There is no way to catch up the past few months. I changed browsers and kind of forgot that I have a blog. Life is going fairly smoothly. We have had a few additions to our household in the past few weeks. Our niece (my side of the family), Amy, is living with us. She is 19. Then, the day before Thanksgiving, our other niece (Brian's side) got herself tossed in jail again. We are caring for her son until she is released. He was born the same day as Isabeau so we basically have twins!! There have been a few rough spots with adjusting to the changes. But it's all good now. His mom is supposed to be released Saturday so there will be another period of adjustment. She has a trial in February. We don't know what will happen then. It is a felony charge so she will probably spend some time behind bars again. I wish she would get her head on straight.

The Montana job is over. Now we just need to get paid. Ugh. Why do people have to be soooooo dishonest??? The work was done. It was approved. There is no problem. They just won't pay us. We were depending on that last payment to get through winter until the next projects start. Now we don't know where our paychecks are going to come from in January. It's going to take going to court to get the money out of the general contractor. We don't know if the owner is aware of the situation or not so we're not blaming him, it's all on the GC. It's so frustrating. Brian had to walk off the job for a few days last January to get paid but we didn't expect them to hold the final payment. We're not sure when the next projects will start. We're just waiting for the funding to get to the right bank accounts then we will get those going. They are mostly here in town so that will be nice for Brian to be home even though he is working.

Christmas is almost here. I've put the tree up and decorated but I'm just not feeling it a lot this year. Maybe it's because of the financial situation we're in. I *love* giving gifts for Christmas. I'm not so worried about getting but I'm so sad that I can't give like I usually do. I'm trying. I've done a bit of shopping with the kids but it's not all done. I need to get that taken care of and get presents under the tree. I'm hoping that the kids' excitement will help me. I am enjoying all of the Christmas music. One of our local stations plays Christmas music exclusively until after Christmas Day. The variety is amazing!! Our Ward Christmas program was this past Sunday. Our ward used only hymns for the music. It was very nice.

Now that I remember that I have a blog, I will try to keep it more up-to-date.