It was a gray and freezing day in January.  We went skiing.  In Minnesota.  On ice covered ice.  It was supposed to be a day of skiing with a bunch of people.  Kris, me, Roger, Emily.  Some bunch!  We lost Emily and Roger on the first run.  We never saw them again until we left in the afternoon.  Not sure how we missed them since all three acres at Afton Alps made up all three runs at the time.  We had the place to ourselves.  So, we spent the day talking a lot and flirting even more.  We had lunch.  Later, she got embarrassed that I didn’t tell her that she had some of her lunch still in her teeth.  I thought it was great that she could just be herself and not be high maintenance.  When she drove home with Emily and Roger, Kris asked “why can’t I meet a guy like Paul?”  Emily said to her “I think you just did.”  I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  We were young.  We fell in love.  We were married the following spring (5/30/92).  Today, twenty years later, we still hear every year from Emily and Roger, about their life, ski trips, and kids.  We even have done a quick visit with them on the rare times our paths cross somewhere on the globe.  We still sometimes ski.  In Colorado.  Sometimes even on champagne powder!  When we are not at a high school football game, Tae Kwon Do demo, gymnastics meet, or dance recital to cheer on our kids, we are busy with well, twenty years of life.  We are still those young twenty somethings at heart.  We have a few more wrinkles and gray hair (thanks kids!) and a whole bunch of wonderful adventures, memories, and little dates.

This evening, I set out with my trusty 5D and long (and heavy) lens to try and get a picture of this falcon that has lived nearby for several years.  Normally, it is perched in one of the taller trees at sunset, I’m assuming to catch dinner.  Similar to us waiting in the drive thru I guess.  Here is what I came home with:

Yeah, I know, it isn’t a falcon and you can’t even squint and turn your head and try to imagine one either.  However, it is a bunch of grain like weeds that I shot with a shallow depth of field and then worked Photoshop magic on it.  This was the final cut: kind of an abstracty grungy amber sorta finish over the real thing.  

Anyway, I’ll “shoot” that falcon another day…darn rascal…