Whew! What a year! Kristine has done most of the updates to www.ryuns.com, so I figured this would be a good time for me to make an entry. Since the winters are a little slow up here, and we've been busy with a lot of 'uninteresting' stuff, we don't have any cool new pictures to post. I figured a "2004 year in review" was a good thing to do. It seems like this past year has been NUTS, so allow me to recap.
Ok, so this
wasn't exactly in 2004, but on 27 Dec 2003, Kristine and I became Husband and
Wife. I think that is definitely mentionable material for this
topic. We were in Wisconsin for that. Oh, and I won the 2003
Communications and Information Professional Airman of the Year. Yay.
For our
Honeymoon, we went to the big island of Hawaii in January. That sure was
nice. It was only in the 70s while we were there, but it was -30 here in
Alaska while we were gone. So if you think about it, we were 100 degrees
warmer! Rock on!
February,
nothing happened that was all that exciting. I guess we had our 1st
Valentines Day together. At the time, we were still living downtown
Anchorage. In March, we moved on base. K's mom and grandma came up
and helped with that. It was their first trip to Alaska. With our
new house, came our dogs! Duke and Aly moved in the same day we did.
We couldn't wait to get them home. I also "re-enlisted" for
another 4 years in the Air Force. We did the re-enlistment in the Air
Traffic Control Tower, here on Elmendorf Air Force Base. It was a
snowy/cloudy day, so the view was kinda crappy, but traditionally the ceremony
is supposed to be in a "high" location, so that had to do.
April is very-much still winter here in Alaska. We were pretty stir-crazy by then, so we took a road-trip, with the dogs, to Valdez, Alaska. It was just somewhere we haven't been yet. There wasn't much to see there, but the food was good, and it was a nice relaxing trip. Vice President Dick Cheney came by Elmendorf, so K and I went and saw him. He had some inspirational words to say to the Airmen up here. Good guy, I'm glad he's a boss of mine. Oh, and I won the Airman of the Quarter award, (Jan-Mar).
In May, Kristine
and I flew down to Wisconsin and hauled Magnum, our stallion, up to
Alaska. He wasn't doing much of anything in Wisconsin, and Kristine was
going nuts not being able to ride him. So, we got him up here, and
Kristine began training him in Barrel Racing. I like May, myself, because
the roads open to motorcycles (weather permitting). So, I got to ride my
new DRZ400. K's dad came up for some black bear hunting, and we all went
halibut fishing. It was a nasty day for fishing, but we still have
fun. Both of us had birthdays in May, too. Somewhere in there, I was
part of a pretty huge gathering of the Top Dogs in the Air Force. I was
one of the Airmen in charge of Communications for the distinguished
visitors. I was awarded a couple coins from some of the big-wigs.
June was pretty
busy, too. Well, lets just say from May on, I don't think we slept!
Heh. Kristine started barrel racing, I started doing some more
road-riding. My folks came up and so did my Grandparents. We all
went halibut fishing, and did pretty well. The waters were a lot more calm
this time! The base had it's annual Air Show, as well. That was
pretty neat. If you ever get a chance to see an Air Show, do it. We
went up to Fairbanks for a buddy-o-mine's wedding towards the end of the
month. Oh, and for work...I was involved in a huge Joint Operations
Exercise here in Alaska. I was awarded a coin by the 3-star general in
charge of the deal. Cool.
In July, we actually didn't have to GO anywhere. So that was nice. Well, thats not entirely true. I took a trip up to Fairbanks for the day. I got to fly up on a C12. The pilot did a loop around Mt McKinley. Ultra cool. We did some more dirt biking and fishing on the Fourth of July weekend..and we went to "Big Game Alaska".
August...more riding, barrel racing,
and fishing. We got a bunny..he drinks beer. Also, I was selected to
be promoted to Staff Sergeant. Kinda a big deal. I will be a Non
Commissioned Officer. Sweet.
In September...man...September was a
good one. We bought Kristine's new motorcycle (a DR200), so she learned
how to ride a motorcycle. She did awesome! We went to the state
fair, and I tried going on the ferris wheel...yeah, I don't like those.
6-10 September was moose camp! My dad came up for camp this year. I
shot a cow moose the day before we had to leave camp. MMm...so good in my
belly! It took a whole weekend to butcher and package that meat. We
figure we put about 350lbs of moose meat into the freezer that weekend.
(Oh, and we only took half the moose home...we split the rest with the
camp.) We went to JAPAN!!! I had a class over there for a couple
week, and K came along. We did a lot of sight-seeing in Tokyo and went to
a couple museums. While we were gone, we got snow in Alaska! It is a
SHORT summer season up here.
October was
when small game hunting opens up, so we went out a few times. We weren't
sure if our dogs would hunt, but they did a pretty good job. Halloween, of
course, too. Oh, and we got a cat.
November
wasn't too long ago. We didn't do too much other than cooking Thanksgiving
dinner for some of my troops. December, we got our Christmas tree, went
ice fishing, and, well, CHRISTMAS, of course! Also, I was in Airman
Leadership School for all of November. Graduation was in December, and I
won the top award for the class, the "John Levitow Award". Very
cool. And, to stretch my "big head" into January. I just
found out that I was selected as the 2004 Airman of the Year for the 3rd
Communications Squadron. AND, I fulfilled all of the requirements for my
Associates Degree in Information Technology...so I'll have my degree as soon as
the paperwork goes through.
And that about sums it up. It's been a good year for us this year! What's new for the coming year? Well, we've got a lot of riding (motorcycle and horse) to do this summer. I may even do some showing/barrel racing with Kristine instead of just watching! We will be leaving Alaska towards the end of the year. My tour is up in November, and we're not sure where we're moving to next. It is kinda up to us, but our choices will be limited to what bases have openings at the time. We'll find out around August where we'll be going. Then, we'll be scrambling trying to find a house/small farm, and getting the horses moved down before the snow flies up here. It should be 'interesting'.
Keep in touch, all of our loyal readers. Sign the guestbook (link at the top)!
~Jake