Happy Birthday Zach!

Today is Zach's birthday and so I had to post some pictures! Unfortunately it is not the birthday he had in mind thanks to his wonderful squadron so that makes three years in a row of dissapointment. At least he is not deployed this year! I have class tonight which just makes it worse for him so the boys and I have a "party" planned for tomorrow. We bought him some silly presents to cheer him up, had his mom send his favorite cherry chip cake mix, and we are making him a yummy dinner. Since he won't be home until 6 at the earliest it gives us time to set up after school and surprise him.

Now I will tell you what I know about Zach! He was born at Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota in a blizzard! He was a boy through and through always into something! I guess I have three boys as payback now! He used to camp out in the backyard with his friends, but usually they would sneak inside part way through the night! He got caught jumping out in front of cars with his friends.....the car he jumped in front of happened to be a police officer! He played sports and had his dad as a coach. he said he dad was always hard on them, but he is glad and wishes coaches could be that way now. He moved to the Phiilipines, but when Mt. Pinatubo (spelling?) errupted they were moved back to the states. Part of that adventure was getting to stay on an aircraft carrier and stop in Anchorage, Alaska which sparked his interest in living there! His mom doesn't recall the adventure being so great! His love of the Air Force is what led him to enlist. He told me that the day he had to give up his military ID he felt like he lost part of himself. I didn't understand it then, but now after 10 years I know what he means!

His first loves are Ford Mustangs and airplanes! He loves, loves, loves, to biuld model airplanes! At one point we had almost 30 parked or flying in our house in Alaska! He does a really good job on them and over the years has learned tricks to build them better. Some even had working motors! He has this obsession with inventing and building things. I had the little hand vacum upstairs and he sat staring at it till I asked him what was wrong. He said he was trying to figure out how to turn it into a jet engine! Needless to say he has way more creativity then I do!

He has sacrificed a lot of time away to provide for our family. We are proud of him being in the Air Force and for the things he has been apart of. Two of the most memorable are when he took Christmas gifts to a Arctic Village in Alaska. The kids made little gifts for each of them. Zach was given a piece of moose antler the kids had painted. He also left two days after Christmas to help the people of Thailand after the deadly sunami (spelling?) and said that even though they slept very little and had no contact with family it was the best month of his AF career. He had refugees coming off the planes with just the clothes on their backs shaking thier hands and hugging them to say thank you, loaded pallets full of food and water labled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints onto planes to be dropped in areas that could not be reached and did any job that needed to be done to get aid brought into the people.

So obviously you can see from the picture overload and all we love Zach! I think a quote from Ryan sums it up best!

"Dad you are the bestest man and dad I ever had!"