Memorial Day

We went to Del Mar beach on the Camp Pendleton Marine Base for Memorial Day this year. A few of our new friends are doctors in the military, so we were able to get on base with them. Joseph has been on a base before because he worked as a law clerk on the Fairchild Air Force base, just outside of Spokane, and he was born on base at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. (I think his dad got his Ph.D. through the Air Force and then did his payback years teaching at the Air Force Academy). It was my first time on a military base. How apropos to be there on Memorial Day. It was cool to drive through. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if Joseph would have accepted the JAG offer and had become an attorney for the Air Force. I think he wonders too. I feel stirrings of partiotism and think that would have been a great way to serve our country, but after praying about it a few years ago, we felt that the path we are on was the course we should take. There are other ways for us to be patriotic and to instill those values in our children. I admire those who have chosen that course and serve our country well.

We had a great time playing with our new friends. They all live within about a mile of us but our ward boundaries are a little funny, so we are actually in a totally different stake. They drive about 7 minutes to church and we have to drive 30 minutes, but we're okay with that because we really like our ward. Anyway, I met some of them through Aaron's preschool and a girl's game night that I've gone to a couple of times and a few of them live in our Arrowood development so we've bumped into each other at our neighborhood pool. I am so happy because I love people, it's been fun to make these new connections. One of them is a good friend of Scott and Annette's neighbor and friend, Rachel. They went to high school together in St. George. Her husband, Matt, served in Joseph's mission. They overlapped by about 6 months and Joe thinks that he was AP when Matt went home so he was at the final testimony meeting with him, but they don't remember each other. They joked that they all knew the same people except for each other because Matt finished in a remote area of the mission. The world is so small, it's hilarious! We keep laughing at all the connections that keep coming up. We barbecued with a few families last night after the beach and found out that one of them has a brother who went to law school at Gonzaga and graduated the year before Joseph did. One of these days I should write a list of all the connections we've found with the people in all the places we've lived. It's like a web. :)

We just snapped a couple of quick shots at the beach. We had too much fun playing to stop for photos. The water is still a little cold, but we've been told it will warm up in the next couple of months. We're so excited to play at the beach this summer. We tried the boogie boards yesterday and it was a blast, so we've got to make sure to snag some for next time. We tried to get a cute family picture, but Aaron kept running away!