5 ways to connect with your loved ones this holiday season, even if you’re miles apart
For most people, the holidays are the busiest time of year. There are parties, trips to the store, school plays, parades, religious services, countless hours spent decorating and cleaning the house, and that long line at the mall to see Santa. But in the end, the season is all about spending quality time making memories…
For most people, the holidays are the busiest time of year. There are parties, trips to the store, school plays, parades, religious services, countless hours spent decorating and cleaning the house, and that long line at the mall to see Santa.
But in the end, the season is all about spending quality time making memories with the people we love. Unfortunately, we can’t always see all of our loved ones over the holidays. But these days, it’s a lot easier to stay connected with grandma and grandpa or our kids off at college.
Here are five great ways to connect with our loved ones this holiday season, even if they’re miles apart.
1. Share holiday memories with the Google Nest Hub
The great advantage of the Google Nest Hub is that you can use it to automatically upload photos, so loved ones can see these memories as they happen. The digital photo frame is connected to shared albums through Google Photos, meaning everyone who has access to the album can contribute. You can choose which photos are displayed, or allow the Nest Hub to choose its favorites. As an added bonus, the Nest Hub also acts as a virtual assistant which makes it easy to keep everything you need at your fingertips and stay connected to loved ones with just the press of a button.
One of the quickest ways to warm the hearts of your family memories is by sharing a traditional meal. If your aunt in Chicago can’t make it to your big family holiday celebration, you can send her some of your special stuffing that reminds her of home.
3. Connect with multiple family members all over the world through Google Hangouts
If you have a big family stretched around the globe, Google Hangouts allows you to do a live video chat with up to ten people. It works via a Web browser, Android app, iOS app, Chrome app, or via an old-fashioned landline phone (voice services only).
The app is available in any of the aforementioned app stores.
4. Watch your favorite holiday films together with a Netflix Party
Getting the family together to watch a holiday-themed movie such as “Home Alone,” “Christmas Vacation,” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” is a holiday tradition for many families. Now, through Netflix Party, you can watch a movie with them in real-time. Netflix Party is a Chrome extension that syncs up the film so you can watch it all at once and it has a live chat feature so you can comment on your favorite parts together.
Netflix Party is available in the Chrome web store.
5. Achieve your new year’s resolutions together at MakeMe
Staying motivated is tough to do alone. MakeMe allows you to encourage one another, hold each other accountable, and celebrate your achievements. Get the family together and create a goal for the new year, whether it’s losing weight, being more mindful, or giving back to the community.
MakeMe is available for in the Android, Apple, and Google Play stores.
Google is providing Nest Hubs to USO families to help them feel closer this holiday season. Join us in supporting the USO at uso.org/googlenest.
From Pakistan to Tanzania, the most effective education solutions are community-led. Here’s how local leaders, in partnership with Malala Fund and supported by Pura, are mobilizing entire communities.
When asked to describe what Tanzania smells like, Grace Isekore closes her eyes and breathes in deep. For a moment, she’s somewhere else entirely. Tanzania is a rich tapestry of sights and scents, from the smell of sea mist that permeates the coastline to the earthy cardamom and cloves she cooks with in her kitchen. But when Grace emerges from her reverie, her answer is unexpected.
“Tanzania smells like peace,” she says, her eyes still closed. “I see a beautiful country where we are free to move, free to speak. And there is peace within the community.”
For Grace, that sense of peace isn’t just something she smells; it’s something she works toward every day. As a project coordinator with Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), a women-led organization that empowers pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania, she has seen firsthand how girls flourish when they have the opportunity to attend school. Like scent, education not only connects girls to their own culture, but also helps broaden their horizons, realizing new possibilities for themselves and others. That transformation reshapes entire communities and ripples outward, with the potential to change countries and transform the world for the better.
Different scents, different approaches, and communities driving change
Spices in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
For Grace and others around the world, education is freedom, as well as a pathway to a stronger community. Rooted in that shared belief, Pura, a home fragrance company, was inspired to build on their four-year partnership with Malala Fund to create something truly unique: a fragrance collection that connects people through scent to communities in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil, where barriers to girls’ education are among the highest.
