Hugh’s family is sprinkled throughout the country. His parents are in Chicago. His brother and sister-in-law are in San Francisco. His sister is in New Orleans. We’re in DC.

It means we have extra excuses to visit some of the greatest U.S. cities.

It also means we only have the whole family together on rare occasion. After our wedding, the first rare occasion was a spontaneous video chat that we all happened to be available to join.

We had just sat down to eat dinner, so our chiming in between chewing probably added to the chaos.

But what a great moment to have four parts of a family virtually together from the top, bottom, left, and right sides of the country.

Ah, technology.