August 11th - Survivor's Outreach Services weekend

Huge thank you and hellos to Sara Blazik, her team, the NDPG, and Dr. James Coyle.

It was an amazing weekend in Bismarck where we got together to learn and share stories with our families of the fallen.  Our presenter, Dr. James Coyle was a riveting speaker and his words soothed and touched our hearts.  There is still so much to learn about our emotions and how we manage them instead of having them run our lives.  We engaged in a project where we took blank tiles and wrote words of description for our feelings and such. After doing that, we put the tiles into a bag and broke them up, symbolically taking control of them.  A day later, we took picture frames and put parts of every body's tiles on them so we would all have a share of each other.  We had a church service on Sunday and had some great dinners and did a lot of singing.

Arlen Halverson's sweet ride with all the fallen heroes on the saddle bags

The shards of our frustrations

Displays of the fallen

Craft time.  The fragments have put in bags for us to pick.

Dr. James Coyle

Dr. Coyle's books

Our Art

At one point in our day, we visited Bismarck Brewing.They had a nice restaurant and taproom downstairs and the main brewery room upstairs.

September 11th - Leaving North Dakota into Montana.

On the evening of the 1th, having checked out of the hotel and said goodbyes, we finally headed out towards California.  We made a brief stop at Teddy Roosevelt National Park.  Drove up a road, looked at the groundhogs and took a couple of pictures.  After that, we were on our way and quickly cruised into Montana.  We made it just past Whitehall, when Laurie noticed a huge bubble in one of the fifth wheel's tires.  We pulled over and the tire eventually went.  After some scrambling around to find a thin-wall socket, we finally got the tire changed and made it to Butte where we bought another tire.  On the way out of Whitehall, we detoured unintentionally, and drove through some pretty mountain areas until we made it back to the highway.  We pulled over in Butte for the night and headed out towards Idaho in the morning.  We stopped for a quick PNG (park and grab) geocache at the continental divide rest stop.

In her perch

Taking the scenic route

A McDonald's in Butte

Where the continental divide crosses I-94

September 9th through the 11th. Remembering North Dakota's fallen in the GWOT

The North Dakota National Guard branch of the Army Survivor's Outreach Services hosted a remembrance retreat for the families of our fallen. 

We came together at a local hotel in Bismarck on Friday.  We had a dinner and meet and greet followed by a touching ceremony of placing memory globes on a tree for each of the fallen.

On Saturday the day there was a program with Adjutant General Major General Alan Dohrman, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army Connie Sprynczynatyk, and Major General (ret) Mark and Carol Graham.  The Grahams lost two sons within months of each other.  One to suicide and one in combat.  They had a very moving story of love, loss, and finding purpose through struggles.

Later on, we all borded busses and rode up to the Circle C ranch. The Ranch is used for many faith centered events.

http://www.circle-c-ranch.org/#circle-c-ranch

 There was a live duo performing and food as well as a lot of nice historic building and general good company.  After returning to the hotel, they had a fire pit in the courtyard of the hotel and did s'mores.

On Sunday we had breakfast and a reverse roll call to pull back the globes to the families.   Then out to the ND National Guard's Fraine Barracks.

http://www.ndguard.ngb.army.mil/history/frainebarrackshistory/Pages/default.aspx

There, we had our annual GWOT (Global War n Terrorism) remembrance ceremony and we added the names of two servicemen who died. One on the USS Cole and one at the Fort Hood shooting.

http://www.ndguard.ngb.army.mil/news/Pages/FamiliesoftheFallentobeHonoredatGWOTMemorial.aspx

As always, the wonderful people of the North Dakota Patriot Guard were there to cover, escort, and love us.

Thanks to Gen. and Connie Sprynczynatyk, Major Gen. Dohrman, Major Gen. and Carol Graham, NDNG Foundation, Sara Blazek, LTC Davina French, and the Patriot Guard Riders.

The Chapel

Fraine Barraks

The GWOT memorial