Alright guys, I’ll be transparent here for a second. This blog is about to be a novel and I’m not even sorry about it. In the midst of curating these photos, I found myself giddy beyond belief, and smiling uncontrollably! This stunning D.C. family session was not a typical session for me. For starters, it was brought about by unfortunate and dare I say, inconvenient circumstances. Hurricane Florence. Yup, We will all be reading about her for a while I’m sure. I know it had a bit of an impact on my life as well!
Hurricanes come and go. Most fizzle out in the ocean before even reaching land. Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence wasn’t one of those. At a Category 4, it headed straight for our little home town of Jacksonville, NC and after seeing much of the damage done by Hurricane Harvey just last year, I wasn’t about to stay home and welcome Flo in with open arms, a toddler, and an infant on the way. So we, like many others, packed up our things, prepared our homes as best as possible to withstand the storm, and headed out.
How does all this nonsense play into the gorgeous family session? Well, this sweet family opened up their home to us without knowing how long we would be needing to stay. If you think about it, the storm itself, lasts about 2-4 days, but if you are evacuating, you’ll want to leave before the traffic is absurd, so that tacks on maybe 2 more days, and then after the hurricane ends you have the days where all of the damages assessments happen.
Houses are flooded, trees are down just about EVERYWHERE, rivers have risen, roads are either flooded, or washed out completely, power lines are down… etc. So leaving for a hurricane isn’t as simple as ‘staying out of town for a couple of days and returning once it’s passed.’ A lot of the time, you leave, without knowing when you will return, if you will be able to return, or what you will be returning home to. And still, they took us in, with the knowledge that they may be housing a couple evacuees for days, weeks, or even months, with open arms and loving hearts!
Ashlie, Trevor, and little miss Brooklyn not only opened up their home to us, and offered a place for us to sleep, but they TOOK CARE OF US! I can’t think of any other way to put that. What they did for us was more than just giving us a place to lay our heads. This sweet sweet family insisted on paying for our gas to get up there, the gas to return home, meals for us to eat, and activities for us to do while we were up there. They kept us company and gave us the emotional support we needed while allowing us the emotional space we also required to process all that was happening back at home including the delay of my husbands return from deployment.. due to ‘little miss Flo.’
Despite this hurricane being a total sucky situation, God gave me a blessing in disguise. Ashlie Bass is her name. Day in and day out, she made me laugh, listened to me complain, gave me the benefit of the doubt, encouraged me, helped me out with Everett, allowed me to be myself and simply became a best friend that I will be grateful for, for the rest of my life! I mean, we made it to the ‘shamelessly farting in front of one another’ stage in friendship and if that doesn’t scream, ‘we are besties,’ then I don’t know what does.
Last, after following us home… (yes you read that right, they drove the whole 8 hour drive behind us to make sure we were safe and okay, and that there would be help there if we needed it once we returned) they still, even weeks later, call to check up on us and ask us how we are! In a time when I could have felt like our little family was a burden, they made us feel like we weren’t. They made us feel loved, and cared for. My heart has been filled to the brim with pure gratitude for this family! I’m not kidding when I say, I thank God daily for bringing them into my life! These three beautiful humans have hearts of gold and their selfless acts of kindness have not gone unnoticed! Love you guys! Thank you for all you did, and continue to do! I can’t wait to meet up with you again SOON!