CORN!!

From our garden.  We are so excited!

Having a baby

No, we are not having a baby.  That was basically to get your attention.

In reality, we have been trying to have a baby for a year and a half.  No luck.

We have gone to the fertility doctor for the last 6 months.  No luck there either.

So, we are exploring different avenues.  We had our first meeting with LDS Family Services and applied to be adoptive parents.  It is a long, slow process, and we will see where it takes us.

We have seen many miracles along the way of making this decision.  We decided to start out by talking to our bishop about the possibility of adopting.  Unbeknownst to us, he has four children, all of whom are adopted.  He said that he and his wife tried to have children for several years, and have found adoption to be the answer to their prayers.

There is also another couple in our ward that just got approved by LDS Family Services to adopt.

Right now, we are just leaving it all up to the Lord.  We know that what is supposed to happen will happen.

If you know of anyone who might know of children that might go up for adoption, please please please let them know that we are open for it!

Canning

I have felt very strongly lately that we need to beef up our food storage.  Well, today, we did it!

We went to the Lindon cannery and canned black beans and macaroni.  That gave us the chance to buy other canned goods as well.

Then we borrowed a learned how to use a home canner, borrowed it, and brought it home to can rice and flour.  The reason is that I am picky about my rice and flour, and you can't bring stuff into the Lindon Cannery to do there.  So, we got one to bring home.

This is the pile of boxes and the set up canning machine.

This is Chris sealing the cans with the machine.  It is actually a way cool process!
This is the finished product!  I thought of a new, INGENIOUS place to store the cans so they don't have to be in the garage with the heat!  Check it out:

On the stairs that lead to nowhere!  What a great idea!  I know, I know, I am proud!  Now, when I can 18 cans during our relief society activity, I know exactly where I will put them!

Summer Vacation

For our summer vacation, we decided to go to Georgia to visit Chris's family.  It was a fantastic visit!  When his parents picked us up from the airport, we went to an Atlanta Braves game.  I had never been to a Major League Baseball game before, so I wanted to see one.  It was super fun.  It was actually the Atlanta Braves's 10,000th win, so there were fireworks after the game.  Funny that we would be there for that!

 Our seats were very close to the game!

 The next day, Chris's Dad's work got a box at the Gwinnett Braves game, so we actually got to do two games in the weekend!  We got some great food during the 2nd game, which was fabulous!

We went to Stone Mountain in Georgia as well.  It was super cool to see the carving, the fireworks show, and the antebellum houses that are there.

We also went to the city of Roswell, Georgia, and saw a really cool historic house.  We also saw lots of other cool, Atlanta stuff, such as the CNN center.

Then we drove from Georgia to Virginia to spend time with Chris's brother who lives in Alexandria.  We had so much fun seeing Washington DC and playing with nephews!

 I have never been to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, and it was open this time!!  I was super excited!!  We told Chris's family goodbye and spent several hours there, and I basked in my geekiness.  I have about a million pictures of the cool stuff that I saw, but I will spare you most of them.  Except for the one of the Muppets.  We saw things like the table at Appomattox Court House, the hat Abraham Lincoln wore when he died, a ship used in the Revolutionary War, and the flag that the Star Spangled Banner was written for.  Cool!

We also saw some other DC sites as well.

 We went to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, and toured it.  I absolutely loved seeing all the historic sites, and knowing Jefferson's personality made them even more cool.

Here are some tunnels leading from the kitchen to Monticello.  So Jefferson, just like lots of other stuff there.

It was a fabulous trip, and it was wonderful to be with family!  We love you guys so much!
Oh, and we were able to see my brother while we were there too!  Here are some dinner shots with both brothers and families!

The first fruit (or vegetable?) of our labors

A zucchini.  We are so proud.  My dad says that third world countries have not discovered the zucchini yet.  He is right.  They grow, no matter what!  But we are still proud.

The prophet said to plant a garden

That's what my brother said every time we complimented his wife on her flower garden.  So funny.
But we have a real live vegetable garden in our backyard.
We left this week to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family (more on that later . . . )
And when we came back, our garden had erupted.
Which is great.
So we weeded this morning and then I took some pictures.
Here is the overall garden:



And some of the things in it:

 Turnips--any idea of what to do with turnips?  Not my idea, by the way

 Strawberries . . . yum!

 Beans

 Pumpkins

 And cucumbers . . . I'm not sure which is which.  But when I look closely, I can tell.

 Corn--so the rule is "knee high by the Fourth of July."  It definitely was not knee high before we left last week.  But, when we came back, it had exploded!  We are very excited!

Onions.  These are a transplant from Chris's classroom.

We are quite proud of our little garden.  We planted it, unsure of exactly what would happen.  And this is what we got.  Yippee!

Yard Work

We got to rent our house for cheap with the expectation that we would take care of the yard.  It has been an adventure!  One of our shrubs has been dying, and today, Chris put an end to its misery!  Now, our side planter looks much better and healthier!  Yay!  He got pretty messy while doing it, though . . .