The Ashley Family :: Family Shoot

Last weekend, I met up with the extended Ashley family in San Clemente for the evening. I had previously done predeployment photos for Shannon and Christine, and was excited to meet the rest of Shannon's family who were visiting from Illinois for part of his post-deployment leave.

Coming from a family of 6 kids, I understand how nice it is to have photos of everyone together since it rarely happens. And I also understand that it can be quite difficult to get that many people to cooperate at once, haha. But everything went super smoothly that night, and we got a lot of great images. Here's a few of my favorites so far.





The adorable Tatum and I played peek-a-boo under the pier :)







Thanks again, Ashley family! Hope you enjoyed the rest of your visit in CA!

Farnum Family :: Homecoming

Last weekend, the last group from 2/5 finally arrived home. I was SO glad that it worked out that I was able to be at this homecoming - my summer classes started last week, and I unfortunately couldn't make it to another one of 2/5's since it was during the week. Luckily, at least this one fell on a Saturday AND there was daylight (which has been hard to come by at homecomings lately)! I was doubly happy, haha.

I was also super excited to shoot this homecoming in particular. I have photographed a few of 2/5's homecomings last year, and met Cindy there last summer. She is absolutely amazing, and also runs Operation Help a Hero, which helps to care for our military families by sponsoring events like barracks drives and baby showers. She touches so many other military families lives that I was so glad to be able to document her family's homecoming. Just another example of how selfless Cindy is - she hired me not only for her homecoming, but to document other families in 2/5 as well. After the formation was released, my shutter was clicking like crazy for the next few minutes!

Here's Cindy and a bunch of other 2/5 ladies waiting for the guys to arrive.





Poor Kylie! Cindy's daughter was getting so bored & anxious by the time the Marines were almost there.



First homecoming photo I got after they were released from formation :)





Kylie's first hug!









In between photos of the Farnum's, I ran around and got a bunch from other families.

Love this one.






And then I went back to Kylie and her Dad - she was just so enchanted with him.







The whole family together again!



I don't want to totally overload the blog with images, so I tried to limit it :) You can check out more images on my Facebook page!

Welcome home again, Lt. Col. Farnum and the rest of 2/5, and thank you for your service!

Ford Family :: Homecoming

I was so glad that I was able to photograph this homecoming. Last fall, I did a newborn shoot for the Ford family just after their daughter Scarlett was born, and then her dad deployed shortly after that. Carly did an amazing job raising Scarlett alone for the first 7 months or so of her life, but they were both just so ready to have Seth back home.

Here's one of the newborn images of baby Scarlett and her dad back in October.



And a long 7 months later, it was time to welcome Dad back home!



We took a few photos at their house before we headed up to base.



Carly took pictures of Scarlett throughout the deployment with her "I love Dad" sign at home and during visits with family around the country, so we had to get one more.



And then that was the end of the sign!



We headed up to Pendleton, and the wait was on for those buses to show up!



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Finally, the buses started driving towards us!







We weren't sure what bus Seth was on, and he didn't have a cell phone - so with 6 buses of Marines rapidly emptying off, it was a race to find him. It seemed like it took an eternity to find Seth, although when I looked at the timestamps of the photos while editing, it was just under 5 minutes. However, when you haven't seen your husband in 7 months, those 5 extra minutes are just torture.

Carly finally caught sight of him and took off running!









I love this one of Scarlett looking back at her mom!

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Welcome home, Capt. Ford! So glad your family is back together.