Dan's Promotion Ceremony

We have been in the Army for 7 years now. In that time Dan has gone from Specialist, to Corporal, to Sergeant, and now he is a Staff Sergeant! He worked SO hard for this promotion. Everything is points based, and soon after he was promoted to Sergeant they changed the point system and he almost had to start over from scratch. He took as many courses as he could getting 10 points here, 15 points there. He also earns points for awards. But what really took him over the edge was attending ALC and taking the common course that accompanies it. Those 90 points put him in the top 3 of the band members. Each month they release a point number, and if you have enough points you get promoted. Usually it stays at 798, which basically means they're not promoting anyone. Last month The points were low enough for Dan to get promoted, but his new 90 points hadn't been in the system long enough to count. (frustrating!) You never know when the next time they'll drop the points, so we were planning on it being quite a few more months before he would be promoted. So to our surprise the points were at 550 for June and Dan had 560! Woo hoo! This was a process 3 years in the making.

So today was his promotion ceremony. First Chief Clickner talked about him a little bit and how deserving of the promotion he was. Then they announce that he is being promoted from Sergeant to Staff Sergeant, at which point I stripped him of his Sergeant rank and the boys put on his new Staff Sergeant rank and gave him a good punch in the chest to make sure it stayed on. :)  Then Dan got to say a few words of thanks to those who have been a support to him. He works for wonderful people and we're lucky to have them in our lives.

Never a dull moment when Dan is around!

It was hard to get off! It's been on there too long... :)

Alex gave a few too many punches!

Oh Cade....

I'm so proud of Dan. He really has worked so hard for this and is very deserving of the promotion. Our adventures in the Army are far from over and the military life has treated us well so far. 

As a promotion present I promised Dan that he could get a motorcycle. This has been a life long dream of his. To our benefit, a good friend was selling his bike and it was everything Dan had dreamed of and more, and a great price. We jumped at the chance and he is LOVING his motorcycle, and so am I. It's a symbol of new adventures and journeys in our life and I can't wait to see what comes our way.