Saturday, October 15, 2016

Visiting With Valarie & Cheyanne

I visited with Valarie (my friend and former University of Denver Bookstore co-worker) and her daughter Cheyanne at the Beautiful Junk Sale - an event sponsored by the charitable organization Valarie works for - yesterday evening at the Jefferson County, Colorado Fairgrounds. Valarie and her daughter, as well as her son Dillon and significant other Jake, are all doing well, I am happy to report.  It is very difficult to take a photograph of Valarie - she keeps turning her back to me whenever I pull out the camera, but Cheyanne was finally able to get her to turn around.  Valarie once told me that she didn't believe in taking photographs - that you should always just stay in the moment and enjoy it. However, when Cheyanne graduated from college a few years ago, Valarie wanted to put together an album of significant moments in Cheyanne's life, and consequently raided her sister's photo albums to get the photos she needed.  Enough said.

As for Cheyanne, the last time I featured her on this blog was at her welcome home party after a 2 year stint with the Peace Corps in Mozambique.  Since that time she has traveled to Brazil for six weeks on a teaching assignment, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  She stayed on the beach in a city several hundred or so miles north of Rio, and also visited Rio itself.  I asked her about the dangerous environment constantly mentioned concerning Rio, and she says that if you just be smart about it, you will  just be fine.  Which is probably true about everywhere.  Cheyanne is now working at what she says is a pretty boring job, but with good pay and benefits, at an insurance company here in Denver.  Welcome to the real world, Cheyanne.  She does miss Mosambique, but is not planning a return there anytime soon.  Which is probably a good thing, since Valarie and Cheyanne are very close, and if Cheyanne decided to move back to Africa Valarie would probably kill her.  Great to see you guys again, Valarie and Cheyanne!

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