and I had a terrific time at Mystic Seaport.

At Mystic Seaport.  My mother's clan is Thomas, but I don't think any of them were oyster men.

So here we are in December, the end of 2013.  We lost our good friend Jim Egan in December.  And while that brought us great sadness, in general, we had many more gains than losses in 2013.

  It was a pretty good year.

Have a safe and fun New Year's Eve and a Happy and Healthy 2014!

Having to make hard choices, part 2…

You can see that I don't take many pictures of people.  But here's one I really like.  This picture of friends Sean and Ellen was taken last October on our trip to Italy.  We stayed in a beautiful villa along the Amalfi Coast.   And though it was a little cool for me, Sean braved the infinity pool, which is where he is standing in this photo.  I like the mood of this because it reminds me of how beautiful, calm and relaxing the villa was.  I also like that Sean has his hat on.

This photo was taken along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.  What a wonderful drive!  We were there in the winter so there wasn’t much traffic, which allowed us to stop when we saw something that I wanted to take a picture of.  I like this photo a lot and spent some time on it getting it aligned properly.

Here’s another one from our travels.  This photo was taken in 2010 on a trip we made to Scotland.  These boats are on the Isle of Mull.  I think they leave them there for photographers like me to ooh and aah over.  I love Scotland.

Sunflowers are probably my favorite flower and I love them in all their phases.  To me, this one looks like it is just waking up from a long nap.

And finally, here’s a photo I took at Three Sisters Sanctuary in Goshen, Massachusetts, on one of the field trips Carrie and I took.  This is a great place to wander around with a camera.  I highly recommend it if you are in the area.  In this photo, I love the juxtaposition of the wild vines and other natural growth against the relative fineness of the stained glass window.  The Unexpected…

Are these my ten “best” photos?  Probably not.  Well, maybe…  Photography is very personal and very subjective.  I suspect that to me, these are the best because they all invoke wonderful things and good times in my mind.  But maybe I will change my mind tomorrow when new things happen in my life.

By the way, we are still waiting for the snow to start in earnest.  We are supposed to get 8 plus inches.  Here’s hoping that they misread this storm and it will all blow out to sea.