Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah.

When the Evans' get together, you pretty much have to call it a reunion.  There are just too many of us to call it anything else.  And so, the second week of August, that's exactly what we did.  There were 30 of us, just immediate family, all crammed into my parents cabin in Idaho.  When Shannon's family showed up, it became a real party!
Like we needed an excuse, but we had a few.  First of all, my sister Megan swam in the Sandpoint Long Bridge Swim.  It's a 1.76 mile swim across the lake, and Meg was one of over 900 swimmers.  She was incredible.  This video doesn't do it justice, but when the horn blew and the swimmers started piling into the lake, it was pretty amazing. 

Meg did the swim in 1 hour and 23 minutes: pretty amazing, if you ask me.  Maybe next year...


The other exciting thing that happened was my sweet nephew, Chase, got baptized in the lake.  It was very, very cool!  In our church you can't be baptized until you are eight, because it isn't until then that you know right from wrong.  We are also baptized by immersion, just like Jesus.  My brother Matt baptized Chase, on his eighth birthday.  What a memory!

What I love about events like this, is how Eli and Silas can witness their older cousins making such good choices.  Eli was the 12th grand kid, so by the time he turns 8 he will have seen all 11 older cousins be baptized. And later on he will be able to watch as his older cousins prepare and leave for their missions.  What a great thing to be able to watch and look up to.

Besides those two events, the week at the cabin included just a whole lot of sitting around, playing, eating, swimming and other such frivolity. Jared set up a zip line, and the kids couldn't get enough of crashing into the tree at the end of it:

Megan brought her face paints, and purple, blue, red, orange and yellow spidermans ran rampant.

The lake was never still for all the jumping in, throwing in, and falling in that happened.

Silas wiled away his time splashing in the foot baths and such with the younger cousins:

Of course there was a lot of wakeboarding, kneeboarding and waterskiing going on as well, plus put-puts, walks along the road, bike rides and such.  It was crazy, it was crowded, it was busy, but I wouldn't have it any other way: my whole family together, learning from each other and having fun.  These are the moments my boys will remember, and I'm glad we've been here to have them!