Count your many blessings

Name them one by one! Oh what a week of blessings we’ve had, including multiple answers to prayer.

Number one blessing for us is that, after more than 100 days in the hospital, our great granddaughter Rachel Leigh Compton is at home with her parents! Jordan and Marc are learning the real meaning of exhaustion, I’m sure, as all new parents do when they bring a new baby home. In the meantime, baby Rae is just sleeping through the excitement. I can hardly wait to see those little cheeks and that tiny nose in person!

Blessing number two is that Raymond has successfully completed 7 weeks of chemo and radiation and has been moved back to the nursing home in Truth or Consequences for rehab! No news yet on how successful the treatment was at treating the mass in his throat, but it has significantly shrunk from the time they discovered it. He still has his trach and stomach tube for feeding for the time being. Facebook reminded me this morning that one year ago today he was dismissed from the hospital into rehab after his double amputation. How’s that for an eventful year?

Blessing number three is friends. Almost all of the summer staff have scattered to get ready for college or jobs. The volume level has gone down considerably, but we sure do miss the energy they offer to the camp! Several more of our dear Golden Bell volunteer friends have headed home for the season, some for good since they have decided not to return. We’ve added many more names to our Facebook friends list, as it is our friend for keeping in touch. Makes me think of the song that says “Friends are friends forever, if the Lord’s the Lord of them.” See you later, friends!

Our days off at the RV park gave us the opportunity to spend more time with our friends from Osborne times, Jim and Joyce Caldwell. They have a beautiful little house with a million dollar view between here and Buena Vista, CO.

Jim has made friends with the wildlife, too.

We spent most of the afternoon on a ride on back trails through beautiful landscape that we’d never seen before. We stopped for a picnic lunch in a big aspen grove, which also featured several BIG aspens! I’ve never seen anything like this!

The next blessing is health. My 55th high school reunion is planned for the 25th of August in Alton and the crowd is going to be pretty small (there were only 11 of us to start with) due to health challenges for several. Other bus friends have had some pretty severe and debilitating health problems this summer. We take for granted that if we need to walk a ways, we can, but we realize that is really a gift from God. After suffering knee pain most of the summer, LeRoy is doing much better, although not healed yet. I am being treated for yet another sinus infection, which is aggravated by smoke from the California fires. Still, we are able to function pretty well, walking thousands of steps a day, cleaning bathrooms, making beds in the lodge, hauling trash and doing projects in the RV park. Ever since the park office was completed last year, LeRoy has wanted to build a porch. This weekend he got his chance. (And yes, it involved a ladder.) One of our co-hosts loves to paint, or at least she does a lot of it. I’m sure it won’t be long before the addition takes on camp colors.

Speaking of projects, the swimming pool building is taking shape pretty consistently. The roof is up and the girts are going on the side so the outside skin can go up. We hope to see it all enclosed before we leave.

One more day of this 3-day RV park stint and we’re off for 3. The next “on” days will be the last before we leave for Kansas. Looking forward to seeing family and friends there, just not so much the high temperatures and humidity. Later!