Using ingredients from each region, the new Pura x Malala Fund Collection uses scent to transport people to these regions directly. “Future in Bloom,” for example, invokes Pakistan’s lush valleys through notes of jasmine, cedarwood, and mango; while Tanzania’s fragrance, “Heart on Fire,” evokes the spirit and joyfulness of the girls who live there through cardamom, lemon, and green tea.
The new Collection honors the work Malala Fund does every day, partnering with locally-led organizations in these four countries to ensure every girl can access and complete 12 years of education. Each scent celebrates the joy, tenacity, and courage of the women and girls driving change on the ground, while also augmenting Pura’s annual grant to Malala Fund by donating eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection to Malala Fund directly.
Just as each country’s scent is unique, so too are their needs related to education. But with support from Malala Fund and Pura, local leaders are coming up with creative ways to mobilize entire communities (parents, teachers, elders, and the students themselves, in their pursuit of solutions, understanding that educating girls helps everyone thrive. Here’s how their efforts are creating real, durable impact in Tanzania and Pakistan, and creating a ripple effect that changes the world for the better.
Parent-teacher associations help Maasai girls and their communities in Tanzania problem-solve
A girl’s school in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Northern Tanzania, Grace’s home, is home to pastoralist communities like the Maasai, a nomadic people who have moved with the seasons to nurture the land and care for their livestock for centuries. The nomadic nature of this lifestyle creates significant and unique barriers to girls’ education. Longstanding gender roles have enabled Maasai to survive in the harsh environment and have placed great value on both women and men. Over time, as nomadic life has been threatened by the privatization of land and stationary education models have been implemented, the reality of pastoralist livelihood has shifted and introduced new complexities. Now, the sheer distance to schools is both a practical challenge and one that often comes with danger from the landscape, predators, and potential exposure to assault along the journey. Girls shoulder the responsibility of household chores and there is often cultural pressure around early marriage – both leading to boys’ education being prioritized over girls’.
“There are very, very good [pastoralist] cultural practices, which are passed from generation to generation,” says Janet Kimori, an English teacher at Lekule Girls Secondary School in Longido, Tanzania. But when cultural practices act as educational barriers, “you have to sit down and look for where you are going to assist. As a school, as an individual, the school administration—all of us will chip in and know how we are going to deal with this problem.”
PWC works to ensure girls are able to exercise their right to an education while also preserving pastoralist culture. One successful approach, the organization found, has been the formation of Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), created with help from Malala Fund. In PTA meetings, students, parents, teachers, elders, and government officials meet, discuss educational barriers, and come up with community-led solutions that preserve and honor their culture while advancing educational outcomes.
PTA meeting in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
One recent PTA meeting highlights how these community-led solutions are often the most effective. At Lekule Girls Secondary School, the lack of fresh water forces girls to walk long distances to collect water for the school’s kitchen during the school day, and these long journeys not only disrupt class time but can leave girls vulnerable to sexual assault in isolated areas. Through facilitated discussion, PTA members landed on a solution: installing a borehole to pipe in fresh water to the school. Reliable access to water creates a better learning environment for the girls, but it also benefits the community at large, as local governments are then more likely to invest in health clinics and other community resources nearby.
With a solution in place, the PTA was then able to discuss ideas and map out a course of action. The women would raise money for the cost of the borehole, while the men would recruit workers to dig the hole and lay the pipe. Together, they would ask government officials to match their investment.
The benefits of PTA meetings within the pastoralist communities are undeniable. “The girls are talking and addressing issues in a confident way, and parents feel they are part of the resource team to solve challenges happening at school,” Grace says. One unexpected benefit: The larger cultural impact these PTA meetings have created. Thanks to the success of PTAs within pastoralist communities, the models are now being endorsed on a national level, and schools across Tanzania are starting to use them to solve problems in their own communities. When a community creates opportunities for girls to learn, everyone benefits.
Safe spaces in rural Pakistan help students and their parents connect, then drive change
Safe space for girls meeting in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
A continent away in Pakistan, the country’s northernmost region of Gilgit-Baltistan seems like a land untouched by time. The region’s looming mountains, snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and crystalline lakes draw nature lovers and landscape photographers from around the world, but living among this kind of breathtaking scenery has its drawbacks. Schools in the region are few and far between, and the area’s harsh climate often makes roads inaccessible for travel. Poverty and gender-based discrimination are additional obstacles, making school even further out of reach, and girls are affected disproportionately. Going up against these barriers requires a persistent, quiet strength that’s found in the women who live there and reflected in Pakistan’s signature scent.
