I’ve been trying to figure out what to say in a blog about this family for a long time.  Megan and I met for the first time when I did her maternity photos a little more than a year ago and since then we have became best friends.  While both our husbands were deployed, we spent many long summer days together wrangling children in restaurants, prop shopping up and down the Crystal Coast and giving each other plenty of things to laugh about when it was hard to find a reason to smile.  In the last 2 months, her husband came home, her oldest turned 3 and her youngest turned 1…

and this is what it looked like…

You can see just how much this family loves each other – there is nothing fake in their smiles and nothing posed about their embraces.. and that’s just part of the reason it was so hard to say ‘good bye’ this morning.

The Soko’s continue on their Marine Corps journey today and head out to California.  One of the hardest parts of this life in the military is saying farewell to the people we grow to care about.  And I’m not the only one who will miss them, her 2 little boys are some of my daughters’ first friends.

Such is this military life and I’ve learned not to be too sad when we say good bye. I certainly shed a few tears, but our paths will certainly cross again (say, March 2013 in Vegas… 😉

Fair winds and following seas, my friend.  It has been such a joy getting to know you over this last year – I’m not sure if I would have made it without you.  And thank you for all of our wonderful photos – I know you of all people understand how priceless each image is to me.  Safe travels and hopefully it won’t be too long before we are in the same time zone again!