September in Cherry Creek State Park

Thanks to Todd and Sandy Goodman for making us this laser plaque that we built a stand to put it in!!!  I sent her a picture I took from our fishing trip to Minnesota and she overlaid our names.  So, we now have an official name plate with a planter.  These are the same pansies that I bought in hanging baskets last year and the deer ate off all the flowers.  They did the same again since we came back to Colorado, but the plant seems to live on.

We have a rabbit that is very comfortable just stretching out on our spot. There's times I think I could put salt on his tail.

Craig and I are still on beach detail and we have some wonderful views of the Rocky Mountains.  My experience is that the mountains are more clear and colorful during the winter months when there is snow on them.

The geese always come up onto the beach area in the evening and find places to settle in for the night.

Through the haze in the below picture you can see Pike's Peak after the huge hail storm that Colorado Springs had.  It's an hours drive from here to the Peak.

Hazy Pike's Peak in the distance.

We are seeing more and more deer that live here in the 4,000 acres of the State Park.

We don't particularly like being the "beach cleaners", but the worst part of the season is over and the temps are dropping, so we should be able to coast a bit until we leave in Oct.  What we do like about being Volunteers here is the free spot to park and being able to spend time with friends and family. We have been able to have time with Craig's brothers and their wives and Tana and a couple of the kids came out for a BBQ one night.

 Kyra, Kathy and Cooper.  I let Cooper drive the golf cart and he did a good job, even with his broken arm.

 Sammy came along and got in a nice walk.

I have also met with good and faithful friends that I have known from our time in Colorado.  It's so great to catch breakfast and catch up with Chris (who moved out here from Crown Point) and Sherm and Yvonne and Lynn.

Lynn D.
(I was too busy visiting and forget to take pictures of everyone)

We love getting together with long time friends.  Craig and I went to school with the Schulte kids.  They flew in for their Mom's 90th Birthday party and we met them for breakfast.  We hadn't seen them for 48 years.

Marsha, Kathy and Andee

Jerry, Craig, Marsha, Kathy and Andee

 My cousin Deb and her hubby, Bill came out for a cook out and time to catch up on life.  They also brought fresh garden goodies!

Thanks for driving across the city to see us.

Tana and Barry have four kids that are all involved in sports, school and work.  So we try to attend the Cross Country meets, Baseball, Football games- and Track meets when we can.  The kids all excel in whatever they do.

Kyra finishing strong.

Carter running uphill to the finish line.

Cooper continues to run track even with his broken arm.

Collin is in 8th grade and has high jumped 5'.

I wanted to thank you all for your prayers while Craig went through the removal of three spots of basal cell carcinoma. I already posted some picture of the trauma on Facebook, so I will just say that he is healing up nicely.

Our current plans are to leave here sometime in October and be at Tier Drop RV Park in Wellton, AZ by the first of Nov.

We still miss having a home, but the Lord continues to lead us around the country.  We look at places nearly everywhere we go, but we just haven't seen the place we need to land, yet.

The temps are jumping up and down here in Colorado, but overall, there is a feeling of fall in the air.  Cool nights in the 50's and pleasant days in the 70's.

Love and Blessings,

Kathy

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

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