Whole

He was gone one day shy of four weeks, and had the time of his life.  He loved riding horses and chopping wood with an axe and hatchet.  He knows all the requisite silly camp songs, and he acted in a camp production of Lord of the Rings.  Instead of writing us letters during the Siresta rest period, he and his tentmate often played 'Out You Go', shoving each other out of their tent, or he was off in the woods building forts.  He was the only young camper to be adorned with a nickname (Onion Ring) from the older boys, who all had nicknames of their own. The word 'boss' is now the best way to describe something really cool.  I asked him if there were any girls there he perhaps had a crush on, and the millisecond the question left my lips he answered with a swift 'No!' before declaring that he wasn't going to answer any more questions about that topic.  The boy doth protest too much, methinks. The friendship bracelet I made for him before camp is properly faded, and he could use a haircut.

I planned to take a picture of him as soon as I saw him, but I was so enthralled with seeing him again in real life that I forgot.  A kind man at the airport took this one...

I am so glad that Sam and I trusted that he was old enough for some wing-spreading.  For the past four weeks, he soared.

And now I'm so very thankful he's back in our nest.  Our family is whole again, and life is as it should be.