Happy Birthday Sam!!!

I'm two days late for Sam's birthday but I figured this would be better late than never. My beautiful boy Sam turned 7 years old on Friday. He continues to be the apple of both his mom's and dad's eye and we think he's pretty fabulous.

When I was putting him to bed on his birthday at night, I told him, "Can you believe that next year on this day you'll turn 8 years old and you'll get baptized!" He couldn't believe it. He then proceeded to ask me "How cold is the water going to be in the font?" I thought that was pretty funny that that was his only question or concern about getting baptized next year.

Sam we love you a lot and are so lucky to have you as our boy! By the way, if you'll notice, Sam got a birthday cake at his grandparents house in Savannah and a cake at home so he did a lot of wishing and candle blowing. The picture of him with the back pack is a picture of his first day of 2nd Grade.

Welcome to Walt Disney World...

Two days after returning from our trip to Albuquerque and Nauvoo, Carl, Sam and I got to drive down to Orlando, Florida with the Stingel bunch and go to Disney World. We had such a great time there too. This was both Sam and my first time to go to either of the Disney parks and so we were both equally excited to go. Carl's parents bought us all three day passes to any of the different parks we wanted to visit. The first day we went to Hollywood Studio (I think that's what it was called) and we got to see Darth Vader and a couple of storm troupers up close and personal. As you can guess, this was one of Carl's favorite rides. We also descended several floors into the very bowels of hell on the Tower of Terror ride and I wasn't sure Sam would get on another ride again after that. It scared my pants off so I can't imagine how much it scared Sam. Carl just thought it was way cool to be able to feel his stomach ascend into his throat. The second day we went to Magic kingdom and that was very fun and more what I was expecting. We got to ride on splash mountain and space mountain which were both really fun roller coaster rides. We bought a picture of us going down the 50 foot fall on splash mountain and it was quite funny so I'll have to scan it and put it onto the blog for everyone's viewing entertainment. The third day, we split up and Carl, our nephew Devon and his mom went to Epcot center and Holly and I took Ashley and Sam to animal kingdom. I'm so glad Sam and I went to animal kingdom because it was my favorite of all the parks. We got to ride a river rapids ride three times and got successfully soaked to our underwear between the three rides. This wasn't that bad because the heat index the whole time we were in Florida was about 103 so being wet was not a bad thing. Then, Sam and I road the big roller coaster there while Ashley and Holly chose a milder dinosaur spin. I think my son is an adrenaline junky. We also got to take an African Safari bus where we got to see lions, giraffes, rhinos, some hippopotamus, ostriches, wart hogs and just about any other african animal you can imagine running wild through the park. It was so amazing. That was one of my absolute favorite things we did. Carl, and his bunch took some space ride to simulate what it feels like to be an astronaut and thought it was way cool at Epcot too. We had so much fun and hope we'll get to go back there again some time.

Summer Fun!!!

We had a fabulously fun summer. Sam and I braved the drive out to New Mexico to visit my mom, sisters and brother and all the cool cousins. It was a great trip other than the serious case of crazy legs from all the sitting in the car while traveling. After staying in Albuquerque for a week and a half, we car pooled with my mom, sister Emily, and sister Julie and family to Nauvoo to see all the cool church history sites and feed the local mosquito and chigger populations. It was amazing to see all the plays, home tours, pageants, fairs and horse and carriage tours. We seriously benefitted from Julie's experience of past vacations there. She was able to lead us to the must see attractions. Every since we went there, I've been reading the Doctrine and Covenants now because I'm dying to learn more about the church's history there.

As an added bonus, we got to travel with Chad and Aaron from Hannibal, Missouri to Nauvoo so Sam and I are all brushed up on the cool teenage scene (or at least way more than before). We loved driving with you two cool cats and Sam hasn't stopped talking about how fabulous you both are. I think you guys have a little fan.

On a side note, Sam took swimming lessons for the first time earlier this summer for two weeks at the YMCA and his swimming hadn't been noticeably improved until we went swimming with his cousins in Albuquerque who were all professionals. As soon as Sam saw Collin, Miranda, Bethany and Aaron all swimming with their heads under water and floating on their backs, all of a sudden his competitive streak came out. Thus, he learned more swimming techniques in two weeks swimming with his cousins than he did during his whole swimming lessons at the Y. I should have just saved my 80 bucks!

We're so glad we got to see you all this summer and hope we can move closer so it's not such an ordeal to come visit have you come visit us. If Carl gets a job in Dallas, we're totally going to host a six flags over texas event next summer and expect to see you all there.