Our very last “summer roadtrip” responsibility was dropping Hunter and Bennett back off at BYU (Just three days after their BYU tennis camp) for FSY (For the Strength of Youth church camp). Luckily for them, they stayed in different dorms than they did the week before, so it felt like a new experience. Unfortunately for them, the sports camps have way better food! FSY is feeding 4000 people and they are definitely going for quantity over quality.

We got them settled in their dorms, gave them hugs and gave them obligatory “have the best week, go out of your way to make friends, please participate…in everything, and don’t forget to call me!”

And with that, we said our goodbyes and started the 10-hour drive home after being gone for most of the summer.

I am happy to report they took way more pictures at FSY than at tennis camp and I can piece together much of their experience thanks to the photos they took.

FSY camp started several years and kids typically are assigned to go every other year. Hunter has already been two times (once at Eastern Arizona, once at Northern Arizona) so if he was going to attend for a third time, he wanted to try something new, which is how we landed at BYU. He felt as though he was on the older end of his group, even though several of his Arizona friends also attended at BYU the same week. He roomed with a tennis teammate from Arizona and they had a great week together. One his highlights included the day they got to spend at the MTC – one of the advantages of attending at BYU. He’s fully moved into missionary preparation mode so the MTC experience was impactful.

This was Bennett’s first year of FSY – which means he’ll only get in two rounds before he graduates high school. I didn’t love the idea of sending him to BYU for his first year, but it just made the most sense to send my boys to the same location, the same week. (It may be a little bit of a letdown going from BYU with their 4 sessions of 1000 people in one week, to Eastern Arizona with their 500 people!)

Bennett also roomed with a friend from Arizona and made plenty more while he was there!

He said the MTC was one of his highlights as well. He also enjoyed the many classes they could choose from. And really, he hasn’t met a social gathering he didn’t love!

With our time running a little short with Hunter under our roof, I love that he and Bennett had the opportunity to room together at tennis camp and then turn around and have the shared experience of FSY. And even though they weren’t roommates or in the same group at FSY, they saw each other regularly throughout the week and shared in what they were experiencing.

I’m watching their relationship transition from big brother/little brother to peer/friend and I’m here for it! I love that they are making memories that belong just to them and building a relationship that will hopefully continue long after they are no longer living under the same roof.

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25 years ago.

Two years longer than I’ve been married – and somehow it still doesn’t feel possible that it was that long ago. In so in many ways, it feels like I’ve been married for almost my entire life. And yet, when I think back to September 11, 2001, I can still remember so many details with surprising clarity. How is it possible to remember a single day from 25 years ago so vividly?

Briggs had to interview someone for his social studies class who was alive on September 11, 2001 and could remember the events of that day. He asked Steve first, but although Steve was certainly alive, he was out of the country serving his mission and didn’t have a lot of firsthand details to share. So I was Briggs’ second choice!

It ended up being a meaningful exercise for me. As Briggs asked his questions, memories I haven’t thought about in years came rushing back – where I was, what I remember seeing and hearing and the strange feeling of watching history unfold in real time without fully understanding how it would impact me. I realized there are so many little details from that day that have simply been tucked away in the back of my mind for 25 years.

Tonight, we went to the Tempe Healing Garden for our annual visit to pay our respects to the thousands of people who lost their lives that day. It has become a tradition for our family, and I love that our kids have grown up understanding that September 11 isn’t just a date in a history book. It was a real day, filled with real people, real families, and real stories.

But this year felt a little different.

We visited the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York this summer, and our kids experienced the events of September 11 through the museum’s immersive displays. They heard the stories, saw the photographs and artifacts, and began to understand the scale of what happened in a way that is difficult to convey simply by telling them about it and visiting the flag display every year.

I don’t think you can ever look at September 11 quite the same way after visiting that museum.

On our way home tonight, one of the boys started asking some deeper questions. “Why do we honor this day more than events like the Holocaust, when it took so many more lives?”

It was a completely valid question and one that led to a deeper conversation. We talked about how we don’t need to compare tragedies or measure one loss of life against another in order to honor them. But we also talked about what it means to be attacked on your own soil and the vulnerability that comes with that and how infrequent that has been in our country’s history.

Standing at the Healing Garden tonight, I found myself thinking about how strange it is to carry memories of an event that our children only know as history. For us, it is something we remember. For them, it is something they have to learn. And helping them understand why it’s neccesary that they learn it. I think it’s important to continue to tell those stories and remember the lives that were lost – and also celebrate the patriotism that came in the aftermath.

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For the last several years, our boys have attended BYU soccer camp. This summer, though, things looked a little different.

Bennett had become pretty confident that he was ready to step away from soccer and wanted to give tennis a real try. He decided he wanted to attend BYU tennis camp, but there was one problem—he couldn’t find a roommate. And he had absolutely no interest in showing up and being assigned a random one. So the tennis camp idea was looking a little uncertain.

Hunter wasn’t ready to give up soccer. But his soccer teammates had all graduated, and he didn’t really have anyone his age who was planning to attend camp. So Hunter said he would be willing to go to tennis camp and be roommates with Bennett.

Unlike Hallie, who came home from camp with a camera roll full of evidence that she had actually been there, the boys returned with approximately three pictures. Three – between the two of them. Apparently, they were far too busy having fun to document any of it.

