A typical Friday afternoon at Jefferson Elementary School quickly became a day one student will never forget.

Third-grader Aidan Muhle and other Jefferson Elementary School students are celebrating heroes.

Muhle says his hero is his dad, Jason Muhle, a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force who's been serving in Korea for the past 14 months. Aidan wasn't expecting his dad to come home until later this month. Friday afternoon, that quickly changed.

Jason surprised Aidan at an all-school assembly.

"It was amazing," Jason says. "I'm not a crier and it choked me up a bit."

Prior to Korea, he spent six months in Iraq.

"Pretty much as soon as I got back, I got orders to go to Korea for a year so I got to spend a couple months back but immediately after I got back, I pretty much was getting ready to go to Korea," Jason says.

That means he's missed a lot of special occasions over the past two years, but he's home just in time for another milestone. Aidan's 9th birthday is February 15th.

"We're going to go to this place called Twisters," Aidan says.

"He was pretty disappointed that I couldn't make it for his birthday, so that'll be real special," Jason says.

But they both say what they're most looking forward to is just catching up and spending time together.

"I'm going to show him some of the things that I've been doing while he was gone," Aidan says.

"It'll be nice to just sit and home and spend some time with the kids, play some games and read books," Jason says. "It's good to be back, definitely."