San Diego- Thursday

Since Thursday was a day with nothing scheduled, Cahl and I really wanted to take the boys down to the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot. MCRD is were they do boot camp here on the west coast, and it's where Cahl went. I have never been there, and Cahl hadn't been there in 10 years. Our friends also came with us, and I think they liked seeing everything. There is a museum there, and we took the boys to it. It was really neat, they had a different area or room for each war. There is even a small room for Operation Iraqi Freedom, which Cahl was a part of. It's funny that we have some of the same things shown! It was cool that we were able to go on Thursday, because that is family day. There is a boot camp graduation every Friday, so on Thursday the families are allowed to come and see their family members. They get to watch a Moto run- which is were all the platoons come out and stand in formation, then they run around base singing cadences. It is really the first time that these families have seen their Marines in 3 months, so it's pretty emotional. After we saw the run, we walked down to check out the PX, and then went to lunch there on base. The restaurant was really nice, overlooking the little bay. We took the kids down to a little park after lunch to burn off some energy.

in the OIF room

we have this same map

Our friends the Thurmonds

Once we got one at MCRD, we went back to our room to pack for the beach. We drove down toward La Jolla and found a cool little cove. We had to hike down to it a bit, but once we got down it was awesome! We set up a little BBQ, and cooked out. It was so much fun, and one of my favorite parts of our trip! After we packed all of our stuff back into the vehicles, we walked down to see were the sea lions hang out. The kids really liked seeing them.

Our beach kitchen

Jesse sharing his chips

We attracted a lot of birds

The sea lions

Tristan and Keaton