Eric's Boot Camp Graduation - Day 4

And just when you thought we were done - Day 4!  You can start to see why I divided this into four posts....

We spend Saturday morning at the USS Midway Museum - we did our best with the girls, but even with rushing through, only saw maybe half of everything there was.

The girls were convinced this was the man from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".  

Tight sleeping arrangements from the crew!  I don't know - looks like plenty of room for four little girls to me!

Huge chains to raise and lower the anchors:

It's kind of hard to tell, but the girls are laying on the floor, looking down a couple stories into the ship.  

Halle's greatest wish was to go on a helicopter, and she got it!

My parents, Merrill, Evan, and Eric were also on the Midway, but we had very different experiences.  They got to savor it a little more (we had short attention spans and flights home to catch!).  

A replica of the ship/museum we were on! See what I mean about not having time to see it all?!

Time to get checked by the doctor!

And the dentist!

Now off to church (this was literally a floating city - it had everything!):

Halle didn't make it until lunch - she passed out.  I am SO glad I brought the stroller along.  

The rest of us enjoyed a delicious meal on board :)

By the time we finished Halle had awoken and was ready to FLY a helicopter!

And Eve an airplane!

We finally had to head to the airport and bid the Midway farewell!

We had hoped to drive past the San Diego Temple, but had run out of time, so drove the girls across this huge bridge instead, before heading to the airport. 

And only 4 short and awesome and tiring days later, were back on the shuttle on our way to the airport.  

We had a little time to kill after Kelly and her girls caught their flight, so we threw our pennies in a fountain....

....then had some dinner!

And just like that, we were on our way home to see Daddy and Abigail!  

Eric's Boot Camp Graduation - Day 3

Friday, April 3rd, our 3rd day in San Diego, was Eric's actual graduation day.  

So exciting!!!!!  The moment we've all be waiting for!  My parents and brothers got their early and saved us seats - in the shade!  Yay!

The ceremony was good; lots of marching, band playing, etc.  

We kept the girls entertained and quiet as best we could.  

Here's Eric's.....platoon?  I can't remember the right word, but his group.

Eric is the last Marine on the 4th row in from the end.  

All done and graduated!  We're so proud!!!!

Besides the grownups, the girls were also starting to droop by the time the ceremony was over.  We'd done TONS of walking around the depot the day before (it is huge!) and didn't relish the idea of anymore walking, so we piled all 11 of us in Grandpa and Grandma's car and drove across the base to a restaurant for lunch.  

Burritos!

We snuck some pictures with Uncle Eric's 'cover' while he was in the bathroom.  Future Marines?  Ok, probably not, but still cute!

After lunch, we went to the museum there at the depot and I got this cool picture of Eric!

Proud parents :)

After a tour of the museum (the girls' favorite part was the guy on the horse), we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon swim.  

Can you tell there wasn't a lot of down time on this trip?  :)  

We had some ice cream treats while we swam.

Ok, really just Kelly and the girls swam.  I watched.  With Halle who didn't want to get in.  

Halle finally decided she would like a turn to swim, so she jumped in to Aunt Kelly, only to burst into tears yelling, "ouchie, ouchie, ouchie!" because the water was cold :(

So she went back to joining me on the side of the pool and we soaked our feet :)

Here are some cool pictures of Eric:

This is the group of LDS Marines - 

Eric was one of the prayer leaders in the LDS group!

Eric is on the top right, 6th from the right. 

So proud of Eric!