Explosion

Friday in AK

Dallon went for preliminary medical evaluations Friday morning. He is scheduled for more tests next week to check his hearing, shoulder, knee and do some brain scans for his TBI from when he was hit with the IED. Despite all that, he's really doing pretty good.

After that, we were all hungry. So we went to Papa Murphy's and got a Chicago Style Stuffed Crust pizza and some old fashioned Root Beer (of course, Dad had to have his Mountain Dew). Then we went back to the barracks and cooked it in the new oven in the conference room. We ate and watched a movie in Dallon's room on his new tv (he got a screamin' deal at Walmart-42" hdtv for $428). Dallon LOVED the pizza and ate until he was stuffed (3 huge pieces). Then he got very tired. We left him at about 4 pm to take a nap and told him to call when he woke up. It is now 10:30 pm and we haven't heard from him. His days and nights are mixed up. He's been waking up at 2 am. So I'm sure he will be awake all night again. It may take awhile to get back on a normal schedule.

Day Trip to Seward

Tuesday we decided to take a day trip while we waited for Dallon to fly in. Mom near the bay in Seward. The day we arrived the sun went down at 4:30 but it did not get dark until 6:00. One week later the sun goes down at 5:00 and it is light until 6:45. At this latitude the day is lengthened by 8 minutes per day. One week is 40 minutes. This is a strange place.

Avalanche came down from the hillside and took out the guardrail. Anything on the road ended up in the bay. Most snowmobilers that ride the shoots buy a parachute to save them in case of an avalanche. Ha! Money wasted.
In the bay the fresh water freezes and the salt water does not. Since it is quite well mixed the fresh water freezes in and around the brine. The result is very loosly frozen, strange shaped icebergs. The icebergs get stranded when the tide goes out. This is a strange place.

We met Virgil Johnson, owner of IRBI Knives. IRBI stands for I'd Rather Be Independent. He is a knife maker living in Moose Knee, on the way to Seward. We got a nice tour of his shop and visited with him for several minutes. He has a lot of cool "man" stuff. He is holding a small walrus skull with ivory tusks.
The object with my hand on it is walrus ivory. It is petrified. It was originally used as a dog sled runner. It is difficult to see in this photo. One might ask, "why would they make a sled runner out of expensive walrus ivory?" The answer is because they couldn't eat it.

Our Day

After the ceremony we took Dallon to the barracks. We picked up his friend, Eric (Pac Man), and went to meet his Mom & Aunt at IHOP for breakfast.

After breakfast, we made a trip to Walmart to purchase food and misc. items for Dallon.

Dad ran out of steam.

After Walmart, we headed back to the hotel so Dad could have a nap. We listened to stories fo awhile and chatted with Jaxon on the webcam. Then Mom and Dallon went to the barracks to drop off the groceries and other items. We worked on organizing Dallon's room. We went to the PX to buy a few more things. Then Dallon started running out of steam. We realized it was after 5 pm already and Dallon wondered where the day had gone. We decided it was time to eat. We picked up Dad, headed to Appleby's and ate as we listened to more war experiences. After eating, everyone was tired. Dallon dropped us off at the hotel and went back to the barracks for, hopefully, a good night's sleep.

Ceremony

Dallon's flight was postponed a few times, but the final ceremony time scheduled was 5 am on Wed. morning. We woke up at about 3:30 am and shortly after heard the airplane arriving. (Our hotel room was on the Air Force Base across from the runway) So we scurried to get ready and go over to the gym where the ceremony would take place. We got there at about 4:30 am. The ceremony actually didn't start until about 6 am.

There was a live band there to welcome the soldiers back.

There were many anxious family members awaiting the return of their loved one.

Samantha, Brittany, Toshia & baby Jeremiah - These soldier's wives were the ones that kept me informed throughout the deployment. (Brittany has been deaf from birth.)

Explaining some of the military patches.

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WELCOME HOME DALLON!!!

Waiting for Dallon in AK

Sunday, we got up and went to church. It was stake conference. Then we called Chase Johnson, who lives in AK, and went to visit him and his beautiful little family. (I forgot to get a picture, but we may go see him again when Dallon gets back.)

We went for a drive Sunday night. They were having the Fur Rondy. I guess they have had a Fur Rendezvous for years here in Anchorage. We found out we missed some dog team sprint races. That would have been fun. The Iditerod starts on Saturday, so Dad is looking forward to seeing the start of that. We will definately post pictures.

Today, while we were waiting for Dallon's truck to get washed and inspected, we took a short
drive on base. This is what we found - Eagle River....beautiful!

Monday night we called Sara Boen, Jaimie's childhood best friend, who is staying temporarily in Anchorage. She just had twins and will be leaving in a few days to move back to Barrow, AK. Sara's mom, Leslie, just happened to be in town for some training. It was so nice to see them.

The Great Grandma of Sara's children passed away and Sara gets to take this parka back to Barrow with her. She tried it on for us. Then we had to take pictures with the babies, a boy and a girl. They don't look anything alike. The girl looks like her boyfriend and the boy looks like Sara's family. Sara is a great little mother. She hasn't changed much, still as sweet as ever. She told Dad she had a lot of wonderful memories at our home spending the night, jumping on the trampoline, playing night games....what a great friend she was for Jaimie. We love her!

Sara and her boyfriend have been staying at his parent's home in Anchorage
while she had the babies and during recovery. This is their monster dog who took a liking to dad.