My last homecoming at Camp Lejeune happened to be a “bonus” homecoming for the evening 🙂  1/6 sent 2 companies home together but their homecoming was about an hour apart.  After the Smith’s headed home,Julie Stone heard another wife’s photographer had catastrophic equipment failure and I was able to step in and cover the Brown family as well.

As is turns out, it is a very small world!  Not only is Samantha and her husband from Maryland, but we went to the same high school and graduated only 1 year apart! (And we have the same awesome stroller :P) Congratulations Jeff and Samantha (and their 2 little girls!) – It was so great to meet you!

Can you say Hot Mama?

You might remember Malorie and Andrew from the session they did while he was home on R&R.  You’ll also recognize her work in many, many of my newborn sessions – Malorie is the one I call when I need the most beautiful knitted things ever.  I’m famous for calling last minute needing matching elf hats or mermaid tails and she has never failed to exceed my expectations.

Only a couple days shy of a year-long deployment finally ended this Monday – Congratulations guys, I know it couldn’t have been easy.  For all the tears there may have been along the way, I’m glad to capture these tears of relief.

This past Monday was my last day of homecomings while we live here at Camp Lejeune.  Even though we are ready to start our next chapter, I am feeling very sad about leaving this town.  It will be especially hard not to be here for the amazing homecomings.  For those of you who haven’t experienced one, the only thing that I can compare it to is the anticipation leading up to my wedding day.  And on the list of Top 3 days of my life, our homecoming ranks just after the births of my baby girls.

This particular homecoming was a little odd – Marines coming home advon trickled in from the armory and then there was a company that came in all together about an hour later.  (This will be an important bit of info for a future blog post…)  =)

Troy and Zach are the second couple to hire me for their 2nd homecoming.  Their last homecoming was also at night, but this time we got cold, dreary rain to add to the darkness.  In this case, I think that just adds to the magic in these photos.  I am honored to be able to photograph this reunion in the same place they have said “goodbye” and “hello” twice.

The night of our going away party I re-he-eally didn’t want to get up at 2:00 am to go to work.  I had just gotten in bed and was cozy and warm when I got they call, they were on their way.  Anyone remember that Dunkin Donuts commercial? “Gotta make the doughnuts…”

Anyway, I got there just before the buses and Edna pulled in just behind them!  I thought they were just teasing us and would still go to the armory, but no!  Chris got to her car before she could even get out and I just lucked out by spotting him walking toward the same car I was!  Although they didn’t get the video camera up in time, I was able to grab the stills of Daddy meeting his baby boy <3  To think, if I would have stayed in bed just a few more minutes, I would have missed this – I would have regretted that forever.

Thank you guys for letting me be a part of this special moment!

Here’s my best attempt at the full moon behind a creepy tree without a tripod. Lol.  It was really beautiful but I think I was shivering haha!

The last time I photographed this couple it was at sunrise in the dead heat of summer, so it’s only fitting that this time around it is winter and midnight =)