Not much is happening right now, but I thought I'd write down a few things. Darren is now less than eight weeks away from coming home from Honduras, and the excitement I'm feeling is already growing unbearable. We've talked to Kiley about possibly getting her into a better cello in hopes that she'll practice hard this next school year and win a college music scholarship somewhere. She's still trying to decompress somewhat from her trip to Australia (see photo). Devery and Easton are still living in Provo, and now Easton has begun a summer internship with Oakland Construction in Salt Lake City -- which means that both of them are commuting by bus for the time being. (I mentioned to Devery the idea of their moving to SLC for the summer, but she didn't think it was feasible since they'd just have to move back to Provo when it came time for Easton to start fall semester at BYU.) They found out that the baby Devery's carrying is a boy, and the name they've tentatively selected for him is "Mason."Heidi and Dion are still here in Albuquerque, and Dion's son Nolan is living with them for the summer. Kayla is now two-and-a-half, and Heidi, like Devery, has found out that she's carrying a baby boy (tentatively named "Tyler"); thus we'll have two more grandsons come October or November. Kristy and Chris are still living in our ward, and Chris's car-repair shop (which he operates with his friend John) has continued to do good business. Chris now has his car-dealer's license, and their plan is to acquire cars cheaply at the auctions, fix them up, and sell them. Nicole is about to start high school; Zach is currently playing on his Little League all-star team; Alexis will be going into first grade; and Maddy and Hailee are both walking now.
I continue to struggle with sleeping at night. I'm taking Temazepam every other night now, but the nights in between have been a marked contrast, and the usual over-the-counter remedies -- diphenhydramine hydrochloride, Valerian root, L-Ornithine, melatonin -- don't even come close to having the effect of a good prescription sedative. I'm experimenting with the settings on my "VPAP Adapt SV" machine, hoping to find a happy medium between (a) not swallowing so much air that I become nauseous, and (b) not gaining sufficient benefit from the machine, in terms of addressing my sleep-apnea issues, to justify using it.
On a happy note, I plan to go hiking in the Sandia Mountains this Friday, and I look forward to traversing the mountain, from east to west, by a relatively untraveled route -- up the "CCC" Trail and down the "Whitewash" Trail -- visiting South Peak on the way.
