Focht Family Blog

Andrea had her biopsy today. They were able to get enough without going through her back, although Tim said they had to spread her ribs. She will stay tonight at the hospital. The good news is that they said at first look it looked benign. They won’t know for sure until Friday so keep the prayers coming.

We have been without phone or internet for the last few days. We were staying at a campground on the Upper Iowa river and it is down in a valley. This was a weekend of firsts. We survived our first year of homeschooling!! Samantha is officially done with 3rd grade. 4th grade has already been shipped and is waiting for us in NY so she has off from school until July 15th. Timmy is anxious to start Kindergarten as well. This weekend we had a book burning. As we finished subjects we put the books into a pile that was used as firestarter for the campfires. :)

We also had the first canoe trip with the kids. We rented two canoes and the owners of the campground dropped us at a point at the river that is about 2 1/2 hours from the campground. We had one canoe with girls in it and one for the boys. Nobody fell in! At one point Nathan had to drag Joshua in because he fell asleep hanging over the edge. Both of the boys were pretty wet at the end just from putting their arms over the sides but it was a fun experience and we saw lots of bald eagles flying over the river. I didn’t take the camera with me because I was afraid it would end up in the water but I will try to catch up with what pictures I have tonight or tomorrow. :)

Wow! It is amazing how much high altitude can get to you. By the time we got up to Rocky Mountain all of the adults had slight headaches. The drive was beautiful. This is a picture of one of the pull offs. Unfortunately it was overcast or you would be able to see the peak in the background.

We stopped at another area where there was a good view of the surrounding mountains.

Todd told us that if we saw cars pulled over that someone saw an animal and we should pull over as well. Sure enough… there were elk everywhere. Here are two males eating. We loved their horns. They were fat and fuzzy. Timmy said they looked fake. :)

They were losing their winter coats so when they shook you could see the fur flying off of them.

We started trying to see how many different kinds of animals we could spot. Nathan spotted a group of sheep up on a hill.

I spotted some deer down another hill.

While driving out of the park we saw elk in some strange places. We saw them on the golf course which was funny because there were people playing golf. One of the other places we saw them was in the yards of houses. I couldn’t resist getting a picture of one of them.

The elk has its back turned but you can see him in front of the tree on the left.

One of the other animals we have seen a lot of in Colorado is prairie dogs. Apparently they are a problem here. Timmy hadn’t seen any of them that we had pointed out so we found a large field that was full of them and pulled over to watch them. I tried to get pictures but I scared most of them off. Here is one that was a little braver then the rest.

We had a great time in Colorado and we are already planning what we want to see the next time through. We are now driving though Kansas on our way to Branson, MO.

Friday we made plans to meet Melissa and her husband Todd (Skippy) in Boulder at the Pearl Street Mall. It reminds me of a bigger City Market (Savannah). Melissa and Todd had to come to Boulder to pick up a friend of theirs who had come for a visit. Todd and their friend were counselors together at Magic Camp. Todd is an amazing juggler and that is the biggest thing my kids remember about him. He tried to teach them how to juggle the last time we saw him but Samantha was only 5 and Timmy 2. I was pregnant with Josh the last time we saw him. We watched his juggling act from Magic Camp last night. He told us if you go to You Tube and put in Skippy Magic Camp it comes up. It is a two part video that is very cute.

Anyways… here is their family: Melissa, Todd, and Abigail.

We walked around with them for awhile and the kids found many places to play. Here the kids are playing on rocks.

Todd managed to get all of the kids together for a picture so I took a picture of them all as well.

One of the prettiest parts of this outdoor shopping was the tulips they had planted everywhere. Here are two of the prettiest sections.

While walking the kids found a pig outside of a store and took a ride. This is Abigail with Timmy behind her.

At this point we decided to get some lunch. Unfortunately there was a bit of a wait for a table for 10 so the kids entertained themselves while we waited. This is Josh trying to play patty cake with Abigail. Samantha was watching to make sure they were doing it right.

Next they found a large rock that had water running down it on all sides. Needless to say when we were called to our table Josh was pretty soaked.

During lunch Todd convinced us that we needed to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Forest. So, after lunch we said our goodbyes and started the drive to Rocky Mountain. Next post…..

