We brought David home in the evening of the day of his birth. Here is our humble apartment. Scott blessed David in this outfit shortly after he was born  A few weeks before our first anniversary and the end of our last year at BYU, a sweet little baby boy was born to our family whom we named David. After the semester ended, we planned to move to Los Alamos again for the summer. Scott had one final class to finish up for his degree which he planned to do through Independent Study. Then we found out that Scott would earn a much better hourly rate at his summer job if he was completely done with all his graduation requirements. So he decided to do his Advanced Writing and Biology courses through Independent Study in a speedy 3 weeks plus continuing to work at his BYU job working for some physics professors.  When he was done, about halfway through May 1990, we moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico. We didn't have a place to stay yet but a couple we had met the summer before in the Los ...

Since the time we got married, Scott and I have taken many trips together with some trips more eventful than others. Our honeymoon was definitely on the more eventful side. After our wedding in April, 1989, our honeymoon was an exercise in patience and long-suffering with numerous car problems AND a break-in. Scott and I got married on a Thursday in late April in Provo, Utah, with a reception that night at my aunt's house which was up above the Provo Temple. It was a really happy day.  We stayed that night at the Excelsior Hotel in Provo. On Friday morning, we started our trip and stayed that night in Baker, Oregon, at the cheapest place we could find. Our financial situation could best be described as tight with not a lot of room in the budget for emergencies. The next day, we drove to Tacoma, Washington, in the 1980 Toyota Corolla we had bought from a friend about a week before. We needed to be at an open house that night which Scott's mother was hosting for us. Along the way...

This week I went to a day-long workshop on sleep, sponsored by BYU. It was for regular people like me but also for therapists and other types of counselors. Since I have been dealing with some insomnia for the past 7-8 years, I was very interested in attending and learning more about it. It was free for me as a spouse of a BYU employee.  The presenter was Dr. Wendy Troxel  who is a psychologist who is a behavioral sleep medicine specialist. The workshop started out talking about all the reasons our body needs to sleep and what happens when we don't. Many of us there already have a great desire to sleep, if only we could get more of it. She does not recommend any sleep aids at all, although she did say that if someone is not getting any sleep, sleep aids may be necessary in the short term. The two components of going to sleep are your sleep drive and your circadian rhythm. It's easier to sleep when you haven't slept recently which is your sleep drive. It's easier to slee...