Cheers to our Married Years!

Our story begins with our grandparents, who started their families on neighboring farms. Our dads grew up and went to school together in Mentor and both settled their own families on Maple Lake. When Ben was born, his dad told Katie's dad that their new son's name was Ben, not Benjamin, "Simply Ben." After that, Katie was born and her dad remembered Larry's description of Ben's name, and it was Katie, not Katherine or Katelyn, "just Katie." We don't know when we first met, surely as babies, but we have lots of memories growing up around each other. We didn't attend the same elementary school - because Katie is just a little more "Mentor" than Ben, she stayed there through 6th grade while Ben was in Fertile. We went to high school together, though, and became close friends. Katie recalls a time, when she was about 16, Ben got her kicked out of the library for making her laugh uncontrollably - he didn't get in any trouble at all. This was maybe the first time she fell in love with Ben...he doesn't remember it. Sometimes we would meet at the Dairy Queen and quote Seinfeld at each other until they closed - this is probably when Katie first hooked Ben. Since then, we had some trouble getting our timing right. Ben expressed his interest in Katie during his senior year of high school and while she also cared a lot for him, she wasn't ready to risk their great friendship. This was a choice she regretted about a year later, when Ben was at UND, but then Ben wasn't ready. During Ben's winter break from college in 2005, Ben came over to Katie's house in the middle of the night for snow fights. During one of these, Ben leveled Katie into a snowbank and, in a move as smooth as Grand Forks city streets, smashed fistfuls of snow into her face. This somehow led to our first kiss, and Katie's favorite memory. (Ben wishes she would stop telling this story.) We finally got it together in the Spring of 2006 and became a couple! We had a lot of fun, laughs, and grew in our friendship, but we were still just kids and not quite the great communicators we are today! We broke up in 2007/8 - it's hard to tell because we were a little confused! We tried to remain friends, but we both started other relationships. Our lives took us in different directions, and we didn't speak to or see one another for about 9 years. Then, both of our paths crossed again in Mentor, our hometown, and in an area communications professionals group in which we were both members. Somehow, luck, fate, star alignment, COVID quarantine, or love connected us once again. We are so thankful! We moved into an apartment together, bought a home, survived remodel projects, added Paul to our family, experienced some great successes, suffered great losses, and feel like we are better friends than ever! We still quote Seinfeld at each other. A lot. We don't think there is anybody else in the world that could understand some of the weirder parts of our personalities than each other so we decided to put it in a legal contract to entertain each other until we die! We sincerely hope everyone can join us to celebrate!