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I can’t believe it but 9 years ago today, Ben and I were on our first date.  We were eating Mahi Mahi and sipping cold beers at a fun restaurant on the water in Boynton Beach.  I’m not sure which happened first, me falling in love with Ben or me falling in love with the on the water lifestyle.  But one thing’s for sure, I was hooked on both from that night…yes I actually would have run off that night and married him, had he asked, which he didn’t.  But fortunately he did ask me out again, and the rest, as they say, is history.  On that very first date we were talking about what we each did for a living…me a branch manager of a bank and him a sales rep in the pharma industry (my mother in law always called him a drug runner!  LOL).   He LOVED his job, I HATED mine….so much so that had I not met Ben, I would have moved back to Ohio in a heartbeat!!!  I told him my dream job was to be a photographer, preferably on a catamaran sailboat, taking people out on snorkeling booze cruises.  Well, although he loved his job, if he HAD to pick a dream job, it would be a dive master…and his real dream was to live on a catamaran sailboat and sail around the world (and not work at all).

10 months (to the day!) later we got married in Honduras…just the 2 of us and a bunch of strangers.  We had a simple sunset ceremony overlooking the ocean and Ben went for a dive the next day…as I lounged in a  hammock.  We got home from our wedding-moon, moved into our big beautiful new house and settled in to our new married life, still in the same jobs…me coming home every night practically in tears, him bounding out of bed in the morning so excited to go to work.  Somehow we managed those first years in opposite places and I finally moved on to a new job…which lasted a whopping 3 years until the company closed (yes, it was a sub prime mortgage company so yes I had something to do with this whole mortgage mess and housing crises..please don’t remind me!).  Ben encouraged me to take my photography hobby and take a stab at turning it into a business.  Afterall, I wasn’t going to find a job in banking at that time, and he made enough money to cover the bills so what was the worst that could happen?  It turns out, that encouragement changed both of our lives!  Here it is 4 years later and now he’s my marketing guru/2nd photographer/pack mule and we live on a cat!  We just sold our beautiful first home together, and all of our belongings (and kitties) are either in our little apartment or on our beautiful catamaran sailboat, Buckeye!

It may have taken 9 years, but we set a goal, worked towards it, had lots of bumps and bruises along the way, but never lost hope to someday be living our dream together.  I thought it was a pipe dream when I said 9 years ago that I wanted to be a photographer on a catamaran!  And look at us now!  We’re not there yet, but we’re so much closer than we honestly thought we would be after 9 short years.  Hopefully in the next 9 years we’ll have completed both of our new goals…Ben – sail around the world…Katie – photograph the world and publish a book about it.  If I know us, then I’m pretty sure we’ll accomplish both of these!

So here’s to the man that changed my life.  I remember that first date like it was yesterday and every time I think about how we dreamed of one day having the life we now have, I can’t help but smile and get excited for our future together!  Thanks for your encouragement of me and the photography business – it wouldn’t be a growing business year after year without you.   Thanks for being my pack mule, my marketing genius, my everything.  Bahamas in October, here we come!

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