How time flies!  We did finish our mission at the Mormon Handcart Site serving at Sixth Crossing.  We said good-bye to our dear missionary friends at the end of September, 2014 and we all went our separate way back to our homes.

Here are the last of us missionaries before we headed for home.
We stopped at Mindy & Spencer's on our way home & had a fun reunion with them.

When we arrived home, we were greeted with more grandkids, lots of balloons, & banners.

We didn't stay home long before we made a trip to Jill & Ben's and enjoyed seeing their family.  We even got to see Holdyn participate in barrel racing.

We were blessed to received a new grandbaby in November, Lydia June Grant.

                                                      We all think she's pretty special!
After the holiday's, we moved to our place in Quartzsite where we enjoyed the winter months.

Quartzsite in January with all the shops & swapmeets in full force.  Lots of campers stay in the desert surrounding the town.  We spent a few days at the Fountain of Youth in California & met up with our missionary friends, Floyd & Bev Anderson from Alberta, Canada.

                              We had some good 4-wheeler rides in the desert and visited a unique
                                                      place called Salvation Mountain            
             

 Back in Quartzsite, we went on a lot of Jeep rides and found old mines, cabins, and some rough trails.

                              Dripping Springs was a fun place to visit and see the petroglyphs.

  

 We took a day trip over to Yuma with our missionary friends, Jim & Deanna Plumhof and we visited the Yuma Territorial Prison & stopped by the US Mormon Battalion Monument.

That's a quick run down of some of our adventures.  More to come later.

We've struggled to get this updated lately due to lack of internet & pictures lost in our computer so let's get started.
We had the privilege of serving in the Welcome Center when Elder & Sister Evans stopped in for a visit.  He is the Executive Director of the missionary dept for the Church.  We were thrilled when he suggested getting a photo together.

We've had the pleasure of some more visitors coming to our site.  We loved seeing you all, thanks for stopping by.

                                       Cousins - Gail & Darlene Oakeson in the Welcome Center.

                                  George & Kathy Staheli who served here a few years back.

                                                   Cousins - Wayne & Lorraine Price on Rocky Ridge.

                                               Max & Karen Turpin at Rock Creek Hollow.

                                 Ken & Kathy Smith by the Remember Rock at Rock Creek Hollow.
We discovered the forest of Green Mountain and really enjoyed visiting there with other missionaries.

Another place we explored was Thermopolis; lots of hot pools and springs around.

We've enjoyed our time here and have more experiences to share next time.

We've been having some new adventures so we'll try to get this updated.  These pictures were all from July activities.

These are just some cool shots of a handcart at dusk.

These posts mark the official Mormon Pioneer Trail; these particular ones are located at Sixth Crossing .

 These pictures are showing some of the treks we've been able to participate in.

 We finally got to cross the Sweetwater River in late July and now it's about knee level.

Once the youth get the handcarts across the river then it's 'play in the water time'!

We discovered this neat drive through Twin Creeks which has some great rock formations that remind us so much of Southern Utah.

                                                     This one looks like a big ship.

We found South Pass and a marker indicating this was the low point on the Continental Divide where the trails all passed through.

We got a chance to be the handcart wranglers for a couple of days.  Here are the 2 pickups each pulling 2 tandem trailers loaded to the max with about 25 handcarts each.  This was a fun job for Grumpa!

Here we are, working hard, loading handcarts at Rock Creek Hollow after the trekkers arrive.

 On Saturday, Aug. 2, 2014, we got to witness a special baptism in the Sweetwater River.

This is just a sampling of what we've been up to lately.  Til next time. . .