RIFLE, COLO. - Caring for foster children in a home is one thing; Stephanie and Paul Straw of Rifle have a ranch and barn and horses to offer the children.

The Straws have been foster parents for more than two years and moved into the Don Kriz Youth Farm near the Cottonwood Springs mobile home park on U.S. Highway 6&24 east of Rifle in September.

“It’s so neat to see the kids with the horses,” Stephanie Straw said. “We’re so close to Cottonwood that other kids will stop by after school to do their 4-H projects and they do chores like feeding the animals.”

The Straw family was named the Garfield County Department of Human Services Foster Parents of the Quarter on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

The Straws said they were surprised and honored by the department’s selection.

“We just generally love kids,” Paul Straw said. “This is just what we do. We weren’t trying to win any awards.”

Brenda Wagner, Family to Family coordinator for human services in Rifle, said the Straws were selected due to their positive attitude and flexibility, are involved in foster parent recruitment and other efforts.

“They are wonderful with children and birth families; they always have room for one more; they always find ways to help,” Wagner wrote in an e-mail.

The ranch’s eight bedrooms and four bathrooms are home not only to there foster children, but the couple’s four children, who range in age from six to 13.

Paul Straw said all the foster children “are just like one of my own. We try to steer them to make the right decisions in life.”

Stephanie Straw said the best part of foster parenting is “seeing the kids adjust to where they feel safe and don’t think they have to be like a mini-grown up. They can just be kids and play like kids when they’re here.”

“You can learn a lot from kids,” Paul Straw said. “What I love to see more than anything is all the kids together, sitting around the dinner table eating dinner and just being kids.”