This last Saturday I had the chance to navigate a short but stunning canyon near my town. It was refreshing to spend a few hours in such beautiful country. The highlight was the 200 ft. rappel at the end of the canyon. Normally, rappels tend to spook me a little bit, but the beauty of the canyon overcame my fear and I enjoyed every foot of the descent.

What a better way to kick me back into the habit of keeping this journal than the birth of my son! What joy the last few days have brought to me. Joy, but also insecurity and fear, of course, but constant, constant reassurance in the form of my wife, neighbors, friends, religious leaders, family, etc. I love the little fellow. I hope I can do him justice as a father.

Even though it was more than a week past the date, we decided to go to the town's favorite pizza joint, the Pizza Factory, to get our oldest daughter her annual birthday pizza. If you tell the waitresses at this place that it's somebody's birthday, they will make them a pizza in the shape of the number of years that you'd like. We ended up going to the restaurant just moments after finishing up the evening weight lifting class, so it was a happy mess, the five of us sitting down, sweaty and smiling, loud at boisterous, to enjoy a late celebration for her. Happy belated birthday, Sweet Pea.

I have missed a couple of days to post, simply because I have been too busy enjoying listening to the leaders of my church share messages of love and hope. That's my first joy on the list today. I love General Conference.

I offered a spur-of-the-moment idea to my wife and daughters that we pump up our tires and ride bikes over to my in-laws' house in the early afternoon. Thankfully, we were able to get air in the tires of all our bikes, some of which were very much out of use, and then we enjoyed a good half an hour together riding along the bike trails around the city, barely missing a rain storm on our return. My 8 year old daughter totally handled the 10 mile ride, hills and all, with her usual awesomeness. She cried a little at the last hill, but was very happy and proud when we arrived home, as she should have been.

A couple of simple joys ended the day:

I have had some pretty busy evenings all this week and had not had time to really spend time with my wife. This evening I got finished with my tasks about an hour before bed, and on the spur of the moment I went to Iceberg and picked up a shake and some fries. We then spent the last hour of the day on our couch, sitting together and talking.

Then, on our way to bed, she went around the house and opened all the windows. At last! It's finally cool enough that we can bring in the outside air at night to help us cool off. I always look forward to fall, and it feels like at last, here in the desert, it's started. Hooray!

In my morning Yoga class, rather than the sparse 2 people that are usually there, there were 8 of us, most of whom were new. There was joy in experiencing something new together.

More joy from service today - it was my first day as a reading tutor at the local elementary school. There was a lot of joy in helping kids learn, particularly the kid that I worked with who needed help with his math homework. I don't know much about teaching math or reading, but it was neat to lay the groundwork into building a relationship that I will have with those kids over the upcoming weeks.

It was also a particular joy to get a better sense of how many volunteers really help out at a school: people of all ages and seemingly walks of life, just sparing an hour or two, or sometimes much more, to help kids get a good start in life.