They made friends. They played tennis. They had adventures.

So I’m left imagining what these new friends look like, what exactly these “adventures” were, and what happened during all those hours that they were away.

Proof of the three pictures:

And one screenshot during a facetime.

Luckily, I attended the tournament on the final day of camp so I took all the pictures my little heart desired.

The competitive side of camp turned out to be a highlight for both boys. There were just over 100 tennis campers, which is small compared to the size of the soccer camp. They were placed in tournament groups based on their levels and Bennett won his group and Hunter was runner-up for his group.

There was also some sort of timed challenge involving running up a hill – or maybe a set of stairs? – and Hunter came out on top, fastest time of the week (daddy long legs). His win earned some points for their team, which ended up being important as the week progressed.

On the final day, Hunter was one of the last four in “around the world” which scored him a retro hat and gave his team more points.

All those individual wins and points added up. By the end of the week, their team had won the entire camp competition, and their grand prize was a camp T-shirt, which apparently made the victory official. So even though Hunter may not be ready to trade soccer for tennis anytime soon, he and Bennett made the most of their week on the court. And perhaps even more importantly, they got a whole week of brother bonding time that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

And while the boys were busy winning, we were keeping ourselves entertained. Provo Rec Center with friends for the day before Steve flew home. Cannon and Briggs then spent the next couple days with their cousins, which included a day at Lagoon, while Hallie and I were just a few streets away with different cousins. (My brother and Steve’s sister happen to live in the same neighborhood).

An inexpensive Korean facial was just as amazing as it was hyped up to be.

We made a visit to the Syracuse, Utah temple.

And then, in one of those moments that feels too coincidental to be coincidence, we randomly ran into friends at a store—nowhere near their home and completely unexpectedly. Of all the places and all the times, somehow we ended up in the same store at the same moment. We were definitely meant to see them!

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There’s a young mom, who grew up in our neighborhood, and she’s recently returned to live with her parents after the birth of her second son earlier this week and a husband who just started hospice after a courageous battle with glioblastoma.

Earlier this afternoon, emails, texts and social media posts invited everyone in the neighborhood to gather this evening.

“There are some times when families are going through so much. We look right and we look left and there are not many ways to help, so we look up. That is what we want to do tonight.

**** are going through some heavy times. We are gathering together tonight for a neighborhood prayer for them. Please come, join us, there is power in praying together.”

So tonight, we gathered.

As we were walking into the neighbor’s backyard, an older lady from the neighborhood was walking in next to us. She asked, “Do you know what’s going on?”

She didn’t really know the family. She didn’t know the daughter and her husband. And she didn’t know the battle they had been fighting.

But she saw the opportunity to pray for a community member and she showed up. I was humbled by her willingness on a hot and sweaty evening.

So many people showed up.

There was power in that backyard tonight.

And we knelt together in prayer.

“That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love.” Colossians 2:2

Later this evening, Steve and I received a text from the young mom’s parents (who live in our neighborhood). They shared a picture a note Hunter had dropped off as part of his church group activity tonight.

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I don’t believe in coincidences. Every time I witness a “coincidence” – I recognize God’s fingerprint in my life. His fingerprints are all over my life but some of those fingerprints make me pause in awe.

The day before going to our friend’s lake house, I was in the car driving with a friend who was also headed up to the lake house that weekend. Their family schedule was busy and there was a question as to whether they were going to make it up for the weekend. She assured me they were going to do their best, but if they came, they would have a visitor. Her son, a 22-year-old returned missionary from Portugal, was “babysitting” for the weekend. While he served in Portugal, he became good friends with the mission leaders. Because of this friendship, they asked him to watch over their son for a few days before he reported to the weeklong church camp FSY at BYU. (Ironically, our best friends just sent their daughter to the same mission earlier this summer.) 

We made the connection that I was sending two boys to the same FSY week at BYU and Bennett was his age.

I was excited when I saw them walk through the door the morning after we arrived at the lake house with their 15-year-old visitor. He was from Brazil, but had been living in Portugal the last two years and he spoke perfect English. We immediately made the connection that not only was he going the same week as my boys, he was actually in Bennett’s same session. (Every week, there are four sessions with 1000 kids in each session.) 

Not a coincidence.

They immediately bonded. And then they were inseparable. He learned how to wake surf. He had a lot of intense tubing adventures. They taught him the game Secret Hitler. They went on the rope swing. They jumped off the boathouse. This kid got the full American lake experience and he was adventurous enough to want to do it all. And he made a friend that would be a familiar face at a summer camp a long way from home.

I was so hopeful we could figure out a way to get them in the same company at FSY but that didn’t work out, but it didn’t need to. Even though they weren’t in the same group, they still found each other, and I got pictures from Bennett of the two of them on campus. Bennett also shared when his new friend broke his arm the very first day playing tag. We put that kid through the ringer over the weekend without an injury and he broke it playing tag. How unlucky is that!?

The second to last night, Bennett called to tell me about his day. His company joined two other companies for a testimony meeting and it was no coincidence they ended up together. And his new foreign friend shared his testimony and shared gratitude for his first American friend, Bennett. They were meant to find each other. Two peas in a pod. The same adventurous and humorous spirit – who just happened to live on opposite sides of the world. God is in the details and His fingerprints are evident. 

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