Saheli Circles are how local leaders in Gilgit-Baltistan are bridging the gap between girls and education. An Urdu term for “female friend,” Saheli Circles are after-school safe spaces where girls explore subjects like art and climate change, while also developing skills that help them manage emotions, set goals, and build positive relationships. Girls study in groups, visit the library, play sports, and tackle filmmaking and photography projects, all designed to develop self confidence and teach the girls how to advocate for issues that matter to them. But the work doesn’t stop there.
“What we’re trying to achieve here will only be impactful if it trickles down to the home environment and the school environment,” says Marvi Sumro, founder and program director of Innovate, Educate, and Inspire Pakistan (IEI), the local organization that developed the Saheli Circles model and partnered with Malala Fund in 2021 to make it a reality. Ever since, Saheli Circles have grown to involve teachers, elders, and parents to encourage relationship building that’s essential for young girls and adolescents. “Our spaces can give mothers and daughters an opportunity to interact a little differently—do an art activity, or have a cup of tea together, or some good conversation,” Marvi says.
The relationship building is what makes the biggest positive impact throughout the community. Recently, one Saheli Circle was able to bring together parents, teachers, and administrators to advocate for better education at their local school, and together they convinced the department of education to hire a science teacher. Another Saheli Circle organized a fund where members of the community can contribute monthly to pay for uniforms, books, and other school expenses for the girls in their village, eliminating those small, hidden costs that are often a barrier to education for many. A third Saheli Circle was able to produce a short film about how gender-based household chores can take away valuable study time from girls, leaving them at a disadvantage. “The girls put the film together and showed it to the mothers, and the response from the mothers was just beautiful,” Marvi says.
Girls smiling in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
The education and relationship building that the girls receive in Saheli Circles connects them to larger opportunities and economic freedom that are not possible in their hometown. “For girls in Gilgit-Baltistan, education is extremely important because of the fact that we’re so far away from where the economy is, where the opportunity is. Education becomes this bridge for us, for our girls, to access all the opportunity and economy that exists in [larger cities].”
From rural Tanzania to remote Pakistan, local organizations prove every day that prioritizing girls’ education benefits everyone. Communities that lift up girls are able to secure resources like clean water and well-staffed schools, as well as build stronger relationships.
These outcomes are only possible because of the women and girls who work tirelessly in these regions to overcome barriers and drive progress. The Pura x Malala Fund Collection is a way to honor them, celebrate their achievements, and unite people the world over around a shared belief that education is freedom. Like scent, that belief can build, travel, and has the possibility to transform the world.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
The holidays are a time of connection. All over the world, families are reuniting, bonding, and making new memories that will last a lifetime. But for hundreds of thousands of military families, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Yule is impossible with service members stationed overseas. To paraphrase “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” togetherness for military…
The holidays are a time of connection. All over the world, families are reuniting, bonding, and making new memories that will last a lifetime. But for hundreds of thousands of military families, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Yule is impossible with service members stationed overseas. To paraphrase “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” togetherness for military families during this time of the year may just be a dream.
Fortunately, in 2019, we can do a little bit better than dreams — thanks to tech. This year, the USO, the leading military support organization in America, and Google Nest are teaming up to ensure military families who can’t reunite for the holidays can always stay connected. With the Google Nest Hub, a digital assistant that makes it easy to share photos from all over the world in real time — families can keep in touch even across great distances.
On December 9, the two organizations constructed a festive gingerbread village at Camp Pendleton, the largest military base in California, to provide service members and military families with festive USO Holidays programming. The week-long experience brought a winter wonderland to the base and allowed military families to walk through life-size gingerbread houses to decorate cookies, make ornaments, write letters to Santa and more. For service members and military families who could not travel home or be with their families during the holidays, this provided the comforts of home. A full-scale gingerbread house was unexpected, but those attending the event got an even bigger surprise: Google Nest gifted Nest Hubs to military families, so they could stay in touch with those that matter most.
“As our service members and military families work tirelessly and make daily sacrifices, even the smallest reminder of home can have a huge impact,” says Chris Fowler, Director of Corporate Development at the USO.
“Throughout the year, our nation’s service members are there for us. This is our chance to be there for them. Whether we’re delivering care packages, hosting holiday events or enabling technology that brings loved ones together, the USO is making sure that service members and their families are connected to the comforts of home this holiday season.”
