Moderate with spells of "hot flashes"

I am of course talking about the weather we have had over the last week. Some days in Mesa were dreadfully hot with the temperature hovering around 100. The sun felt like it would literally burn a whole in our clothes. But I think we got acclimated to it somewhat because on 90 degree days we thought it was not too bad. Then yesterday, Tuesday, we got to Indio, CA and it was downright jacket weather. Today was perfect here in Anaheim. Probably will hit the "hot flash" weather again in Ridgecrest in a few days. Campgrounds are about as different as the weather. Since we moved our table in the RV to the back so it is in front of the windows we have a good view, sometimes. There have been places we looked at a brick wall. The picture at the left is the view from our RV at Indio resort. There was many bushes just loaded with beautiful flowers. We stayed true to our personal rules of not having 2 traveling days in a row. Since we stayed in Indio we had a day to drive down to Palm Springs and surrounding/adjacent communities. What a beautiful place but rather pricey but since we were not there to buy the place only gawk at it we thought it very worthwhile. While walking down a historical part of the city we came across the most fantastic blown glass studio we have ever seen. Wow! We always walk down the streeets so we can get the feel of the community and also get in conversation with a local person to add to the information. Fun !

The Resort had a little pond which we enjoyed. The next two pictures are of that pond. I did not know that the water growth had flowers of various colors. There were some ducks swimming around but when I tried to take their picture I got the last feathers of his tail as he swam right out of the picture. I tried to get the purple flowers in this picture but didn't really succeed but you probably get the picture. We will be here in Anaheim until next Tuesday when we go to Ridgecrest.

It is so amazing how the last years have fallen in place for us even when we had no idea just what the next month would bring. We had our Canada trip planned for years but it never seemed to be the right time. Then in 2008 the way was clear for us to take that long trek to the Maritime Provinces in Canada. Then we heard that there was going to be a Dr. Jeremiah Conference in Tennessee so since we were way on the east coast anyway we decided to take that in. Then we wondered if we could volunteer "somewhere" in that area. While surfing the internet I looked at a volunteer organization but it didn't quite seem to fit us. They had a link on their page for RVICS and I clicked and come up with their page and they seemed to fit us well. So we applied and were excepted. The only red flag they could see with us was that the RCA had a connection with the World Council of Churches and RVICS does not accept that. They called and we assured them that we did not agree with the philosophy of the WCC and that satisfied them and we were in and could work in Florida in Nov. Then we were cleared to work the first 3 months of 2009 in Florida as well and 3 months in other projects. Then 2010 we worked 6 projects and then 3 in Mesa this year. Interesting the Arizona projects were not suppose to be in Sunshine Acres but our scheduled projects in Arizona cancelled so RVICS put us in Sunshine Acres for 3 months. While there we began to wonder about volunteering just as a couple and not have all the structure of RVICS. We enjoyed the morning devotions, the weekly social, the weekly Bible Study night and the scheduled tour on Friday and getting to know people from all over the US but we were getting that ecclesiastical itch (my term) of wanting less structure. So we decided to drop RVICS and applied to Sunshine Acres as volunteers and were accepted. We can work as much or little as we want, once we are on the volunteer list we can show up here any time and work, and we enjoy the flexibility of hours altho we have Mon. and Wed. listed as our days. We have both felt worthwhile and enjoy working more directly with staff instead of going through our RVICS project manager. This is not a brilliant idea that started with us, many, many NW Iowa people have been doing this for years. And since we buy into the whole philosophy of Sunshine Acres it was been a good fit for us. Did we plan this all? Hardly. We felt God leading and opening doors all the way. Our lifestyle is hard for some to understand but it is the path that we feel is the right one for us as this point in our life. How long we will be able to do this is not for us to know right now. Dad has his heart checkup when we get home and I have an appointment at Mayo so if we are declared good to go we will then go as we are lead. Thru the years we have believed the doors will open up as we need them. We are comfortable with that. God has been so good to us, the least we can do is walk thru the doors he opens.

Hope you and yours are all well. We love you all so much and hope to see you all again in the next weeks.

Love, Mom and Dad Wilmer and Marilyn