We met back in 2009 when Joey’s brother was dating Katie’s best friend. Joey was most drawn to Katie’s beauty and personality, her unique combination of casual fun and spiritual depth. Katie was drawn to Joey’s smile, love for God, wisdom, and silliness. We were married in 2012 and have only grown closer together through the joys of parenting.
We were overjoyed to adopt our daughter in 2018. She instantly lived up to her name, which means “my joy,” and has brightened our world every day since. We’ve always thought adoption was beautiful and we are thankful for our infertility, otherwise, we would have missed this amazing way God wanted to bring little ones into our home.
We come from families with grand traditions. Joey’s family loves the Indy 500 race and takes annual beach trips to Florida. Katie grew up enjoying annual family vacations, skiing on both snow and lakes. Northern Michigan is a favorite vacation spot for us! It’s the perfect place to hit the beach and enjoy the sun in the summer and bundle up for some snow fun in the winter.
Katie’s family is vivacious, loud, and opinionated (with a side of quirkiness) and they gather on Sundays for a big family meal. Joey’s family is calm, kind, and dependable and they’re best known for their pool days and meals around a big table. Our eight nieces and nephews dote on our daughter and they are some of her favorite people in the world. We both feel very fortunate to have grown up in homes that were havens of rest, safety, and security and we strive to make ours the same.
Christmas includes pajamas, visits from Santa, baking, and a Christmas Eve service. In keeping with family tradition, we get a real Christmas tree and decorate it together. We each have ornaments from when we were growing up, including a wooden train Katie hand-painted with her grandmother as a child and a piece of pottery that looks like poop that Joey made when he was little. One of our daughter's favorites is the newest ornament, a pink ballerina mouse!