A partnership like this is a perfect fit for the USO, as the nonprofit’s mission is to keep service members connected to family, home and country. The organization not only offers WiFi in 230 locations around the world, it also helps service members stay tethered to their families via a variety of services, including one that allows those overseas to record bedtime stories for their kids and have them sent back home. For military families, the Google Nest transforms each house into a helpful home — one which makes it easy to keep everything you need at your fingertips and stay connected to loved ones with just the press of a button.
You, too, can be a part of helping service members feel just a little bit more at home this holiday season. “As you enjoy your favorite holiday traditions,” Fowler says, “pause for a moment to show your support for those who remain on duty, protecting our nation.” When you make a donation to the USO, you’ll be delivering a piece of home to some of the people who need it most.
Google is providing Nest Hubs to USO families to help them feel closer this holiday season. Join us in supporting the USO at uso.org/googlenest.
When I was a kid, we had an entire living room shelf full of photo albums to pore through when we wanted to relive family memories. Now, several decades later, we flip through digital albums, instead. But the feelings that family photographs invoke are still the same. Every photo tells a story, and some photos…
When I was a kid, we had an entire living room shelf full of photo albums to pore through when we wanted to relive family memories. Now, several decades later, we flip through digital albums, instead. But the feelings that family photographs invoke are still the same. Every photo tells a story, and some photos hold tales and truths that are particularly dear to our hearts.
I was visiting with my friend Paula recently when she pulled up a sweet old photo of our sons together.
Paula and I met in a parenting group 15 years ago. Our oldest daughters were nearly identical in age and we both had newborn babies, so we started planning regular play dates together.
Soon those play dates became a lifeline to our own sanity, and our friendship blossomed. We got together several times a week for years, essentially raising our kids together. Paula didn’t have any family living nearby — no grandparents to gush over her children, no cousins to bond with — so our family became their extended family.
“I entered parenting without having been parented well myself,” says Paula, adding that our marathon playdates gave us a chance to parent in a community. “Sometimes I’d even call and say, ‘I can’t parent today. How about if I do all the cooking and you do all the parenting?’ So we did. In that way, I learned how to be the parent I never had.”
While our girls were same-aged peers, our sons were seven years apart. Paula says that her son Sevvy had always wanted a brother, and when my Isaac was born, it was like Sevvy’s wish was fulfilled. Indeed, our boys grew an incredibly sweet bond, less like friendship and more like brotherhood. Isaac followed Sevvy around like a puppy, and Sevvy doted on Isaac with a mixture of mentorship and protectiveness.
Life happened and we eventually ended up moving to different parts of the country. Our boys are now 18 and 11, but we still get together and reminisce about how those formative years meant so much to both of our families. This photo encapsulates the joy and care that defined our families’ relationship.
Gretchen Kelly also has a precious sibling photo, but hers holds beautiful, bittersweet memories of her beloved baby brother, Todd.
At 16, Todd was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare type of bone tumor that generally hits people at a young age. He was eight years younger than Gretchen and 11 years younger than their older sister. “He was the baby of the family and spoiled rotten by all of us,” Gretchen says. He passed away in 1999 at age 18.
“There’s a photo of he and I that tugs at my heart because he has his arm casually draped over my shoulder and it perfectly captures our relationship and dynamic,” says Gretchen.
“I don’t remember what he said when we took this picture, but I know he said something to make me laugh while he stayed casual and cool for the photo. That was his way. He could keep a straight face and make you laugh in spite of yourself. And he could ALWAYS make you laugh.”
“This is the picture that always leaves a lump in my throat,” she adds. “It makes me smile—it is exactly how we were together. He was the baby brother who I adored, but at times, as he matured, it was as if he was the older sibling. Protective and wise beyond his years. But mischievous. Always mischievous.”
Gretchen keeps another photo of Todd on her “inspiration wall” in her office, this one during his cancer journey.
“Obviously cancer was already taking something from him at this point,” she Gretchen. “But not his smile. He somehow made all of us laugh and smile even when we were terrified of everything he was going through. I keep this picture on the wall in my office. His smile is what I will always cling to, his determination to not let cancer steal his joy or his humor. This serves as a reminder of determination and grit. When things get hard, as they tend to do, I look at this picture and he reminds me we can do hard things, and sometimes we can smile through it.”
