This morning I woke up surprised. None of our kids woke up in the middle of the night. I don’t remember how long it has been since that has happened. It seems that if on the off change neither Gehrig nor Nolan wake up. Gracie will be up. Certainly having all of the sleep through the night so that Rachel and I could also sleep through the night is a tender mercy indeed!

While we were making dinner after church we got a phone call from Carrie (Rachel’s grandma). Apparently Burt (Rachel’s Grandpa) wouldn’t eat his cake they got him until there were more people to share it with. It is his 75th birthday. So after dinner we went over there and had cake and ice-cream. Rachel’s parents and brother also came up. As we wrote in the gratitude journal tonight, Gehrig, Gracie, and Rachel all said...

After cleaning the house and doing some fix-up projects, we went up Milcreek canyon, built a fire and had hot dogs and S’mores. I was surprised at how warm it was today. I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and I was very comfortable. It was very beautiful with all the fall colors. The kids had a blast running around and playing in the leaves. After we packed up everthing we thought we’d go for a short hike, but Rachel’s hip...

I joined a the social network site facebook over a year ago. I heard that it would be good for internet marketing. After signing up, I couldn’t see how it would really be useful to me so I forgot about it. Then I had some old mission friends in South Africa find me through facebook. It got fun for a while. Now it has become very active again as many people from my high school have joined all of a sudden. Also, I’ve recently connected...

Routines are a good thing. I’m sure that some could say that they can make life monotonous and boring, but having routines with children makes for a happy home. Plus, it makes it easier for both Rachel and I to put the kids to bed when the other one is not home. For example, tonight Rachel was at an relief society meeting. At 8:00 I say it’s time to read scriptures. We then read a verse (that’s about as long as we can hold the...

Today I went to play basketball during lunch. I normally play with some old friends from 3M. Today nobody showed up. There is another group that come in and plays on the other court on Wednesdays. We call them the “pro-am” group. They take basketball much more seriously. I have played a couple times with them. Last week, for example, I played 5 games with them after playing 3 on 3 with my friends. They were also playing 3 on 3 and...

I got up at 4 AM this morning and went to the temple. I decided to do an endowment session, which I think was a mistake because I just can’t stay awake that early in the morning. Generally, when I go early in the morning I do about 5 initiatories and call it good. I was really struggling to stay awake through it. I wanted to be in the celestial room though. When I got there, I began to pray about my job and about moving. I really...