Starting the holidays

I wasn't feeling very well last week and must have fallen asleep before posting anything. In fact, my wife and I have talked many times about how since moving here we feel tired and go to bed earlier than we used to. I'm not sure all the reasons, but some of it, I'm sure, has to do with the timing of day and night. Every day, all year, the sun comes up and goes down at just about the same time. It comes up around 5:30 in the morning and goes down around 5:30 at night. Every day. I think I already said that. I remember in winter time at home in Utah, when the sun goes down earlier it just felt like time to go inside and when it's dark and when it was dark and I was home it was so easy to get sleepy. And when I was on my mission in Russia it was hard not to feel sleepy in the wintertime when we rarely saw the sun. So that's one thing, but really it starts getting light even earlier. Now we are getting up before the sun comes up, like around 4:30 a.m. to exercise, study scriptures, eat breakfast, and so on and then, for me, get to work by 7:30 a.m. You might say, "duh," when I say this might also be part of the early evening sleepiness. But I still think it has to do a little with the sun since it comes up so early.

On other notes, my favorite holiday came and went. It was a little different from other Thanksgiving Days I have had, but it was still good and much better than the last one. (I had "swine flu" over last Thanksgiving and really missed everything and felt like I was dying.) This Thanksgiving my wife made pies and I made the turkey. Thanks to my mom sending an oven bag, the turkey was still nice and moist and tasted pretty good. All of the food tasted good. We had the missionaries over and I think they enjoyed having a traditional American Thanksgiving just as much as we did. Even the missionary from Canada enjoyed it; he said they have pretty much the same there.
I finally got my bike tire fixed and have been able to ride it a few times. I even rode a little with my two youngest who just learned how to ride a couple of weeks ago! My oldest son and I have gone two Saturdays in a row exploring around on our bikes. We rode over to a nearby neighborhood where there are a few cattle and goats out in the empty spaces where homes haven't been built yet. The last time we went for a ride we were very hot, since it's always around 90 degrees, and it felt nice to cool off with a swim in the pool near our home.
Is it really December already?