Soon after the party, Ron started looking in earnest for some property to buy. He looked and looked and looked and finally found a lot that he wanted me to look at. I was the reluctant one, but, this one lot looked promising, as it was bigger and on a corner.

Our new property

Original site of the gate, notice the low wall on the left

The new raised wall

We got a realtor to show us the inside of the mobile, which came fully furnished, and I liked the way it looked inside. The best thing about it was we could see glimpses of the mountains through the trees in all directions. So began our quest of acquiring this property, which started out for us making a ridiculously low offer. The surprising thing was

Notice there is no gate here now

that they came back with an acceptable offer, so we both agreed and it went into escrow. We wanted it to close in two weeks time, as we were paying cash, but, after a week, we hit a snag, as they hadn't done probate yet.....:(

Our new gate opening

What was surprising, though, was they had apparently decided that they didn't want to deal with this property anymore, so got probate done in record time and on Dec 2nd, the property was ours and looking back on it, it really

Large living room with windows all around

only took a little over two weeks past the original date to close.

Looking into dining room & kitchen, (Ron is changing the locks)

We didn't waste anytime after acquiring the keys, Ron had the side property walls all raised up to the 6 ft levels to provide more privacy for us and our neighbors.

Laying bricks for our patio by the bus

He also wanted the side gates more in line with backing in big rigs. The one side had a gate, but, it was moved over about 8 ft and the other side didn't even have a gate, so we added one. We upgraded the electric pedestal and added one more, for friends to come visit. We also had the plumber come out and upgrade the hot water heater and fix all the leaks we could find.

Trimming the trees with a chainsaw

On Dec 13th, we finally moved the bus onto the property. We have the one gate installed in front of the bus, and the other gate should be installed soon.

All cleaned up

Ron wants to remove all the palm trees and plant mesquite and palo verde trees instead, since it would be nice to have shade trees on the property. But, that takes planning, so for now, we'll keep the palms.

Getting ready to pour the cement and add brick wall to expand the patio

Even with all the waiting and work we've been doing, we haven't been idle. I've been going to Zumba gold classes three times a week and clogging class once a week. We have weekly movies to go to with other Boomers, going to dinner with friends and lots of card games with our various friends. Life has been great here, back in Yuma. We've also been going to our annual doctor visits and so far, we are still healthy. Ron takes walks around the neighborhood, getting to know everyone. All our neighbors are real nice and most of them are here year around, which makes it nice, they can keep an eye on our property for us. We even have a local cop as a neighbor, she's with the Wellton Police, which is the next town east of us past the mountains.



Just to let you know, we have plenty of room for visitors. We have an extra RV hookup for our RV'ing friends and extra beds for our non RV'ing friends. We have an add on to the mobile which for right now is an extra bedroom with bath, but, at some point, Ron may convert it into a workshop, which he'd really like to have. We only use the mobile for day use stuff and when people come over at night to play cards. We still sleep and watch TV in the bus. 

I was just looking over our blog to see where I had left off and oh, my gosh! Everything seems to be backwards, not sure how that happened, but, guess you all will figure out how it goes. It is now 2012, so Happy New Year to all of you out there, may this new year be better than last year.

But, it seems our blog is still stuck in last year, so maybe I can help out by updating it so you can all see what we've been up to since we left you last. We have been very busy, so I better get started!

At Gila Bend Family Camp

It was HOT in Glia Bend in late October....

It was finally time to split from Jack & Jeanne, they, on to their own adventures and us, heading towards Yuma for the winter. We did briefly stop for a few days in Gila Bend to reconnect with some Navy friends. They are staying at the famcamp at the Luke AFB annex right outside Gila Bend, he is working at the paper plant nearby. Yes, amazing as it sounds, they make paper towels, napkins and toilet paper from pulp flown in from various sources, a lot of it from South America. We had a lot of catching up to do, because I hadn't seen them since we left Delaware in 1990, Ron had visited with them more recently.

It had been beautiful weather in Deming, but, we were at 4300 ft and heading down to less than 1000, so it was bound to be warmer and it was. I was glad we were in a full hookup so we could run our air conditioner. We had a great time with them, we even headed down to Ajo one of the days to look around and have lunch. All too soon, it was time to leave once again and head west.

We got to Yuma about a week before Halloween and once again, stayed in the driveway of our friends, Gene & Kathy. Jenny, a fellow Boomer, who owns a lot nearby, found out we were back in town, so she decided to go ahead and throw a Halloween birthday party for me & our friend, Debbie. We were both born right on Halloween.

At Dan & Jenny's Halloween Bash

There were quite a few Boomers in Yuma already and it was nice and warm during the days, still. We had all sorts of characters who came to help us celebrate our big day. There was Rhonda, who was a real character, as you'll see, a ghoul showed up, two cute little pumpkins and an angel, a gypsy/belly dancer, a witch, (she didn't really look that scary at all), a couple of tourists, (man, they are everywhere, ya know?, although what there is to see in Yuma, I don't know)....two pirates, (now how did they get here...maybe they came in on the Colorado River, ya think?), and a few other folks who were apparently too shy to dress up. A great time was had by all, after all, when you get a bunch of Boomers together, we can't help but have fun. We even had a birthday cake complete with candles which we got to blow out.

Debbie & me, the birthday girls, we are GOOD witches!