dark
My grand nephew, James Renville is the typical tall, dark, and handsome type of guy, who makes the girls absolutely swoon and wish he would take notice of them. I’m told that somehow, James doesn’t know that he is cute, and since he is a little bit shy, he basically leaves all those girls sadly wishing that he would just ask them out. I’m sure he does notice them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he does anything about it.
It’s funny, in my memory files, I can still see James as a little Elvis look alike who was always very much into swords and ninja stuff. It 
is so hard to believe that he is almost grown up. Next year he will be graduating from high school and his kid years will be behind him forever. I don’t know what he plans to do after high school, but he has another year to figure that out, so I’m sure he will get all of that together by the time he graduates.
James has always been a quiet kid, which tells me that he has a lot of thoughts in his head that he is concentrating on. That reminds me a bit of myself. Your mind is always running. It’s almost entertaining all by itself. It’s like it sits there and explores all the possibilities there might be in life. Who knows maybe James will 
take after his Great Aunt Caryn and start writing. Time will tell. For now, James is spending his summer working at The Gap and hanging out with friends and family.
My mom had always wanted to have a grandchild who was born on her dad’s birthday, but none of her kids managed to accomplish that. Alena came the closest with her son, Garrett, but still missed it by one day. My niece, Toni finally got the job done when she gave Mom a great grandson, who was born on Grandpa Byer’s birthday. That was quite exciting for Mom. Today is James’ 17th birthday. Happy birthday James!! Have an awesome day!! We love you!!
Sometimes, I get a goofy thought running around in my head, and it just doesn’t go away, until you finally let your mind go ahead and explore it. One of those thoughts that have done that for me is whether or not clouds look the same looking down as they do looking up. I’ve flown many times, but I never really gave much thought to that possible difference, until I was looking at a picture taken from a plane. When you look down on the clouds, the ground looks dark and it makes the clouds look very white. Looking at the same kind of cloud from the ground it takes on a totally different look. I suppose this is an odd thought, but if you look at the clouds, you will see what I mean.
Sometimes the clouds are so fluffy, they look like mountain tops from the air. You could almost feel like you could step out of the plane and stand on them. In fact, when my boss, Jim, Bob and I went for a trip from Casper to Custer, South Dakota, in a plane that Jim used to have, he let me fly the plane for a short time, and the clouds looked so much like 
mountains, that the plane was climbing, because I was lining the plane up with the clouds in the distance. It was very surprising to me that the clouds to take on that look to the extent that I had the plane climbing.
Sometimes, the clouds can be so transparent that you can almost see through them…from the ground or the air. They look like lace across the sky. Transparent enough to see through, and yet if you fly through them, they are like smoke. If you go through a rain cloud in a plane, the rain might come at you sideways, because you are going at such a speed that you go through the clouds from the side. It really is amazing. So, have you ever wondered…
