Visiting and Helping Family

Our visits to the Denver area each year are centered mainly on seeing family.  This year that visit included a lot of work.

First we went to our son Eric's home for dinner on their back patio.

We also met them at the Cherry Creek State Park shooting range.  Here are John and our grandson John shooting.

Then we all came to our trailer for lunch.  When you travel in an Airstream, having friends for a meal means eating outside.

A few days later, the work began.  Eric and Liz, Kylie and John are moving to a new home.  It is exciting and it also is a lot of work.  They have been packing boxes for weeks.  The closing was to be on Aug. 30 so Eric and Liz both scheduled a day off from their work as teachers to attend the closing and begin the move.  Then the moving company announced they would pick up the furniture a day early.

Eric asked if we could help and we said yes.  I went to supervise the movers and John took care of our scheduled move from Chatfield State Park to Cherry Creek State Park.

The movers had beds, like grandson John's bed,

 

and many other items to put in the moving van.

The dining room table was a big item.

Finally, the truck was almost full.

The movers closed up the truck and got inside to drive everything away.

When Eric, Liz and John came home, I joined them at Breckenridge Brewery for dinner.

 

We went to a motel for the night.

The next day, they went to the closing and I waited for John to come from our trailer to pick me up.  We met Eric and Liz at their beautiful new home and helped unpack. I obviously didn't take many photos at the new house.  I was too busy.  Here is the back yard.

This is a view of the back of the house and patio.

Granddaughter Kylie came home from college at the University of Houston to help with the move. Saturday we all ate lunch on the patio.

Since our legal address is Eric's home, we were very interested in where we are moving.  Now we know where our mail will be delivered before they ship it to us priority mail.

Where Did That Come From?

Where on earth did this really long screw come from?  We didn't know what the problem was but when John checked the trailer tires Thursday in preparation to drive to Chatfield State Park on Friday, he found that one of the tires only had 30 pounds pressure instead of the normal 65.  Oops!

We called our road service company, Coach-Net, and they sent out a tow truck from the nearby town of Berthoud to remove the low-pressure tire and put on the spare.

We were very impressed with the service.  Coach-Net called to tell us the truck would be there in 45 minutes.  The driver, Jake, called us when he was 10 minutes away.  And by the time he had started to work we received a call to be sure help had arrived.

John watched as Jake jacked up the trailer.

Once the tire was off, they inspected it to see if they could find the problem.

Yep, the screw pictured at the top of this post was imbedded deeply in the tire.  No wonder it was leaking air.  Jake put in a plug so the tire wouldn't leak and put it back on the trailer.  One of these days we will have the tire repaired even better, but hopefully this will hold till we return to Arizona.

We needed to get on the road Friday so we could see family in Littleton.  We shared adult beverages and chips and dip with our son Eric and his wife Liz and grandson John.  Kylie, our granddaughter is in Oregon swimming the in sectional meet.  We will see her next week.

On our last day in Canon City the focus was on the funeral of our sister-in-law Diane. Because she had lived in the community almost all her life and was active in school and civic affairs, the family arranged to hold the service in the largest church in the area. John was the officiant. After the service and entombment in Mountain Vale Cemetery, once owned by his and Tim's father, we drove to our trailer in Pueblo West and headed to Cherry Creek State Park near Denver.

There were some interesting and really attractive cloud formations during our time in Pueblo West.

While at Cherry Creek, we celebrated our daughter-in-law Liz's 50th birthday. We took dinner to their house. She had a special birthday wine glass and there were 5 candles on the cake we brought.

We also saw a beautiful sunset while at Cherry Creek.

The park also has a few mule deer.

At the end of the week we headed north, hopefully headed to our major destinations of Glacier and Grand Teton National Parks.

Family Comes to Visit

A week ago, our son Eric and his wife Liz and son John drove down from Littleton to visit for four days. Since they had driven a long way on Friday after school and Saturday from Albuquerque to here, we didn't do two much Saturday afternoon. We did go for a walk around the resort. Grandson John didn't walk, he rode his hoverboard.

Sunday, after attending Palm Sunday worship at Epiphany Episcopal Church, we stopped by the Mesa Swap Meet. Our visitors enjoyed see everything that was offered there, but very few purchases were made. In preparation for deals too good to pass up, we made a stop at the ATM for some cash.

Everybody else thought I looked good in this hat, but since I didn't agree, I didn't buy it.

Granddaughter Kylie didn't come with her parents. She was in Federal Way, Washington, swimming in the Speedo Sectional Swim Meet. She swam well, reaching the finals in all 6 individual events she participated in and recording 5 personal best times. Monday, she flew in to Phoenix to join the family. In two of the events, she was awarded medals--meaning she was one of the eight best swimmers out of 100+ entered in those events. Look how proud she is of those medals. We are proud, too!
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Kylie has asked to be able to have her nose pierced as her 16th birthday present. Her parents said yes in November when she turned 16. But she waited until her Spring vacation, when she has two weeks off from swim practice, to accomplish it. So Monday afternoon, the family visited a tattoo parlor (that is where piercing of the body--other than ears--is done. Her grandparents didn't come along, but it really doesn't look offensive, does it?  She looks kind of cute.

We weren't aware of all that goes along with being a competitive athlete. Colleges are very interested! The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) has strict rules of allowable contact between colleges and high school athletes. Kylie is only a sophomore so she can ask to visit schools, they can not contact her or her family. Within the next year, first the schools can make contact with family, followed by contact with the athlete by letter or email. Not until the senior year can the college invite a student athlete to come to the school for an official visit. And the athlete can only accept five such invitations. Since neither John nor I, nor our sons, were outstanding in sports, we had never known about these rules. The next two plus years will be interesting.

Kylie and her family have a good friend who swam in college and knows about the swimming program at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He urged them to go there for a visit. They contacted the school and arranged to meet with the swim coach staff, observe the swim team practicing, and and tour the school on Tuesday. Kylie was very interested and bought this shirt from U of A. Bear Down is the motto of the school.

We all tried some bocce ball.

We went to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner and the concert. Everybody loved the evening! Look at these three good looking members of Eric's family.

We also had relaxing time, just sitting around and talking.

We had a great time with our family. It is good to spend our winters in a favorite Spring Vacation destination for younger families. What fun we had!