First, for those that don’t know her, Sherilyn is better known as “Dolly.” Our dad, who died of ALS when she was ten, gave her the nickname as a baby, as he lovingly called her his little Dolly Joy.

We met Ben at our friend Morgan’s birthday dinner in December of 2016. He arrived with Morgan’s mom, who owns the Ferrisburgh Bakeshop, and some of her employees. I had seen him peeling apples at the Bakeshop once, and then he arrived with the Bakeshop gang, so we assumed that he worked there.

Morgan was dating our brother and had told Ben about Dolly, but it wasn’t until after that dinner that he sent her a message and ended up asking her out on a date. Dolly is pretty secretive, but after giving her a hard time about going out with strangers, she knew that she had to at least let someone (me) know where she was and with who and to send pictures of their license plate.

I got a text that she was going out to Fire & Ice with “Ben.” That’s all she would tell me. I didn’t know many Bens, but my first guess was “Bakeshop Ben.” I was correct. She didn’t say much about the date, just that it was okay. It definitely wasn’t love at first sight, not for her anyway!

She did find out that night that he didn’t work at the Bakeshop after all; he had just been helping out with Thanksgiving pies the day we saw him there. From what I’ve heard, he tried getting her to go out with him again, but she made up excuses and didn’t agree to see him again. He was persistent, and one night she joined him to go ice skating because she “had nothing better to do.” She liked him a little more that time but was still shocked when she received flowers at work on Valentine’s Day. It turns out he had a nice dinner planned as well, but she had conveniently agreed to babysit that night in order to avoid any Valentine’s Day awkwardness.

I think it was shortly after that that they went to check out the ice castles in New Hampshire. He asked her to be his girlfriend and she said maybe. She said that she wanted him to meet her family first. So he showed up at a family dinner in February, and we all met him in a more official capacity. We approved.

Dolly joined me and my husband and kids on a trip to Arizona that same month, and she left a note at Ben’s on the way to the airport that basically said she’d be his official girlfriend.

Just a couple of weeks later, he really became part of the family when he trekked to Boston with Dolly, Josh, and I, and was with us there when our mom’s husband of ten years lost his battle with cancer.

It wasn’t all that long before they began talking marriage, but Ben always said they had to have been dating for at least a year before becoming engaged. He must have been pretty anxious, because he only waited a day after their one year anniversary to propose.

He and Dolly have gone on many adventures in the past year, and I am excited for them as they plan for their biggest adventure of all!