A best day.

I was asked, “Tell me about one of the best days you can remember.”

The first one that came to mind was just a couple years ago. It was epic.

June 24, 2023.

Palm Springs, CA.

Julie, Mary and I flew to Los Angeles the day before and spent the afternoon visiting Venice Beach, and driving through Beverly Hills before meeting up with Doc Duhame for dinner. Doc is now my son’s father in law. On this day, he wasn’t…yet. He’s an actor and a stunt man. You’ve seen him in movies, you probably just didn’t know it. Django Unchained, Indiana Jones, and Westworld, to name a few. Anyway, we spent the night at Doc’s, and by mid-morning were on our way to Palm Springs.

We were all a little giddy with excitement because our visit to California was put together on short notice and was part of a fairly elaborate plan to surprise Doc’s daughter, and my son Nick’s girlfriend, Rachel. By the end of the day she would, hopefully, be Nick’s fiancè.

Nick and Rachel had planned to be in Palm Springs for months, and Nick had decided to pop the question while they were there. He had a custom engagement ring designed for the occasion, and had decided that it would be awesome if both families (Duhame and Sammons) could be part of the excitement.

So on that beautiful, but crazy hot, Saturday morning, Rachel’s mom, dad, brother and his fiancè, Nick’s mom, dad (me), stepmom (Julie), and sister (Mary) all headed to Palm Springs with the goal of arriving at Korakia Pensione, without Rachel knowing.

We had come from Delaware, but that wasn’t the greatest distance traveled. Nick’s mom, Bonny, was on a missions trip in the Dominican Republic and flew overnight to Newark, then San Francisco and finally to Palm Springs, to arrive just in time.

Our original plan was to show up at Korakia Pensione, the amazing resort where Nick and Rachel were staying, just before Nick pulled out the ring and dropped to his knee. But the night before, Rachel had shared with her soon-to-be-sister in law, Piper, that she wanted her engagement moment to be private.

Piper told Nick, and plans were modified for us to show up shortly afterwards and surprise Rachel.

We used our Find Friends app to track Nick and Rachel as they also drove from LA to Palm Springs, and we stayed about an hour ahead of them, arriving early afternoon. We checked into our hotel, hit the pool briefly - it was too hot to stay very long - had some lunch, and then got ready to meet everybody outside Korakia.

Cynthia, Rachel’s mom, checked in to her hotel and prepared to go pick up Bonny at the airport.

And Doc, Zack and Piper checked in to their VRBO and went to a small sub shop for lunch. So far the undercover operation was successful.

Until they looked up from their sandwiches and saw Nick walk in. Their hearts stopped as they waited for Rachel to walk in too. But thankfully, Nick had told her to stay at the pool while he ran out for their lunch. Crisis averted.

Piper had us all on a group text and kept sending out updates and changes to our plan. She eventually texted us that Nick had proposed, Rachel had said yes, and they were taking pictures at the main entrance.

Finally it was time to meet up at the resort and surprise the newly engaged couple. As we sat in our cars outside the entrance, Nick and Rachel walked by, crossing the street immediately adjacent to Cynthia and Bonny in their car, and Julie, Mary and me in ours. We ducked and looked the opposite direction, and they never noticed us.

A few minutes later Piper texted that it was time, and we gathered in the middle of the street and watched as Nick and Rachel walked towards us. The expression on Rachel’s face when she saw us was worth the trip.

I tried to imagine what she was thinking and feeling. Just half an hour ago, Nick had dropped to his knee and asked her to be his wife. She knew it was coming, sometime, but did not suspect it would be on this day. After some tears and laughter and hugs and pictures, they had checked into the hotel only to walk outside and see their families standing in the middle of the street.

Rachel’s brother Zack was supposed to be working out of state. He’s also an actor and stuntman, and was filming the movie theater scene for Twisters, in Arizona. Bonny was in the D.R. on a missions trip. We were in Delaware. This was just a weekend getaway for her and Nick.

But now she had an engagement ring and all these people, supposedly scattered around the world, were standing there crying, and laughing and waiting for their turn to get a hug.

It was a moment for me and all of us that are honored to be family. I can’t imagine the brain overload it was for Rachel.

We got our hugs, Nick got his bride, and we all gathered later for an amazing dinner and shared stories and laughed and cried.

These are the moments that matter.

It seemed impossible and impractical that we could all get together at one moment in one place to be part of this event that changed the trajectory of our family story. But Nick, who has taught me for years that it’s about the experience, invited us all to be part of their story in real time, and it was one of the best days I remember.