You Canned Peaches? Seriously?

Two weekends ago, we canned peaches. Yes, indeed. People nowadays DO still know how to can. Adam was pretty excited about it, and I was resigned, but two evenings later, we had over 50 bottles of peaches. That means we have one per week for a year. We're very proud of ourselves, and even though it was hard work, they taste great, and it's totally worth doing again.

Last weekend, we went to the zoo. We figured it might be the last warm weekend of the summer (whoopee for living in Washington--sigh), and we had a wonderful time. Mariah is just old enough to start noticing the animals, and Anna loves watching them. You can just see the bald eagle on the upper right-hand side of this picture. It's a cool exhibit because you're actually in his enclosure and he can fly over your heads if he wants to. But, thankfully, he didn't.

Mariah thought the flamingos were pretty cool. The big moment of the trip, though, was that it's the first time Mariah has EVER fallen asleep in the stroller. I never thought I'd see the day.

Our Family Home Evening last Monday night was pretty awesome, so here's a movie of our activity.

In other news, Mariah started walking this week. It was just one or two steps a few nights ago, and now she's up to three or four at a time before she crashes face-first to the ground. And no, we don't have a movie of it yet. She does it at very unpredictable times. Like during the prayer at the end of Sacrament meeting today. You'd have all been so proud as we're both watching her delightedly with one eye half-open during the prayer, not even paying attention. Since of course, none of you have EVER had your eyes open during a prayer.

Adam and I gave talks in Sacrament Meeting today. We spoke on being "Born Again," based on Elder Christofferson's talk from last Conference. And things went pretty well. We were both nervous, Adam a little more so than I was, but the Spirit was there, and I think people were paying attention. We got a lot of compliments, and both the Sunday School teacher and the Bishop (during the combined RS/Priesthood meeting) commented about what we'd said, so that should be a sign of success, right? Right. And now, it's over, and we shouldn't have to speak until our next new ward. Following current pattern, that should be about two years from now. And that works for me. :)

And on one final note, let me just tell everyone how SUPER FUN it is to play Pretend for 24 hours a day, for 5 days in a row. In the last few days, I've spent way more time being Anna, Daddy, Barney the Dinosaur, a sheep, a teacher, a chef, and several other things than I have spent being Mommy. I never knew how grateful I should be to just be myself. I'll try to show gratitude for that more often.