Friday, August 19, 2016

Volunteers Here

We are still Volunteers at the Cherry Creek State Park just south of Denver, CO.  We have a great parking spot.  The Park has so much to offer.  It's been a hot month with little rain, but things are still fairly green.







Our job is still to keep the beach, picnic areas and bathrooms clean.  We still get to enjoy the sun, clouds and sunsets.

















There's lots of wild life around.  We have Mule Deer, all sorts of birds, rabbits and bull snakes!
The reason we volunteer here is to be able to stay and spend time with family.  Our daughter's family of six live here and also Craig's two older brothers.  We always enjoy seeing them.  We also have several friends in the area and many we still hope to see while here.

Sammy and Collin

Cooper, Kathy, Kyra, Collin and Carter out for pizza.

Craig, Cooper, Kathy, Kyra, Collin, Carter, Tana and Barry.
 We also watch the grand kids
play sports.  Cooper plays football.



Collin plays baseball.  He plays, second, third and did some pitching at his fist game.


Tana is our youngest of three and our only daughter.  She always asked for ice cream pies for her Birthday.  She turned 41 on the 17th and we celebrated a few times during the week.



Craig has had three weird spots, one under each eye and one behind his ear.  He went to the VA were they did biopsies and then sent him to a Skin Surgical Place where they have started by removing one at a time.  It's basal cell and didn't seem to be too bad, but by the time they cut all around it, he ended up looking like a boxer.  He is doing fine, but has two more to go and they will only do one a week. This picture was the first morning after the surgery, it's healing up now and the swelling is down.


We have a grill that is ribbed on one side and flat on the other.  We decided to try pizza on the grill.  It came out great!


The locusts are singing to us as we watch the Men's Volleyball Olympics.

Blessings,
Kathy

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Time in Colorado

We have been in Colorado since the 24th of July.  We are getting settled into our campsite and job of cleaning the beach area.  The weather has been warm during the days, but cools off enough at night that we are able to open windows and enjoy the mountain breeze. We are parked in the Volunteer Staff Parking.  This is the back side view of our spot.


I can't seem to get this to turn the right way, but it's the layout of the campground. Toward the bottom right there is a road labeled, "Staff".  We are the first campsite on the left.



Cherry Creek Reservoir was built by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of a project to protect downtown Denver from floods.

The blue dot is where we are parked in relationship to the lake.



 The Park Rangers had a pot luck for all of the volunteers in one of the picnic areas this past week.



They gave us a tour of the new Wildlife Center that is in a building right on the beach.




There's all sorts of wild life in the park.  We drove past these three bucks having lunch together.





 This wood pecker was actually just picking bugs off the ground before flying up to pose for me in the tree.


The rabbit that you can hardly see at the base of the picnic table dug a little indent and spends hours out there each day.


We had a special visit from Ray and Midge this past Sunday. Our grand daughter, Kyra, got back from her Mission trip to Alaska in time for lunch together.


Ray, Kathy, Midge and Craig
We are happy to have time with family and friends.  We hope to spend time with all of you while we are here.

The next question is, how long will we be here?
We spoke with Karl (our boss) today.  The State Park closes the beach area after Labor Day weekend.  He asked us if we wanted to stay longer and if so, he would find something for us to do.  We hope to stay until the end of September, but there is nothing for certain, as yet.

Blessings,
Kathy