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As if you didn't know what number was going to be at the top of this page, right?

Well to say I'm eager would be an understatement. We had our travel call this afternoon. Not much new information for us having been there before, but I found myself choked up from time to time in anticipation.

Anticipation of meeting our boys, anticipation of seeing this country that has settled itself deeply in our hearts. It's all too much.

In other news, all my campers are home. Every Friday night we have "closing ceremonies" here at camp. This is when the parents/caretakers of the resident campers come for walkin' tacos (my favorite kind of tacos) to pick up their kids and meet all of the counselors, etc. During this time the counselors give out a few awards for kids who showed excellence in exhibiting the 4 core values of caring, honesty, respect and responsibility. Trysten actually won one of these awards last year.

I knew Trysten had signed up for soccer this week, which meant when they went to breakout programs, he learned a bit more about soccer (a man after my very own heart). He told me his counselor, "Zonkers", was the one at the end of the line of counselors. Zonkers got up with the award and said:

"This award goes to a kid who showed the 4 core values the best. He showed caring by letting other kids go before him and helping kids if they needed it. He showed honesty when he told me when he kicked it out of bounds and I couldn't see for sure. He showed respect because I never had to ask him to do something twice, he was always helping me out. He showed responsibility by making sure all of the equipment was put away before we left. He was just a good kid this week. So this award goes to Trysten."

Are you crying yet? Because I did. I beamed, I really did. And so did he.

I saw Zonkers in the lodge afterwards and thanked him for everything he said. He replied, "Well I knew I would get sh*t for it since he's the boss's son but honestly he was the only kid that deserved it."

Zach and I talk to our kids all the time about leadership. We tell them that some people will be leaders regardless because of their personality, or what have you. We tell them they can choose to be a leader for good or a leader for bad. Being a leader, as we know, does not imply that you lead people to do good things.

But that award showed me he "got it", to some extent. At 7 years old, he was one of the youngest kids in resident camp. But his behavior stood out in such a positive way, it overshadowed even the fact that he was the boss's son.

I think that's pretty amazing. In fact, I think he's pretty amazing. And I'm going to miss my babies more than I can possibly say when we're gone.

My little big man.