It's 10:00pm. Do You Know Where Your Son Is?

Why, yes.

Yes, I do.

He's here. At the top of this ominous-looking building in a city far away.


We dropped Braden off today at an area university for a week-long swim camp. This isn't his first time away from home, but it's his first time away from home and in the hands of complete strangers. I am so impressed that he wanted to go to this swim camp, even though he didn't know anybody there. I was not so brave when I was 13!

Here he is unpacking in his dorm room.


His room is so much bigger and nicer than our dorm rooms. (And we let him know it!) It has the standard bed and desk and, well, a shelving system for clothes that's supposed to be a closet. But it also has a refrigerator. A refrigerator! Can you believe it!? We never had such a luxury in a dorm. Even if Auntie D. and I could have afforded a refrigerator, there was no room for one.

We arrived at about the same time as his roommate's family. They were very nice, and their son seems like a very nice young man. I think the boys will get along well. I am so thankful God provided someone friendly and kind. He also laughed at all my jokes, so he earned bonus cool points in my book!

We all small-talked for a few minutes, but the boys were pretty quiet. It was obvious that they were not going to talk to each other while the parents were in the room. So we decided to go explore the campus a bit and let the boys get acquainted.

The campus was huge and filled with students who are attending all sorts of camps: basketball camp, cheerleading camp, band camp, drill team camp. I'm sure there were more. On our walk we passed a sunny brick wall and I convinced Brogan and Colson to pose for me.





Such good sports!

After our walk we went to the store to stock up the boys' dorm fridge. They will be in the pool for up to 5 hours a day this week. I've learned that teen boys eat a lot. Add swimming two hours a day to that, and their food intake seems to double.

Braden eats an astounding amount of food every day: morning snack before his 6:30 am practice, breakfast afterward, another morning snack, "elevenses," lunch, seconds, afternoon snack, dinner. It's crazy. He's 5'7" and just last month hit 100 lbs on the scale. He's got a figure a supermodel would envy.

Anyway, both dads insisted that the dining hall food would be more than enough for the boys, but honestly, it made us mothers feel better just knowing that they had food in their room. And shopping for them gave us something motherly to be doing. Thanks to the efforts of both mothers those boys have a fridge full of food and a whole week to enjoy it!

Here is the pool where Braden will be living. We stayed and watched part of the first practice, and I was impressed with how organized the coaching staff was.



I know he will have a great week. I know he will grow both as an athlete and as a young man. I know this will be a week he will always remember.

However, the house is so quiet without him here. It's strange, tucking two children into bed at night instead of three. He is missed.

Tonight he telephoned before he went to bed. "I didn't think you were going to call home this week, " I said.

"I know. But I knew you'd want me to," he said.

He was right.