Military: Welcome Home USS Nimitz

Woohoooo!! Welcome home USS Nimitz!! Let’s face it, deployment is hard. It’s hard for those deployed and it’s hard for the families and their loved ones back at home. As we all know 2020 added a lot more stress factors with covid and at home orders. Covid restrictions also meant the ship could no longer pull into port to get a break from sea. Back at home everyone had to adjust to the covid restrictions without the in-person support of their family member that is out at sea. On top of that the USS Nimitz return date was extended numerous times so they ended up being at sea for almost a year. That is a long time of being at sea with no port calls and a long time of not seeing your loved one!

I know the whole military community found this homecoming to be extra special after everything the military members and their family members had to deal with. It was such an honor to capture these precious moments of this sweet girl getting to hug her daddy again, the littlest walking to her dad and to see a husband embrace his wife.

With covid, military homecomings are a bit different. In order to follow social distancing rules everyone had to patiently wait by their cars while their loved ones searched for them and the welcome home hugs took place in a parking lot. They didn’t really want photographers there in order to keep people away from each other. So we had to make the photos quick. After the initial homecoming we took some portraits outside this family’s home too. That way they had a variety of photos to remember the wonderful return home!