We did sell our larger nativity to a very nice man who happily loaded it up whole in the back of his truck and took it away.  He paid us what we asked for it and we got another little one.

It feels good to have most of the Christmas shopping and sending done to our loved ones far away.  We won't be able to visit and hang out and see what they got from Santa, though.  :o(

But now we can concentrate on getting ready for the Bennetts and Evanses and Erin.  That will be a fun time with all of them and the Barneys together!!  The missionaries will be coming next Tuesday to help us put everything off our low shelves up high so that Matthew won't have to be told "No no!!" all the time.  And we will ask them to help us get out the tree and the boxes of decorations down from the attic.  Poor little Elder Whitlock is 18 and it's his first time away from home in Orem so he has been feeling homesick.  His family lives just a little north of where we were there.  I hope he will be able to get back on his feet and get on with the work at hand.  It's a miserable feeling.  I was homesick just once in my life and don't want to repeat it ever.  It was when I first went to Georgia State College for Women and the bus company didn't have my trunk when I got there.  I was there with just the clothes on my body and the contents of my purse.  The trunk came in the evening and that was all it took to make the homesickness go away.  Just a few of the things from home to sustain me.

The man has put up a swing for the kids to play on and that will probably be the completion of the play house.  There are plenty of nails for the little guys to hammer in to secure the floor.  He thinks the ladder will have to wait.  We are anxiously saving to pay property taxes the end of the year.  He calculates it costs us a little more to live here than in Utah as far as insurance and taxes go.  But we don't have any house payments.  :o)

The man went to the dentist and will have a root canal and a cap the first of January.  We say thank heaven for modern dentistry and medical procedures.  Not exactly like Star Trek yet, but surely better than even the recent past.

We have told the man in charge of ESL at the library that we want to finish teaching English this next spring, and he said he finally has a replacement for us that may want to start early in the year!!  It can't be too soon for me.  I don't know why it's so stressful.  Lara laughs because it's only 2 hours a week.  But somehow it just shadows my life.  I love the students, every one.  They are all so nice and fun to be with.  But the responsibility of finding and presenting enough to help them is overwhelming to me.  I will be happy to teach reading to one person.  That seems doable with little stress.  But English grammar is so fluid and changing that it's hard to pin down and try to explain.  Sorry to whine.  I volunteered, didn't I?

The weather is wonderful right now, but it's supposed to be rainy and cold all next week.  Maybe the predictions will be wrong, or the rain will be in another part of the county.  Can't get worried about it yet.

We got sick this week with an awful cold.  Jer got sick first and then I got it.  We are planning on it going away before the company comes, though.

We love you all  more than words can express and pray for you constantly to have what you need and for you to be happy and fulfilled.  We are so grateful for what each of you has brought into our lives and taught us.