Daniel Harry - Yesterday and Today

Today was Dan's birthday!

Dan is an important part of this large family (where his story began),

a very important part of this larger family,

and an even more important part of this wonderful family.

I wrote about Dan here and if you follow the links in this post you'll know a lot about his yesterdays. Then if you scroll through the following pictures you'll see how he's changed over the years.

 Here he is being sworn into the Army.

So mainly I'm going to talk about what he's been up to for the previous year.  Before he was reassigned, he spent some time camping with his family because he knew it was going to be a long year of separations.

They re-united at Christmas in Florida and Gulf Shores through the New Year but were separated again until about a month ago when they started a house hunt for their new home in Florida.  So it's been a year of college for him - maintaining two households and staying close to his family from far away.  He's never forgotten to stay in touch with his mom and dad and the rest of his family despite an - at-times - crushing schedule and he's learned a lot about facetime!

And although he's not 'deployed' he spent his birthday at home tonight, alone, eating the dinner he prepared, and connecting long distance with his family.  That's the way of his job and he does it with professionalism, loyalty, and pride.  He doesn't complain and is grateful for the many opportunities he's been able to take advantage of in his career.  And speaking of career, he was placed on the promotion list and should be pinned sometime this summer.

We are incredibly proud of Dan, our firstborn son by 10 minutes, and we're grateful to call him our son. We're wishing him a happy birthday, a little late, and a year ahead filled with fulfillment, family, and fun!