They live thousands of miles apart, one piece of the family on each coast and one in the middle. This is just as hard as you might imagine it would be. Holidays celebrated at separate tables. Gifts wrapped and delivered by the mail man rather than with a warm hug and an even warmer laugh. Life marching on in the way that it has, without the sharing of the every day as well as the extraoridnary that binds all families together. When the people we love and call “family” are separated by great distances, we have to make extra efforts to keep those bonds real and strong.

Sherry and Jeff  raised three wonderful children in Grand Junction, Colorado, acquired two more children-in-law, and then in just a three month period they have added TWO perfect grand babies to their total! The only problem was that they had yet to have them all together in one place. But their east and west coast “satellites” weren’t about to let that stand. Their daughter, Cami, and daughter-in-law, Hanna, decided that Memorial Day weekend would be the perfect opportunity to do a little maintenance on those stretched family bonds, and they invited me to the (gorgeous) family home to capture it.

Their Grand Junction family photography was a joint Mother’s Day gift to Sherry, and I think it’s safe to say it’s one that keeps on giving. I had such a wonderful time watching them all together. Sherry and Jeff clearly set the example of love in their home, because you could see it in the way their children treated each other, their parents, and their spouses. There are many things that keep them apart for now, but the desire to be together is definitely not one of them.