Welcome Home, Capt. Ladwig! | Camp Pendleton Homecoming Photographer

I have shot many homecomings here at Pendleton, but this was my first fly in. I can't tell you how cool and just how powerful it is seeing formations of an array of USMC Helicopters all coming in at once. The sound volume itself just demands respect! (Hence why they were passing out ear plugs to all the waiting families). Now, if I were on the "other side," so to speak, I would be very scared! Haha! With all joking aside, this was a very different experience for me and I really loved every moment!

I normally arrive pretty early at homecomings. I would hate to miss something. Being an early bird has paid off before. These arrivals are so prone to change, it's very hard to be sure until the moment you see that bus pulling in. This time, I arrived about 10 minutes later than I had wanted to. My client hadn't arrived yet, so I was relieved, but started worrying hearing others talking about them arriving earlier now. I couldn't get a hold of Stephenie and really started worrying when they opened up the hangar doors. BUT, she arrived in short time, with all 3 kids. Do you blame her? I have a hard enough time getting my 2 girls ready on time... :)

I just love these pictures so much. I think this was one of my favorite homecomings. The little boy you see in the photos really, really missed his Daddy. And you can just see the love in their first hug. He wasn't in a very good mood when they arrived. He had originally thought he was going to wake up and Daddy would be at home. When they flew in and landed, he was SO happy he jumped up and down and turned around and just gave his mom the biggest hug. It was the sweetest thing and I had to fight so hard not to cry when he did that.  Poor guy was SO anxious waiting for the CH-46's to taxi and finally turn off, I can only imagine how slow those 10 minutes seemed in his mind. But once Daddy was back, he was ALL smiles. :) Here are some highlights from that afternoon. Welcome Home, Capt. Ladwig! Thank you for your service and sacrifices.

To view a slideshow of photos click HERE

I love this picture...you can see Daddy on the very left just before they both spotted each other.

This little wind up toy has a funny little story. After Daddy left, it was nowhere to be found! It was soon discovered in Daddy's extra pair of boots that he brought with him. So during the whole MEU deployment, it walked in lots of different places around the world and has pictures to prove it! Daddy was sure to give it back once he had the chance. :)