Welcome home Marine!  This is the second time I have been able to be with this family to welcome home their hero.  Such a sweet thing as a photographer to work with the same families again and again.  One of my greatest blessings.

Homecomings are such a raw event to photograph.  There is an anticipation in the air like nothing else you can imagine because while your spouse has been gone everyone has grown, changed; life has continued and paused all at the same time here at home in away that is difficult to understand.

Children play while the waiting is sometimes long, spouses are tuned into their emotions and trying to keep their own feet on the ground while they wait for the first sighting of those white buses.  There is so much love and excitement in the air that you can’t help but feel the emotions yourself.  As the white buses make their way Lindsay’s excitement began to bubble over, her smiles became those that only her Marine could create, the love of her life was actually somewhere in the sea of uniforms looking for her.  That first glance and smile will determine the next moments, Lindsay ran and greeted her hero with a hug that escaped all the months and miles that kept them apart.  Her world was silent in the chaos and whole once again.

As a father and husband leaving behind your family for months to serve your country all comes down in the end to these moments of familiar comfort, the smiles that have kept you going and the warmth of being with your family once again.

Welcome home!  And thank you Sloan family for your service.