A Friend and Quiet Time in Mesa

Tuesday we had lunch with a man John hadn't seen in over 51 years. We met Fred at a local Olive Garden to catch up on lives over the past half century. There sure was a lot to talk about. John and Fred are two of a dozen youth who attended 12 years together in Castle Rock schools. Fred wasn't able to attend the group's 50th reunion in 2011, so there was a lot of catching up to do.



Other than that good visit, it has been pretty quiet here in Mesa. Winter has finally arrived (temperatures from 40 to 62 degrees), we've had rain, and we've spent a lot of time at home. It is too cool for John to sit outside and carve and I have finished all my current projects in the pottery studio.

So, what are we doing? Both of us have been doing some writing about genealogy and I have been doing a lot of online genealogy research. If you have seen the ads for Ancestry.com, you have seen people talking about the green leaves that show when there are possible family information in the program's files. Right now our family tree includes over 2500 people and there are those green leaves all over the place. It can keep me busy for days, if I have the patience to keep at it. Right not, John is focused mainly on writing a history of his father's life.

I also have plenty of time of clean house (yuk, not my favorite activity, but sometimes it is necessary) and do end-of-the-year filing and record shredding.

We also enjoy watching the birds that are hunting for food around our RV. There is a large family of gamble's quail in the neighborhood.



We also see and hear several noisy cactus wrens.