Nicola & Benjamin

Our families are near, far, and all around. Other words to describe them would be massive and everywhere. Ben has 22 first cousins and Nicola has 56. We’ve never been anywhere in the world where there wasn’t a relative willing to host us or join us for an adventure. Nicola comes from an Irish immigrant family in Canada. Her mother Carole and father Bob moved their family to Canada in the early 1980s to escape the Troubles and find work. Her family had a particular issue with the Troubles as her mother is Protestant and her father is Catholic. Since love doesn’t always listen to religion they had to journey to the Channel island of Jersey to get married, as there wasn’t a priest in Ireland that would marry them. They had Nicola and her sister Karen and moved the whole bunch to Canada. Since then, Nicola has picked up a brother-in-law (Karen’s high school boyfriend) and a niece and nephew, the lovely Nora and Owen. Ben’s family started when his parents met at a college dorm party and has grown from there. His mother Susan saw promise in his father Gary and together they went through college and medical school together. After getting their MDs and hanging up their shingle in Central Wisconsin they decided they were ready for an addition to their family. When they saw that Ben was such an easy kid, they decided to add two more to the clan and along came his sister Gabrielle and sibling Madsen. They received another blessing - and Ben finally got a brother! - when Gabi married Matt. They’ve since enhanced the family further with the addition of Catherine and Everett. Our nuclear families visit often despite them living a little distance away. Matt and Gabi in Minnesota work as a pediatrician and engineer, Karen and Garreth in Canada work as a speech pathologist and accounting partner, and Madsen in Michigan works as a research scientist. As with any family, their visits will most likely increase significantly with the arrival of a new grandchild. Our support system is real, enthusiastic, and thrilled to expand the circle of love. Our Framily is also a big part of our lives. When we left our families and moved to New York in our 20s, we quickly connected with like-minded friends who had also moved away from their families. They became our Framily. These are people we see every week and would drop anything if we needed them. We experience the joys of living in New York together and have developed our own holidays outside of traditional holidays so we can celebrate events with them (think Friendsgiving and Football Sunday). Our kids will grow up knowing them as aunts and uncles, and they will love our children like their own.

Ben is curious about everything. He’s constantly wondering about this, researching that, and figuring out something else. An innovator at his core, Ben believes there’s always a new and exciting way to do something. He used this power and his powers of make believe for 20 years to achieve success in the film industry. He’s since branched out into inventing and has a patent on the way, and a whole host of new things to build with it. His future will hold boats, ships, scooters, ATVs and whatever pops into his head. When he is not building something, Ben likes to head out into the nature that surrounds New York and paddle, fish, and hike. Don’t worry, though: the fish are safe as he hasn’t caught anything so far! On weekends Ben can be found in the backyard smoking various food products and chatting with our friends and family while teaching our friends’ kids about his latest invention (this week it’s a telescope).

Nicola is a rock. She is everyone’s go-to person for anything life can throw at you. She becomes your emergency contact the moment you meet her. She’s responsible, organized, and the calm center of any crisis. And then she’s fun. She brought a karaoke machine to her destination wedding so she could sing Black Velvet loudly. On a Saturday night you can often find her in a “dance off” with her goddaughters. Needless to say, they often win. Nicola is deeply caring: she wants you to be happy and does everything in her power to make it so. From going out to dinner with someone who’s having a bad week to providing emergency babysitting for her goddaughters, she is there when you need her. All these qualities and many more have made her a force within the financial industry for the past 20 years. She is a leader, an innovator, and a highly sought-after talent who, if you know her at all, is your friend, your mentor, and your first call if you need anything.