Kazmaier family visit June 30-July 2, 2010

We enjoyed having our niece and her family with us for a short and sweet visit last week. Wednesday evening we all got together with Rowen's sister, Esther Mendez and her family for a picnic in the park.
Jeff and Shirlene

All of us who were at the park for a extended family picnic! There was a continual breeze that evening. It did keep us from feeling hot, but didn't help our hairdos!

Jeff, Manoj, and Rowen visiting

Great-Aunt Janet holding Anjali

Dan Mendez and his wife and girls and granddaughter

Pictures from around our house:
Andy playing legos.

Emily and Lacie playing checkers. This checkers game was given to Jeffrey and Beth for being in Jeff and Shirlene's wedding 12 years ago, July11, 1998.

Andy in our front yard

Jacob playing trains

Jeffrey and Jeff

Shirlene

Lacie and Shirlene

Shirlene and Beth

Pictures from our walk around Johnstown Lake:
The cousins and cousins-once-removed

Rowen and Janet and our niece, Shirlene and husband, Jeff

Jacob and Andy, my great nephews

Fun on the climbing wall at the park

Kazmaier family at the Johnstown Lake

Our family at the Johnstown Lake

We walked around the Johnstown Lake together.

Brooding mountains behind the lake. There was a forest fire in RMNP.

We are so blessed to live in a beautiful place and blessed that our loved ones come to see us here!

July 4th, 2010

As most of you were enduring high temperatures on Sunday July 4th, 2010, we had an unusually nice and cool day in Northern Colorado. The high temp was 84'F, and the low was 51'F.

We decided to find a spot in the mountains to eat our lunch, which was probably at ~9,000-ft.


It was almost jacket weather, but really just perfect in the middle of the summer.

Temperature trend in Ward, CO just a few miles from our picnic.


We were unable to find an unused site with a picnic table, but we were brave enough to 'rough-it' for our lunch. We spread our tablecloth on the forest floor, and used rocks and coolers to sit on.

It was delightful. The South St. Vrain River was still quite high from spring snow melt run-off, creating a most pleasant ambiance in which to enjoy our lunch, just a few feet from the roaring water's edge.

With our lunch completed, we took time for some restful, worshipful, and contemplative time along the river. The kids took many pictures to document this time.

As we do every Sunday evening, we needed to go to Federal Heights (north Denver) for neighborhood kids' Sunday School, which begins at 5:00 PM. We chose to traverse the mountains via Peak-to-Peak Scenic Byway to get to the Denver metro area, instead of returning to the interstate highway, which we see so often.

On our trip to Federal Heights we passed
Barker Meadow Reservoir, with Nederland, CO in the background.

It was a marvelous day, though we only had three sweet, attentive children in Sunday School; the others were involved in holiday revelries of various kinds.

As we made our way home from Federal Heights, we watched a tremendous thunderstorm building before our very eyes. Soon after we arrived home, the hard rain began, which yielded 1.3" in our gauge, but thank the Lord - NO hail. Though the area public fireworks displays had to be canceled or postponed, it was a splendid ending to a perfect day.

As always, it was a delightful Sabbath Day, a restful, and refreshing time in the mountains, and an enjoyable time with family; we did greatly miss Beth, who is in Joplin helping with VBS this week.

Psalm 34:8 "O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." Surely we have found that rich blessing in His presence this holiday weekend.