More reunion fun

Wow I have a lot of catching up to do! Sam is as cute as ever. He says so many words now! Lately he's started saying "bye" like such a southerner. Just say it as southerny as you can and that's what he sounds like. He's gonna' fit right in down in Texas. We go in just 2 days! Sam has become a lot more friendly recently. Last week we were at the mall. He stood in the entry way from the mall to Macy's for 5 minutes saying "Hi" to everyone that walked in. People loved it. I was just standing back behind the clothes watching it all. :) He says hi and bye to everyone and you can tell sometimes it makes a person's day. Their face just lights up.
We went down to Utah a couple weeks ago for the Andersen and Backus family reunions. Laura drove down which us which is always fun. Lots of fun talks about the future. The Andersen reunion was on July 4th, Monday. As part of the reunion we ran the 5K Freedom Run! Mom, Dad, Steph, me, Laura, Tim, and Sarah all ran it. It was awesome. A bunch of other cousins ran too. Oh and Caleb's leg was still hurting so he let his sister Rachel run in his place. He was nice enough to watch Sam, Eva, Leighton, and Dean while we all ran. Tim and I ran together. My goal was under 22 minutes and beat Tim. My time was 21:44 so I got that part of the goal, but Tim pulled ahead of me at the end!! It was fun to run with that giant of a brother of mine and to cheer everyone on after we finished. I ended up first place for my age group (females 25-29) which was surprising, but 80th overall. The rest of the day was spent at the Andersen park! We mostly just ate and visited... typical of Andersen reunions! Oh and we sang patriotic hymns of course. It was so fun seeing everyone. Then just our family went and got snow cones and swam at the hotel where everyone was staying. Then we went back to Rachel's house (Caleb's sister who lives in Springville). We always show up last minute to stay at Rachel and Ben's and they're always so happy to have us and make us feel so welcome.
Tuesday early afternoon we headed up to Bear Lake for the Backus reunion. We rented this vacation house just a few minutes from the lake with like 7 bedrooms. It was really nice and the perfect set up. We definitely want to do that again!! Everyone was there but Uncle Boyd as far as the Backus siblings go, and then our family was missing Linds, Cam, Laura (she took the shuttle back up to Rexburg Tuesday morning) and Jeff. :( We ate great food, laughed lots, went wake boarding, played volleyball on the beach, rode four wheelers, did fireworks, played pool (mostly the boys!), and saw this hilarious play at the Pickleville Playhouse called "Who Shot Juanito Bandito." Another thing we definitely want to do again. Sam did great even though he was sleep deprived and thrown way off his schedule.(Caleb and Sam up on the balcony at the Pickleville Playhouse)We left Thursday morning for home and Caleb made it in for a half day of work. Back to real life!
Recently we've found out that Sam is fearless when it comes to water. Which is odd because he's usually very cautious. Last week we went to feed the ducks by the river. He'd been trying to walk into the water the whole time and I'd pull him away and distract him. Then Caleb was watching him and thought he'd let him just kinda' step in as a "learning opportunity" not realizing how quickly it dropped off and not thinking Sam would REALLY do it! I, knowing he would REALLY do it since he'd been trying to for the last ten minutes, started approaching since Caleb was standing about 10 feet back. Sam of course went straight into the water and immediately fell in up to his nose. I stepped in to pull him out and kinda' slipped and ended up in the water up to my waist. Ya, GREAT LEARNING OPPORTUNITY!! :) He decided that wasn't the best learning opportunity. I didn't find it too funny at first but a few minutes later started laughing at how ridiculous it must've all looked. I'm still teasing him about that one.
And then we went swimming with the ward playgroup on Wednesday at Apple Athletics and Sam would charge toward the deep end until his mouth was under water and then he'd just close his lips and smile. He doesn't quite understand the dangers involved with water yet!! Caleb had a dream last night that Sam drowned in a kiddy pool so you better believe I'm gonna' be watching him like a hawk in Houston!