Photos aren’t just snippets of our lives — they are images of joy and love, of family and community that can move us and inspire us. But these days our photos frequently get lost in the digital deluge of modern life. They end up archived on a hard drive somewhere or buried deep in social media.
Google Nest is trying to make it easier to keep treasured photos front and center with the Google Nest Hub — a device that serves as a digital photo frame and personal assistant. You can choose any album from Google Photos, such as “Family” or “Favorites,” and the Nest Hub will display them on rotation. The Live Albums feature takes the work out of updating the photos by letting you create an album that automatically adds photos of the people who matter to you most. You can share a Live Album with anyone you want, just like any other album in Google Photos. The Nest Hub even adjusts to the lighting in the room so your photos look less like images on a screen and more like real photos.
Here’s to the snapshots that remind us of our loved ones at all stages of life. They truly are among our most precious belongings.
Google is providing Nest Hubs to USO families to help them feel closer this holiday season. Join us in supporting the USO at uso.org/googlenest.
Quinn Hendershot and her grandma have always been super close. She’s lived nearby in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois for Hendershot’s entire life. When she was 13 and her father suffered a brain stem stroke, her grandma moved in with her family to help take care of everyone. Unsurprisingly, Hendershot feels incredibly connected to…
Quinn Hendershot and her grandma have always been super close. She’s lived nearby in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois for Hendershot’s entire life. When she was 13 and her father suffered a brain stem stroke, her grandma moved in with her family to help take care of everyone. Unsurprisingly, Hendershot feels incredibly connected to her.
Even when they weren’t living under the same roof, Hendershot got to visit with her grandma regularly while she was growing up, and that didn’t change when she became a young woman and was preparing to go off to graduate school.
“When I spend time with her, we do a lot of cooking (she loves to feed me!), as well as running errands together since she can’t drive,” says Hendershot.
Last year, however, Hendershot’s grandma built a house in Colombia and moved there semi-permanently. She was born in Colombia and lived there until she was 17, so she still has a lot of family there whom she wants to reconnect with and help look after.
“My grandma grew up on a farm, and has always wanted to live somewhere where she could keep farm animals like chickens and donkeys,” explains Hendershot. “It’s a lot cheaper and easier to build houses in Colombia, so when she saved up enough money to build a house there, she bought a plot of land in the country and started building.”
While Hendershot is incredibly happy her grandma is finally living out her dream, she misses seeing her all the time. It now takes three flight transfers for her grandma to get back to Chicago to see her family in the states, so she doesn’t get to see Hendershot in person very often. But that hasn’t changed the grandma and granddaughter’s strong bond.
“We text almost daily, and love to send each other pictures,” says Hendershot. “She has a cat and a dog that she loves to show me, and I like to send her pictures of my food because she always worries about if I’m eating enough – like any grandma!”
Unfortunately, phone service and internet isn’t great where her grandma lives, so it’s difficult to talk or see one another in a video chat in real time. When it works, however, it’s wonderful for everyone.
“It’s great to be able to see her and talk to her face-to-face, as opposed to just over text,” says Hendershot. “Text is such a great way to communicate easily, but you do lose a lot of the tones and inflections that make a huge difference in talking to someone you love. I love getting to see that she is surrounded by so much of her family and friends in Colombia, and that she’s never lonely.”
Thanks to technology available today, it’s easier for Hendershot to stay connected with her grandma. Products like the Google Nest Hub can help bridge the gap while they’re apart. The device’s photo sharing feature allows the family members to upload and share meaningful images with each other through Google Photos, helping them feel closer even when they’re thousands of miles apart.
It’s not easy for Hendershot to be so far away from one of her favorite people, but technology like this helps enormously. Getting to regularly see how happy her grandma is enjoying her new house, farm animals, and Colombian family helps Hendershot miss her just a little bit less.
“Knowing about each other’s day-to-day lives makes me feel like the physical distance lessens, because we’re emotionally so close,” says Hendershot.
Google is providing Nest Hubs to USO families to help them feel closer this holiday season. Join us in supporting the USO at uso.org/googlenest.