Thursday we decided to go to Denver for the day and try to take the tour at the US Mint. They told us if you wanted to get into the walk-in tour that you needed to sign up early so we were there by 8:00 and I was able to get us signed up on the 12:00 tour.

While we were waiting we drove to Hammond’s Candies. They are one of the few places that still makes candy canes by hand. They specialize in candy canes, lollipops, and hard candies but the also make some chocolates and caramels. Here is a picture of the outside of their store. On one side of the building they have a Santa Claus that is climbing the wall.

While waiting for the first tour of the day to start we walked around and looked at their displays. The 5 lb. candy cane was one of my favorites.

They first show you a quick 5 minute movie showing the process of how they make the candies. Here is the family watching the process through the windows.

Here is the table where they are pulling the candy through a machine, twisting it to make the swirl and then the women are hand rolling the candy pieces into lollipops and placing the sticks in them. In another room they hand bag each lollipop and put a twisty tie and bow on each one.

At another table they put together slabs of colored sugar to form the base for the candies. The table has flames at the back that keeps the table at 220 degrees so the sugar stays soft. On this day they took a slab of red, white, and blue and formed it into a layered brick that they then stretch out and put through a ribbon machine that makes ribbon candies. This batch was for Fourth of July and was strawberry flavored.

Joshua was enjoying watching the candy being made but he was enjoying being a ham for the camera a little bit more.

While we were driving back to the US Mint for our tour we spotted a sculpture that I couldn’t resist getting a picture of.

The tour of the US Mint was very interesting. We were not allowed to bring in cameras or cell phones that had cameras on them. All you were allowed to bring in was a small folding wallet that could hold ID. You couldn’t even have a wallet big enough for a checkbook. I went in with my license and credit card in my back pocket. :)

Everyone has to go through a metal detector to get in. Mom had to take her shoes off because the detector went off when she went through. She had forgotten that her shoes have springs in the soles and apparently it was enough to set off the detector. The first part is a room that has displays of different forms of money that has been used over the years. It was very interesting. They even had displays of money from biblical times.

Next they hand out a souvenir before taking you into the main building where you see the coins being made. The souvenir is a penny and a penny slug in a plastic bag. Our pennies were all 2008D’s. The slug is a penny that doesn’t have anything printed on either side. The Denver mint produces all of the coins for west of the Mississippi. The day we were there they were running pennies. Samantha asked and she was told that they produce 15 million pennies a day.

Towards the end they showed a display of their new program which is one dollar coins with each president on it. They start with George Washington and will go through each president. The catch is the presidents have to be dead for at least two years and they can’t skip a president. So although Reagan is dead they have to wait until Carter is dead for at least two years before they can continue. Right now they will continue through until 2016.

They then show you where they package the uncirculated coins. Apparently Philadelphia sends Denver their sets and Denver boxes the full sets together. The last part of the tour takes you through the original building with the original wiring and fixtures. You get to see the original guard box that hangs between the staircase pointing towards the original doors. It is a very small box that has two small windows and two small holes under the windows for the gun barrels to stick out. You get to exit out of the original doors that weigh 2000 lbs each and still have the original hinges in them.

It was a very informative tour. I think everyone enjoyed it, except maybe Josh. We had to keep telling him to be quiet and then halfway through the tour he fell asleep. :) Timmy was also worn out by the end of the morning so he decided to take a nap on grandma’s lap on the way home.

Unfortunately we woke up this morning and the eggs were gone. There isn’t any evidence around that they hatched. We found out the birds are killdeer plovers. We think that a snake may have gotten to them. Josh took this bit of information and has been trying to get Timmy’s toy plastic snake to spit out the eggs. :)

The other fun development this week is that Nathan decided to buy himself a Wii. He also bought Mario Kart, Playground games and Olympic games as well as the sport pack that comes with it. I had to buy another controller today so that all three of the kids could play Mario Kart without fighting over whose turn it is. I am still looking for another wheel for the controller. It seems that everyone around here has sold out.

The only bad part of this development is that I was planning on making a Wii the kid’s big present for Christmas so I will have to rethink what they will be getting this year.