Our Christmas (almost) e-mail

This is the e-mail that finally went out to all our family members after hours of attempts to share videos that Mary had taken on Christmas Day with her phone.... unsuccessful attempts:(!

I have given up on sharing the videos, altho that would have been fun.  Am going to try to get pictures of your gift to us and attach it to this so you can all see the final result.  Thank you so much, each and every one of you, for the work you put into it.  Charlotte, you will have to call and share how you put all the pictures together:).  And thank you again, each and every one of you, for giving us such a beautiful day yesterday:)!

Secondly, we wanted to share with you all that we finally have a PLAN for what we will be doing when we complete our mission!  For the video Mary taped us telling you that our plan is to return home and live downstairs for an indeterminate period of time and let the Wimber family continue living upstairs as they work on completing a home they are building. We think they expect that to take a couple of months, but suspect it may take longer than they think.  We have decided that is OK, because we plan to use our time to visit all of you:).  ( Not nonstop and not starting right away on March 15th - it will take us at least a couple of weeks, perhaps a little more to get ourselves "moved in" to the downstairs...we will have to figure out what furniture & other stuff to keep down there and what to put into storage so that we can function while there, and we know it will take some time to do that.)  And no, we haven't decided yet who we will be headed to see first:).  As a part of this plan, we will not be putting the house up for sale in May, but will plan on doing that next year (2015) if that looks like the best thing to do at that point.

Third:  Here is a picture to look at:   

Can you tell what it is?  A chocolate Winnebago:).  Jimmy and Christi should remember long ago and far away traveling around in our 20 foot Winnebago which eventually got sold after moving to Oregon because with Dad's schedule at work we just never had time to really use it.  Well, this candy bar was handed to us by a man named Mike, along with his phone number and being told to call him anytime we have questions or need help, after he finished spending a couple of hours with us going over a motor home that your dad finally convinced me that we should buy (I hope he's right).  It is a used 2001 Itasca, made by Winnebago, 32 feet long and was a top-of-the-line model with every option available at that time.  Kept in really good shape by the first owner and has been totally gone over by the dealership.  They have also agreed to let us keep it on their back lot until we are able take it home at the end of our mission, altho it is officially ours now and we can come and use it whenever we want.  I have to confess that we now have a loan outstanding besides our home, which part I did not like, but Dad's plan is to use the money from his retirement account to make the payments since we are required by the government to start pulling out a percentage of that money every year beginning in 2014.  So maybe that is OK.  I'm attaching a pdf that has a lot of pictures of it so you can see what we bought.  On the video that Mary made, I said, "Now, we can come and visit everyone without displacing our grandkids from their bedrooms:)!!!"  We look forward to our first and hopefully many trips in it.  

Now, before I put the attachment on, here is a question for all of you:  Seth has let us know that he will be able to take the month of July off (kind of a rare thing with his somewhat weird schedule) and he is hoping to be able to participate in family reunions on both sides if possible.  With the idea in mind that we will probably list the house for sale in May of 2015, would you like to plan an Oliphant Family Reunion in July of 2014 at our home in Roseburg?  If your answer is a yes, please let us know right away and include what you think would be good dates for it.  If your answer is a no, please let us know right away and tell us if you have an alternate idea - OK?  

            Love You So Much,     

       Missionary Mom & Dad

   Grandma Sandy and  Grandpa Jim

                 

Here would be the attachment, but since it is a pdf with writing and pictures of the motor home, I haven't been able to figure out a way to put it here...we will just have to put real pictures on here later:).  But here is a link that can currently be accessed but probably not for long:

http://www.rvcorral.com/used_class_a_gas_motor_home/UA1114/index.html