When you marry into the military, you know you’re signing up for a life of occasional-to-frequent separation. Not only are service members sent around the globe during deployment, but they also attend training schools leading up to missions, which can mean months away from their loved ones. While we often recognize the sacrifices soldiers make…
When you marry into the military, you know you’re signing up for a life of occasional-to-frequent separation. Not only are service members sent around the globe during deployment, but they also attend training schools leading up to missions, which can mean months away from their loved ones.
While we often recognize the sacrifices soldiers make with their service, it’s easy to overlook the sacrifices their spouses and children make as well. When your significant other is gone for months at a time, maintaining a relationship gets complicated. And when a parent is gone for months at a time, you have to come up with creative ways to stay connected as a family.
Shannon Sandvig’s husband, Gavin, was gone for 10 months with the Iowa National Guard just six weeks after their first son was born in 2005. Talking on the phone was difficult during that period because babies don’t put their needs on hold for phone calls. They relied on texting and sending photos in the mail, but it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the rapid changes and growth of a baby when you’re away for most of their first year. “Even three months with a newborn baby is a big deal,” says Shannon, “because they come home to a totally different child.”
The Sandvigs now have three boys — ages 14, 13, and 11 — who have grown up with their dad regularly on deployment. When Gavin was sent to Afghanistan in 2010, the kids were five, three, and two years old. During that 11-month deployment, Shannon would send Gavin photos of the boys’ daily lives. Their middle son also sent a stuffed chameleon named “Rocky” to Gavin so he could take pictures with it to send home to the kids.
Shannon says her kids got cell phones at much younger ages than most of their peers so they’d be able to communicate with their dad on his schedule. Gavin doesn’t always know ahead of time when he can call or text, so they wanted the boys to be able to respond to his calls or messages immediately.
It’s hard to stay connected as the kids get older and busier, though. When a spouse and parent is gone for a long period, family life still goes on, and keeping a deployed family member feeling like they’re a part of the daily rhythms is a challenge. There’s a readjustment period every time they leave, and another every time they come back home.
Gavin Sandvig reuniting with his three boys after a deployment in Afghanistan Shannon Sandvig
Thankfully, technology keeps marching along, making it easier than ever for families to stay connected even at a distance. Smart cameras and systems like the Google Nest Hub allow you to easily share photos without having to go through social media; it’s as easy as saying “Hey Google, share this photo with Mom.” Since photos and videos are vital lifelines for families who are separated by deployment, the more options they have for sharing life’s little moments, the better.
Like Shannon, Evey Koen also learned early that the dynamics of parenting with a deployed spouse is complicated. Her husband, Mike, an aviator in the Navy, was deployed less than a week after their daughter, Aven, was born. In all, he was only home for nine weeks of the first year and a half of Aven’s life, which was hard. But Evey says parenting solo wasn’t the hardest thing about Mike’s deployment; the hardest part was making him feel like he was included in their daily family life.
“It was definitely emotionally hardest on Mike,” Evey says.
The couple worked hard to find creative ways to keep him connected. Mike recorded himself reading stories, which Evey would play for Aven five or six times a day. They would mail back and forth clothing items so that Aven could get used to Mike’s smell and Mike could experience that magical baby scent. Evey also took pictures of Aven with a stuffed photo of Mike — her “Daddy Doll” — at regular intervals so that he could see how she was growing.
Aven at 4 months Evey Koen
However, being out on a ship in the middle of the ocean, Mike didn’t always have reliable access to phone or internet. He had a hard time feeling like he was missing everything, and Evey tried hard to prioritize his needs as a father. For example, when Aven said her first word at nine months old, Evey had to wait to tell the rest of her family. “Her first word was ‘Dada’ because I was always talking about Dada and there was no one around to say Mama,” says Evey. “All of my family wanted to see it, but I couldn’t post the video for my family to see until Mike had seen it, because I wanted him to feel like he was a part of our family experience.”
Mike has been in the Navy for 28 years and is now teaching at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. He will retire next year at 50, so he gets to spend a lot of time with now seven-year-old Aven. Gavin recently found out he will be deployed with the National Guard again next year, so Shannon and the boys are preparing for another long separation and figuring out the best ways to keep Gavin in the loop. Shannon says Rocky the chameleon will likely accompany him on this deployment, too.
Here’s to the men and women who serve around the world, and here’s and to the families who support them from home.
Google is providing Nest Hubs to USO families to help them feel closer this holiday season. Join us in supporting the USO at uso.org/googlenest.
