Hi everyone, I hope you are all doing well. It is supposed to be a bit cooler this coming week, that would be really nice.

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Last Tuesday we celebrated National Night Out in Valley Home. What a great night it was for our community. Our Valley Home School had “Back to School Night” that evening also. The two events together provided a wonderful opportunity for folks to get together and enjoy an amazing evening in Valley Home. We are so grateful to all who came out and helped celebrate.

We were very blessed to have Sheriff’s Lieutenant, Pastor Brock Condit come all the way out to Valley Home to be with us for the evening. Pastor Condit offered a very heartfelt prayer over our evening meal. We are so grateful to you Pastor Condit, thank you for coming to Valley Home, you are deeply appreciated. Thank you to our Stanislaus County Supervisor Buck Condit, who does so much for Valley Home. Supervisor Buck, you being here made our night very special. Thank you for all you do for us. Brock and Buck are brothers; we are glad they were both here for our Night Out festivities.

We are so thankful for all who brought the delicious food to share. What a great dinner. We appreciated the tasty grilled hot dogs and cold drinks provided at the park and offer thanks to the Valley Home General Store for donating the ice to keep our drinks cold. Thank you to Amanda and Eric Beltrami and Julie Beth Lamb for grilling the delicious hot dogs and serving them. We very much appreciate all who helped clean up after, especially Jessica Borrego for staying late to help clean up.

A big thank you to Kathy and Philip Shepherd for the beautiful flag; it was the perfect way to show our deepest respect. It was a wonderful sight to see it waving proudly high about our little park. Our park picnic tables were made so beautiful and so welcoming by Tammie Smith. Tammie picked fresh summertime flowers from her garden and placed them on every table; so very pretty. We send a huge thanks to Dennis McCutcheon for always mowing our much-loved Valley Home Park and keeping the park looking so beautiful. Also, a special thanks to our Valley Home Park Chairman, Don Taro for the beautiful patriotic flags that our Valley Home children decorated the park with.

We all very much enjoyed the awesome car show organized by Ashley Barreto; she did an amazing job. We are so grateful to all who brought their beautiful rides to Valley Home National Night Out. Everyone loved the car show. A huge shout out to Christina Barreto and “The Lil Buckaroos Daycare” for donating the great prizes.

Adults and children alike were so excited to see the huge road grader that Stanislaus County Public Works brought to National Night Out. A huge thank you to Zachary Ramsdell, Neil Tackett and James Spoonemore. You are greatly appreciated. The road grader was so cool; it was amazing.

Our night was made very special with visits from our California Highway Patrol, thanks to Officer Olsen and Officer Ford. It was so much fun, having you here with us. Youngsters and oldsters were all super excited when that beautiful big red fire engine rolled up to our park. We are so grateful for all our firefighters … a very special thank you to Matt Criswell, Micheal Snow, Erik Arnold.

We were excited to welcome our Stanislaus County Deputies and K9 Officer Cano. What a great night it was.

Adding to the excitement was a very special treat in the sky, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Helicopter Air 101 made several passes over our Valley Home National Night Out. We are definitely blessed to live in Valley Home and have such a great sheriff; thank you Sheriff Jeff Dirkse and every Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department employee.

God bless America.

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As always, you may reach me by email at winniemullins51@gmail.com or by telephone at 209-985-5233.

Until next time, “Happy Trails to All.”