Dan

Tuesday was Dan's birthday!

Dan is our 3rd child followed ten minutes later by our 4th child, Dave.  His post follows.

 And they were right in the middle of our six kids.

Dan is a very important part of this very large family.

And a very important part of this very beautiful family.

I wrote about Dan on his birthday last year in this post and visiting there will show the links to all his previous posts.

And those links will take you to many pictures and stories of how he's changed over the years.

So I'll just post a few pictures here

 And talk a little about what's been going on in his life during the past year.

To begin with, he finished school and moved from Colorado (his residence) and Virginia (where he went to school for a year) to Florida.  And after a career filled with long deployments, he's enjoyed a year of short trips (a week or two at a time) and finally spending quality time at home with his girls.

They've enjoyed the pool that came with their new house far more than they expected,

walks in their beautiful neighborhood,

and visits to the many nearby theme parks.

Another big change this year is that his sons now live, work, and go to school almost 2,000 miles away.

but they visit often and in a year, Grant will be done with school and there's always the chance that they'll both move to Dan's next location which will be in the south but not as far south as Tampa.

All in all, it's been a busy but fun year for Dan.  As always he does his job with integrity and purpose which results in his working long hours but as I alluded to before, it's preferable to those long deployments he's dealt with in the past.  He's also enjoyed some fun visits from his family and we even got to see the Dan's three times while we were in Florida.

We are incredibly proud of him, of all he's done and all he's doing.  We're proud of the dad and husband that he is and the son who has always been there for us.  We couldn't ask for a son as incredible as him and we got two of them.  Dave's post follows.  In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Dan, a little late.  It probably could have been better since you were many thousands of miles away for it but you'll be home soon.  And then we'll all celebrate that!