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.

The weather is gorgeous today!!  The second week in December and we were out doing yard work in shirt sleeves.  What a beautiful time of year here!  It was a little cool in the morning, but by noon it was idyllic.

We cut some low, overhanging branches from the pine in front and then lopped off the crape myrtles so that they will have blossoms lower down next year.  We will be able to see them from our front window.  The man also took off some dead branches from the tree in back using the Barney's tree saw.

Last week we also bought and set up a nativity in the front yard.  The plan was to subtly indicate to the neighbors that we are Christian.  I don't know what they know about the church, but if they know we are LDS I wanted them to know that LDS people are Christian.  So Dad made a stable and we put the figures in it and it was a little more than subtle.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  We had the figures lit the first night and then we decided that they look better in the day and not lit at night.  I'm afraid instead of whispering subtly it yells.  We'll see how we feel about it as time goes on.  I have it on Craig's List to see if anyone wants to buy it.  We could get a smaller, more subdued something.

Monday night we spent the evening at a pot luck dinner and helping set up the 18th Annual Nativity Display at the church.  They have hundreds of nativity sets loaned by individuals and set out all over the building (Kristin, you left a week too soon!)  In the cultural hall were the beautiful and fragile ones and in the Primary room were the children's ones and a place for the kids to draw and color.  They had an ongoing video of the nativity in the chapel, and they had different groups and individuals present music at different times throughout the two days.  Mary's school orchestra played the first night. The ones in charge have had lots of practice and they know how to present well.  There was also a room where there were all kinds of nativity costumes and a backdrop for the kids or families to dress up and have their picture taken.  And there was a roomful of quilts made from Christmas themes.  I knew what it was going to be and I was still in awe. It was absolutely breathtaking.

The pictures don't come close to doing it justice.  The whole cultural hall was lined with a desert backdrop, the lights were dim and the ceiling was draped with white cloths and white lights.  I can't tell you how beautiful and reverent it was; and the nativities were 3 or 4 deep all along the walls.  Anyway, the whole neighborhood was invited and lots of people came.  It was nice that they came to hear their students play and then they could see the beautiful things.

Here is Mary playing her cello in their school's musical presentation.

Yesterday we had a surprise.  The man came into the kitchen after dinner and said, "Guess what I just did."  and showed me his tooth.  It had broken off right at the gum line.  So we went to the dentist today and he said he can still save the root and put in a post and put on a crown.  The wonderful thing is that it doesn't hurt and he can wait till January to have it taken care of.  You just never know what's going to happen.  Life is full of surprises; some are good and some are not.

We are looking forward to this month.  It will be so good to have family visits around Christmas and it's fun to be involved in the Christmas activities here.  We are so blessed!!  We are so happy and at peace.  We are grateful for every day and the privilege of being together one more day and then another day and another.  We hope you all are also joyful and at peace.  We love you so much!