We haven't been to Arkansas in a while, and we certainly found one of our favorite campgrounds ever!  A Corps of Engineer park, sitting on Degray Lake called Iron Mountain Campground.  There were only 5 people in this entire campground when we were there, so it was nice and quiet. Along with having great cell service, we couldn't go wrong. Will definitely be back here.

The sunset pic was taken at Walmart after the storm. Just thought it was very pretty. :-)

Since early February, we've been working on removing some of the dark stain in the rig. This lightens up the area and gives us the view of natural and beautiful wood. 

During our off-time at Charis Hills, we got a LOT done, and the last day was no different. 

1 - The kitchen is complete with a new backsplash and new wood look.. Spice rack is all washed down, I'll have to make new labels soon.
2- The entire living room area is complete, along with adding a slate veneer to the hutch and fireplace.
3- The last day we had a bit more time, so Mark sanded down the table and exposed its natural beauty! I stained it to match the rest of the wood, and what a pretty look! (At least we think so)..

*Take a look at the before and after photo on the hutch.

A final week at Charis Hills as SOWERS was again awesome, but this project went WAY too fast!

This week, the men put together mop bucket closets for some of the high-maintenance areas. They also made signs and washed signs.  the ladies painted the signs, and finished cleaning wherever it was needed. 

This week we also had a major storm go through that spawned over 30 tornados in Texas. Two his 10 and 6 miles from us, and nobody was seriously hurt in any of them; Thank GOD!    We love Texas, but we don't like the storms. 

There's nothing like meeting new friends and Indycar!  

We always like to visit churches when we're traveling, and this was one of our favorites! Not because they let Mark sing our 2nd & 3rd weeks there, but because their members are all extremely friendly and welcomed us as family!  LOVE our new friends!

This was also the 2nd race of the season for Indycar at the Texas Motor Speedway. It's always fun hearing the cars in person, and it was a beautiful day!

This week, the guys finished up the worship/dining hall with new thermostats, and the ladies painted some signs and packed craft boxes. We also cleaned up the chicken coop and built a new water platform.

A youth group visited the camp and helped with fence painting and power washing. During the week of work, Mark received permission to hold a Science Night, so we did! I handed out glow sticks, and Mark showed them Uranus, Orion Nebula, Sirius, and the moon!  The kids loved it, and it was fun working with the youth again.  :-)

No, we are NOT looking for another RV.. But it's certainly fun looking! 

Went to the big RV Weekend at the AT&T Stadium in Fort Worth. Didn't see anything we liked, but it was a fun outing.

This week's goal: To ready the dining/worship hall for some visitors coming next week! We had a LOT to do!
- Putting up the sound deadening panels
- Replace smoke detectors
- Wash blinds, curtains, windows, tables & chairs
- Replace wall hangings, dust/clean decor
- Remove, sand, stain & poly the window sills
- swept & mopped floors, then stacked tables & chairs..

It was a great week of work, with a great couple (Rob & Helen) and a SUPER host to work with!

We have finally arrived to the camp we'll be working for 3 weeks, but not without incident. It's obvious that the Lord is keeping us safe!  On the way here, we had two VERY scary things happen.  
1) A very large chunk of rubber hit us in the middle of our windshield! We expected some serious damage from this, but after inspection, there was NO evidence of it even hitting us! Praise God!
2)  We were approaching a truck that suddenly decided to make his left turn in front of us!  Mark slammed on the brakes and God opened the path, because there were NO cars anywhere else in the intersection! Mark was able to maneuver around the passenger side of the truck and avoid this potential head-on collision! Disaster averted thank's to the many prayers from all our friends and family. THANK YOU GOD!!
- Also, thank you for the dash-cam Nate.. We were able to get the truck number and report the driver!

Finally arriving at Charis Hills Camp, we met our GL's (Group Leaders), and had a tour of the camp. Charis Hills is a camp for autistic kids, and they have a LOT of wonderful activities! We LOVE our GL's (Rob & Helen), and can hardly wait to meet everyone else and get to work!

​Saturday church also proved to be full of Devine appointments! This church had 3 autistic kids, and we were able to tell their parents about Charis Hills!  The musicians were AWESOME,  and by the time we left church, we made several friends, AND Mark is on the schedule for special music next week!  PRAISE GOD!

Needless to say, this week, and especially these past few days, have been FULL of praises! We are are VERY Blessed!

We've planned time at this resort because we wanted to 'quarantine' ourselves before arriving at the camp we're about to work at. We stayed here for 10 days. What does one do when there's not much to do?  Renovate!!  Even after only 2 years, the cabinets and drawers are beginning to show a LOT of wear.  Cabinets on RVs are not built like homes.. SO, we decided instead of painting, we would strip the wood and stain!  There is some pretty wood underneath..

Once we completed the kitchen area, we liked it so much that we now have plans to complete the entire RV this way.  It will really brighten things up, and it shows the beautiful wood underneath too!

While here, we celebrated our 2-year anniversary of retirement and traveling full-time! We have really enjoyed our adventures, but definitely love our ministries even more! We also celebrated my (Jeanette's) birthday, and Mark gave me my very own weather station! Check out our "ABOUT US" page to find our weather station.

Stay Details:  The Hideout Golf Resort, Brownwood, TX.
* This is a 15-site newly built RV park on the golf course grounds. A lot of people here are parked for the season and working down the road building homes. We were lucky enough to get a spot right by the pond. The other person next to us never showed up, so there was nobody behind us OR on either side of us!  Yippee!

It was still cold here in Texas, so we stayed where we had use of electric. With full electric hookups, we can run all our heaters, tank heaters and belly heaters, and not worry about freezing anything. 

We only spent 3 days here, but there were no lights anywhere, so it was a great opportunity to get the telescope back out! The only problem is, it was way too cold to stay out very long.