We are one week into our 2 weeks at Camp Pendleton and I have a great view for reading, writing, researching, and relaxing.
Last week we were at an Air B&B in San Clemente, but yesterday we moved over to the beach cottages on base. It was a Herculean effort to reserve them: only by phone, and 12 weeks from the date we want to check in, but after a week of daily calling right at 7pm we managed to grab 2 cottages for the week. It was like trying to buy concert tickets, call, call, call starting at 6:55 — get the answering machine, try again and then hope we were one of the first on hold once the phones opened. Thankfully both Josh and I had phones with international minutes and we would both dial until one of us got through.
This week Josh finishes the checkout process and picks up his DD214, the paper that says his service is complete, finished, khalas. (autocorrect keeps insisting that I must be wanting to type ‘koalas.’ STOP IT.) Then he’ll be free to start working elsewhere, even though he’s technically still an Active Duty Marine until September 1st. He has what they call “terminal leave,” vacation days that have built up so he finishes work, but then will continued to be paid through the end of August. By that point he’ll be getting paid from his next job so we won’t have to worry about a gap in paychecks.
This past week we’ve:
Met favorite footballer in the San Jose airport when the LA Galaxy team happened to be flying out at the same time as us (Zlatan Ibrahimović).
Celebrated Camille’s 8th birthday with a candy coated cake (and dark chocolate ganache filling . . . I still dream of that cake).
Made many visits to Trader Joe’s. It’s as if they knew we were coming.
Shared sleepovers and adventures with the cousins.
Set out on foot to eat all of our local favorites: Mexican, bacon, and coffee (though not all at the same time).
Celebrated the 4th of July with this hopping sprite who cheered for each explosion of light and declared that the show was put on “just for me!”
And now that I’ve finally figured out how to get photos from my updated phone to my blog, I should be able to post more easily. (It took days and much googling, but once I upgraded my laptop software it all started working again.)
The waves are perfect so I’m off to sit and watch them while the kids go in them. If it wasn’t so cold . . . I’m a 90 degree water kind of person.
It’s not bothering them a bit!