Apricots & Baby Blessings

We are so excited because we got apricots off of our tree this year! For some reason we didn't get any apricots last year; they just didn't grow. We wanted to take full advantage of the apricots so when we noticed the birds had started to eat away at them, we picked them. Some of them were still a little green but we just kept them in a box and within a week they were fully ripe.

Russell's dad and brother came over to help him pick the apricots. Tyler really liked climbing the tree to get the fruit on the high branches. Afterward, Russell needed help putting nets over our grapevines so the birds wouldn't eat our grapes again this year. Hopefully we get some grapes later on.

And here is our apricot harvest!

What do you do with a box of apricots? MAKE JAM!! so we did. The nice thing about apricots is you only have to pit them. Unlike peaches, you don't need to skin them so it was pretty easy to whip up 5 BATCHES of jam! I added a can of pineapple into 2 of the batches to add a little flavor. The jam is really good especially on toast in the mornings. Russell and I made 25 pint jars of delicious jam and still have apricots left over. We probably have enough to make 2 more batches of jam but I am all jammed out. We already have enough to make a million PB & J's. So if anyone has any ideas of what else I can do with our apricots please let me know! We will probably just give them to Russell's grandma so she can make some apricot nectar (so good!!).

Well this picture below doesn't have anything to do with apricots but I wanted to put it in here so I didn't have to make a new post:

About a month ago or so, Russell got a phone call from a lady in our old ward. Her foster daughter had just had a baby and she wanted to know if Russell would give the baby her blessing. Russell of course said yes and felt really honored that she would call him to do this. June 6 we went back to the 4th ward and Russell was able to give this blessing to this cute little baby girl. Roxane (the lady that called) was so happy Russell was able to do this and grateful for his willingness to serve. While we were in this ward right before Emily was born (about 2 years ago), we were primary teachers for the 10-12 year olds. We taught Roxane's other foster girl, Jena. We were really close to Jena because we kind of took her under our wing and tried to teach her the gospel. We were able to see Jena get baptized and confirmed a member of the church which was awesome. Jena seemed to have some anger issues because of being in and out of foster homes. Sometimes when Jena would act out, Roxane would call us and we would come down and talk to her or take her for a walk and just let her know she was loved and okay. Jena was sad to see us move and we were sad too and kind of worried about Jena because we didn't know what was going to happen to her. About a year later or so Jena was transferred to another foster home but Roxane said she still keeps in touch with her and she seems to be doing well despite her anger issues.

It was fun to go back to our old ward for the baby blessing and see all of our old friends. Everyone kept asking us when we were going to move back in to the ward. We told them we were looking for a place to live come the end of September or December (whenever we decide to move) so let us know if there are any houses or apartments for rent or maybe sale.