Now that is has been almost a week since Austin came home, I am finally able to sit down and write about his day. It was interesting to watch how the Air Force system works and I was amazed at how many times they changed his arrival time. He was supposed to be home in March and then he was finally able to come home on April 23th. They changed his arrival time four times and he was finally home just after 5:00 pm. I was so nieve when he left and had no idea what he was in for, I hope he did, I just figured that he would be there safe and sound on base. However, those silly people over there attacked the Air Force Base. I guess I can understand why, but didn't they put it together that the more they attacked the more bombs we could find and attack them right back. I'm going with we left the biggest punch.
Here we are waiting inside the hanger on Hill Air Force base... Here is Susan and Richard (Austin's Aunt and Uncle) and in the background is some of the Hunt family, they have on the black jackets, it's not the poor guy in the gray shirt that I should have probably cropped out. Who is also related to Kenny and their son is Austin's best friend (I'll show him later).
There was all four of our major news channels up there and the lady from channel 4 found Katheryn and wanted to interview her. They did a live feed for the 5:00 news where she interviewed Katheryn, Seth, and Kelton and the rest of us had to stand in the background. I did get to see the clip from the 10:00 news and there was a nice shot of my butt, at least it was shot from far away. I know, back to Austin, this is not about me :)
Everyone needs to forgive me because this amazing group of people have an official name, but I can't remember it. Every member of this group is a veteran and they meet and make sure our soldiers can get off the plane safe and they provide a buffer so that anyone who wants to protest our returning soldiers can't get to them.
I just had to take this picture because I loved how the flags were blowing in the wind. Once the plane was in place the motorcycle group rode over and made a path for the soldiers to walk down and there were flags the whole way down for them to walk through.
This is the airplane that was chartered for them, it was huge!! I don't know who this guy is but there wasn't really a way to get him out of the picture. He really should have been watching where he was walking, couldn't he see I was taking a picture here?
Yeah!!! Finally, here they come off the plane. We were ordered to stay behind the motorcycles but no one listened and Katheryn really didn't listen, she was clear to the front, almost to the plane itself. At that point it doesn't matter what you say, a mom has the right to get to her son as quickly as possible!
The lady from channel 4 was able to catch up with Katheryn and Austin and interview them both once Austin was off the plane. 
This is Austin's best friend Taylor Hunt. I was so happy that his whole family was there to greet Austin and welcome him home.
Arrangements had been made to have a firetruck meet us at the edge of Grantsville and drive Austin into town. Here is Austin visiting with Karen (grey sweatshirt), Christy (red vest) and some of the Hunt family while we were waiting for the firetruck to arrive.
It finally made it and they loaded Austin up on top of this big truck along with his mom, brother, and most of the rest of the family. There were two other smaller trucks and Kelton rode on one of those. We promptly shut down Main Street and anyone who was coming into town had to wait behind our impromptu parade. All of the firetrucks had their lights and sirens going and they were honking. The rest of us followed and honked our horns all the way down Main to Apple, up to Cherry, over to Harris and all the way down Harris to Susan's house.
This is what it looked like from behind when all the firetrucks pulled up in front of the house.
Susan's Ward had put up flags all over the front yard and Karen had tied ribbons to the tree and the fence. She also put up the bouquet of balloons. This was the beautiful sight that Austin got to see when they pulled up in front of the house. Everyone did a wonderful job making sure Austin was recognized and thanked for his service.
Thank You Austin for all you have done and all you have yet to do for each one of us.
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