We enjoyed a great visit with Ben & Jill's family in Silver City, NM.

What a mom!  Giving all 3 kids a piggy-back ride at once.  They LOVED it!

 Cody is quite the little guy who loves sending everything down the slippery slide.

Three happy kids before Kimber & Holdyn head off to school.  Hugs & kisses to you all!
We hated to leave but decided we better get home for the holidays  Thanks for a great visit!
This is what greeted us when we got back home - snow!  This had been here over a week.

Getting this ice & snow off the driveway was not a fun project, but Dad worked hard to get it all cleared off.  The same day we shoveled off snow, we also raked leaves.  All the leaves came down, then it snowed & stayed cold for over a week.  Who would have thought here in 'sunny St. George'.

A little slow in getting this updated, but here's the progress in Quartzsite.

 To get back to the bedroom, we had to carefully balance on the beams.

In both the kitchen & bathrooms, we had clear view of the ground outside.

Bedroom vanity area had to be removed to get into the shower wall to replace plumbing.

 Our yard was full with a trailer for hauling damaged flooring away &a trailer with equipment & tools along with construction workers' vehicles.

 Finally, on Tuesday December 10, we were able to move back into our home with completely new vinyl & carpet.  Can I just say that it looks GREAT! and so nice to have it all done!

We enjoyed our completed project for just 1 night, then headed off to Silver City, NM to visit Jill's family.

Finally after 1 month of living with warped kitchen floor, tipped toilet, and spongy bathroom floor, the construction crew arrived to repair the damages.  We arrived in Quartzsite to find water damages to our home and have been patiently waiting for help to arrive.
This is the morning of Dec 3, after we had removed most of the furniture.

This is the patio area- outdoor living at it's finest.

The work has begun.

 Our current outdoor/open-air bathroom facilities.

Enjoying dinner back inside complete with lawnchairs & tv tray.

We could even enjoy tv at night.

Dec 4, turned out to be much cooler weather, so enjoyed breakfast in our spare bedroom which has also become a catch-all for the odds & ends from the kitchen.

Til we have more good news to share; this is about it for now.

Yippee!  After about 3.5 weeks, it finally arrived.  Yes, we have a mission call!

 Our mission call arrived at our home address on Thursday, so we had Martha send it to us in Quartzsite overnight by UPS.  Thank you, Martha!

Here it is in our hot little hands - do we look like future missionaries?

We have been called to the South Dakota Rapid City Mission to labor in the Mormon Handcart Historic Sites - Martin Cove.

So that's the latest & greatest.

On November 1, 2013, we came back to Quartzsite, AZ to spend most of our winter months.  We discovered that our bathroom floor was spongy along with a partially tipped toilet and a warped kitchen floor that was all caused by a water leak.  Pictures just don't show the extent of the damages.

So we are careful where to put our feet &we are getting by until repairs can be made to the floor.

 The palm tree we planted last spring survived the summer & looks really good.  We've done some more yard work and even planted 2 more small palms.  We decided to put in a bubbler system across our driveway on the east side so had the backhoe here just yesterday digging a trench.

At least we are making progress in the outside projects, now if we can just get the inside taken care of.

Dad was really excited when he got a package from the Cluff's. Yum! Jerky!

We enjoy visiting with Aunt Reva & Aunt Wanda and they love to ride in the Chevy.
We'll have more exciting news to come later.

Lake Powell was our destination for October 15 - 19, 2013.  Eighteen of us were able to make the trip and we had a really fun time!  We camped up Navajo Canyon and enjoyed the sun, sand, & water.

The mom's spent the first day braiding the girls' hair and look at the results.

Making sand sculptures was part of the fun.

 We rented a small boat which helped to keep everyone entertained.  The tubes were a big hit!

 We even had some brave cliff jumpers:  Adam, Brad, Kyle, Addi, & Avrie.

All in all, it turned out to be a great week at the lake.