Back to work for the Marines today...

...but we are still on vacation and here for another 2 days. Robert got up at 6am and headed off to work this morning and I was sad to see him go but they were done by about noon time and he called me to come over to the barracks and had one of the Navy Corpsmen check my blood pressure for me...hahaha...good deal, it was good...not high like it was the other day so I was pretty happy about that. Since Robert asked me if he could take the car we really couldn't go too far this morning so while we were waiting for him to be done with work we just hung out at the Lodge and relaxed a bit and then we took a walk on the grounds across the street and visited the Iwo Jima Memorial. The Lodge is the TLF or temporary lodging facility that is mainly used to house families as they are waiting for housing on base or for families visiting MCBH for something like what we are here for like the homecoming or just visiting their Marines for any other reason like vacations or whatever. This is where we stayed the last time we were here and for the price it is a very nice room and being close to everything on base is really convenient.
The grounds adjacent to the Lodge and across the street are filled with aircraft, helicopters and other vehicles and Alex really enjoyed exploring and having a closer look at all of them this afternoon.
Here Jim and Alex were walking toward the Memorial together and I was behind them taking pictures, of course.
The Memorial is surrounded by a round walkway and some of the bricks are engraved with names and I said my prayers for all of the brave heroes that we lost on the last deployment back in 2006. Ryan Miller whose name is in the middle in this photo was one that really hit close to home for all of us on our Yahoo group because his mom was one of us and we all came to know her and were so looking forward to meeting her in Hawaii at the homecoming in the fall of 2006 but her son was taken from us just before the boys were due to come home so we were all shattered and quite shaken when it happened. M. Estrella was a good friend of Robert's and he wears a bracelet to honor his memory as well as one for one of his friends from back home that lost his life on 2/22/2006 in Iraq-SPC Thomas J Wilwerth.
Today I reflected and said some prayers for all of these brave souls who gave their lives for our freedom and while I did that I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen and just had to take some photos of them to remember the moment by.Tomorrow is our last full day in Hawaii and I'm not quite sure what we will be doing but I'm sure we will find something really fun to do and make the most of our last day here.