June Travels: Part 3

I started this post nearly a month ago and as usual, stuff happened. I burned our pictures from the trip that were on Kevin's computer onto a CD. I did this so I could use my dinosaur (also known as my desktop computer) and make the post. One Saturday I sat down to load the pictures and finish the post and see that one of my sweet precious children (and I have an idea as to which one it was) had completely deleted my CD drive off my computer. So I gave up.

Since I have a bad case of heartburn tonight, I thought I would pull Kevin's laptop out and try to catch up on some blogging instead of going to bed. Honestly, I would rather go to bed but I know I wouldn't be able to sleep with this raging heartburn. So with no further ado, Part 3 of our June travels!

Our final trip in June was one we look forward to for the past few summers. For the past three years, we have participated in our church's Family Mission Trips. This year the Family Mission Trip was ministering to the beautiful town and people of Creede, Colorado. This was our family's second trip to Creede. The very first family mission trip that our church sponsored in 2007 was to Creede. Creede is an old mining town with only 400 residents during most of the year. But from May until September it expands to about 3000 due to retirees summering there. Tourism is there big industry now since the mines closed back in the 1980s. Most residents have two or three jobs during the summer to try and make ends met the rest of the year.

I believe we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 people from our church go on this mission trip. We had several different projects that people worked on. Some went up on the mountains and cut firewood for the church we work with to give out to those who need it during the bitter cold winter months. I believe with what we took up there on two 18 wheelers and what they cut during the week, the church ended up with over 60 cords of wood. We had a couple of construction crews that worked on individual houses and one that reconstructed a day care facility. There were paint crews. The log cabin school was stained and a National Forrest Service Campsite outhouses and cabins/pavilions were painted. There was a yard crew that did yard work at various places. The children also had several projects that they did during the week. They hosted a free car wash that was a huge success, planted flowers at some the houses that the construction crews worked on, sponsored a 4th of July craft day in the park, and they also washed windows and cleaned the sidewalks. And last but not least, we had a crew of people that worked in the kitchen all week feeding us three meals a day.

I worked with the children's projects and Kevin ended up on the paint crew that painted outhouses at the NFS campgrounds. One day, Kevin took Eli with him to paint. Eli really enjoyed getting to go paint.

Rio Grande River at the campsite Kevin helped paint.

The outhouse painting crew.

The head waters of the Rio Grande!

The sun was too bright for Eli!

Mr. Sid and Eli. Mr.Sid oversaw the campgrounds. Kevin got to witness to him throughout the week.

Luke in Kevin's work clothes acting like a clown! What else is new?!?

Eli FINALLY getting to climb the mountain, as he called it, behind the church. He begged to climb it everyday that we were there.

Kevin helping Luke along. Luke was a little scared.

Kevin, Eli, and Luke at the top of the hill behind the church.

Spring Creek Pass Continental Divide.

The family at the Spring Creek Falls.

Kevin and Eli decide to climb down the the bottom of the ravine.

The made it safely down to the bottom!

The view of the falls from the top.

We really had a great week. The two older boys loved it! They loved climbing all the mountains and finding lots of rocks. And they both worked hard. Looking forward to next summer's mission trip!