Brandon Leaves for SouthPac

Brandon left for South America this last Tuesday, March 23rd. It was sad but not nearly as sad as last time since this deployment with only be 3 months instead of 8 months. The farewell was very casual. They did not dress up in their dress uniform because they would have had to wear their dress blues to pull out and then for the rest of deployment they would be wearing their whites so they didn't want to bring their dress blues on board just for that first day.
I think it made it easier to deal with instead of it being such a dramatic farewell. It felt like they were leaving for just a few days and I don't think it's really hit me that it will be much more than a few weeks.
Anyways, I've attached a few pics from the farewell.



Brandon and I spending our last few minutes together





So close but so far...





Brandon pulling the ropes in






USS Valley Forge leaving San Diego

A Reflection on Change

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found that I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town, and as an older man I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing that I can change is myself, and suddenly I realized that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made on impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world." -- Author Unknown

We've got pictures back!

Ok, the pics came back from Walmart today... some of them actually looked really good... mostly they came back better than we had anticipated b/c the visibility was so crummy on pretty much all of the dives we've been on so far... anyways, here's a couple...

Heather, all suited up and ready to go dive!





Brandon, on the surface.




           
Heather & Brandon on the anchor chain, here at about 35 feet depth.





It's not the greatest picture but you can sort of make out the Ray on the bottom here... we saw TONS of them on this day!





Brandon, after our Marine Room dive... a beautiful area, but a HORRIBLE day to dive!