Our new (to us) camper

We brought the truck camper home on Saturday. We still want to put new caulk around the outside of the windows and around the roof vents. (a weekend project when the weather is expected to be much warmer). It is a 1990 Shadow Cruiser. It is listed at 9 1/2 feet (meaning the length of the floor, not including the cabover section.)

View from the back door, while standing on the ground. the refrigerator (you can see the grey bar for the refrig controls in the photo) & closet (can't be seen here) are to the immediate right of the rear door. The bathroom is to the immediate left (you can see the door.) The bath is closet size, but has a toilet and hand-held shower, and small sink.

view of the camper inside. Kitchen is on the left. Dinette on the right, the table folds down to make a large twin size bed. Cabover has a double bed. The counter in the left corner is the sink, with a panel covering it for workspace.

The camper as mounted on the truck.

Thanksgiving Week

Naomi was able to come home from Oregon for Thanksgiving this year. She arrived on Tuesday morning, after a long wait in the Portland airport. Her Uncle Walt took her up very early to get ahead of the incoming snow storm. (Thanks Walt!)

On the way home from the Denver airport we stopped and looked at a truck camper- which we agreed to buy. We will pick it up today when we take Naomi back for her return flight. This gave us time for Jonathan to install the tie-down system onto the truck (which he did on Friday).

Wednesday we spent baking and cooking and just enjoying each other's company.

Thursday we had dinner at a friend's house. It was a lot of good food and fellowship, but I was still missing family. Of course, Friday was eating leftovers :)

Friday afternoon, Naomi and I went shopping. But not early in the morning. We avoided crowds and still found some good deals. Love the thrift store here. (We also went to several other stores.) When we got back home, we worked on some making some crafts together.

I hope you all had a wonderful week too.

Sunrise over Cheyenne Mtn

Many of you may have already seen these posted on Facebook. But for those of you who have not, I wanted to share them with you. These were taken Nov 19th at about 6:30 am. The sunrise turned Cheyenne Mtn this absolutely stunning orange (and I don't even care for orange.) We can see the mountain right outside our living room window. The antennas you see are for NORAD. Cheyenne Mtn is where the TV show "Stargate" is supposed to take place (for you Sci-Fi fans.)

**Remember, if you click on the photo, it will open up in a larger view.

Items from the craft show

The Ft Carson housing office holds a monthly craft show. There is no fee for the table space, it's just first come first served for registration. (It's a good thing no fee, as I only had 3 very small sales today.)

But I think I made some cute things to add to my selection of items. Here are some pictures of the things I made this past week. Let me know what you think- and please be honest. Would you buy any of these things?

embroidered toilet paper

small plastic bags of candy or marshmallows- Freeze-dried snowman, Coal (black licorice), candy cane seeds, and reindeer poop (chocolate malt balls. Also emery board file cases made of ribbon.

Snowmen made with Tic Tac mint boxes. Don't you just love their fleece hats?

camping trailer is sold

We sold our 27 foot camping trailer today. We have had it for almost 8 years. It has had a lot of miles pass under it's wheels and a lot of memories made of time spent in it. It was somewhat sad to see it pulled away behind a strange truck.

But with the kids gone from home, it is too big for just 2 people. And since we can not store it near the house here on post, we had to rent a storage lot. The only space available is about a 1/2 hour drive away.

So now the search for an inexpensive truck camper continues. A camper would mean no engine to maintain (as opposed to a small motorcoach) and would keep the truck free to pull the utility trailer (rather than getting a smaller camp trailer). We are in no hurry to get one, so we will be patient to find one in decent condition for a really good price.

canopy on truck

Jonathan and I were able to purchase a canopy for our pickup on Thursday. We spent most of the weekend getting it re-caulked to be sure it would not leak. We got it mounted onto the truck this afternoon. This will make things much more convenient.

house photos- part 1

I finally got to taking some photos of the house, as it is unpacked and (mostly) organized now. The lighting is not great since sunlight was pouring through the windows toward the camera, but hopefully you will get an idea of how things are arranged.

front of house. There is a lattice screen on the porch to hide the bicycle rack.

The living room/dining room from the front hallway. the door seen on the right goes to the back porch/yard. there is a hallway to the left of the living room (at the bottom of the photo) that leads to the craft room and bedrooms.

photo of the dining area from the kitchen & office areas. The pots on the long cabinet on the left are plants. I had to bring them inside so they would not freeze. This is not Georgia anymore!

You can't see it in the photo, but the Christmas cactus (at the end of the couch) is in bloom. It started about 2 weeks ago- just covered in beautiful pink flowers.

the office area & library. The door to the kitchen is on the right, just past the hutch. Jonathan's desk (he borrowed Naomi's purple desk) is on the left side of the doorway. Becky's desk is under the right side of the window. The big black thing on the left side of the photo is the folded up treadmill. The door to the yard is just to the left of that.

photos of the house- unpacked

kitchen, note mug shelf above cupboards. This was Jonathan's idea since there was not room for our wall mounted mug rack.

pantry cupboard in the kitchen. Sink and dishwasher are to the right. Stove on opposite the pantry. Doorway is to the office (right side) and living room/dining room to the left.

craft room from the doorway. Yes, you can get into the room!!!

I have a lot of supplies for many types of crafts and a small room to put it all in. I'm just grateful I have a room just for crafts.

South wall of craft room- two filing cabinets (one if not for crafts), a bookcase for storage, pattern cabinet and heat press. The closet is to the left of the door. It is stuffed full of craft supplies.

Finals are approaching

The semester's end is in sight. Please keep all of the kids in prayers as they study for finals. Gordon's semester tests are Nov 15th. Denise has several tests in the upcoming weeks and finals are the second week of December. Jon is studying a really tough module right now and trying to work on some extra information so he can get an off-post pass for Thanksgiving. Naomi has a big test today and finals the first week of December.