Please enjoy the following sections of how Caitlin & David met, came to be, and the adventure they have forged together over time.

David & Caitlin First laid eyes on one another in a Professional Development meeting for work. Caitlin noticed David to be a highly charismatic, humble, "archetypal male" who oozed a mastery of his professional craft. The angelic hue of his cheeks, radiant flowing locks, and impish glimmer in his eyes had her utterly captivated. David, The unassuming and complete professional that he was and has always been, was drawn into Caitlin’s capacity to engage all students in high rigor, culturally affirming curriculum and build strong, lasting relationships through instructional delivery of content. But of course, conjecture can only enlighten us so far of the nature of David & Caitlin’s Initial Encounter…

…One day, in a selfless act of student engagement, martyrdom some might purport, David illustrated his precedent setting commitment to advancing the educational outcomes of his students once again by holding an after school basketball session with his students. Caitlin joined and the two played 2 vs 3 against their 9th Grade pupils. The students had recently missed some class time due to the elusive empty promises of Hallway Wanderlust, so David & Caitlin took the opportunity to provide a supplemental lesson… The Subject: Getting Buckets The Learning Objective: Students Will Be Able To Pay Respect to Their Elders Slip Screen and roll to a floater. Bam. Back cut to a layup. Bing. Step Back Three for the Win. Boom. The Dynamic Duo struck and struck hard. Years later, on the day of their first date, Caitlin & David acknowledged how formative that day was in shaping their team chemistry on and off the court. Moreover, on the day of the students’ graduation, the boys acknowledged how formative that day was for them as well in shaping them into the young men they had become.

David and Caitlin cannot help but spend their days walking the relational tightrope between collaboration and competition. Whether they are trail running, planning a road trip, playing basketball, board games with friends, exploring another country, grant writing, or training for a 330 mile bike ride from DC to Pittsburgh last summer, or engaged in late night conversations, they love to play both sides of either/or & both/and thinking, allowing/denying two simultaneous parallel truths. Lastly, they celebrate an eternal bond in their pledged affiliation as Celtics fans. Finding a spouse that would elect to watch weeknight Celtics games cannot be understated as an incredibly basic, yet staple desire for both. While Caitlin reveres Jaylen Brown as a conscientious leader, advocate, and disruptor of larger racist systems within the Boston community, David agrees, and also respectfully maintains Marcus Smart as the steadfast heart and soul of the team…

Ikigai is a Japanese concept Caitlin & David wanted to gingerly appropriate in order to express their connection. Ikigai refers to your life purpose or “reason for being.” In other words, Ikigai is the space between what you love to do, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid to do. While public education is not the most lucrative for the latter, David found his way to it nevertheless after working in short and long term residential environments with adolescents from the Boston Public School system. Caitlin, a former Global Marketing Director at an international shoe company, grew tired of fully catered private jets, impromptu gifting of Celtics game box seats for a strong Tuesday performance, and Anglo-centrically timed cash bonuses custom of the corporate sector. She returned to Grad school to become a 9th grade Math teacher and never looked back. In short, they are hopeless romantics who believe in the idealistic liberation an education can offer. They unapologetically commit themselves to creating equity through access. They are privileged to choose to work within a broken system, and simultaneously obliged to help transform it by building capacity, functionality, and consensus. They also work to hold each other accountable from internalized tropes of White Supremacist Culture and implicit biases, although Caitlin can not help herself with the occasional derogatory joke towards the Polish behind closed doors. For David, it has been, and always will be, the French. Now Caitlin is obtaining her Educational Doctorate at Boston University and David is pursuing his Principal Licensure, both in Educational Leadership. They have fully committed to the next step of their lives in the seams of late night grad classes, endless practicum hours, dissertations, and boundless encouragement from Caitlin as David begs her to just write his papers for him because “she really seems to enjoy this type of thing more anyways and all he really cares about is supporting her support him to support her.” Though she denies these opportunities, David’s task-avoidant banter and endless unwavering persistence never escapes her heart. The two have different approaches at times, yet simultaneously are uniquely situated to support and cultivate each other’s growth.

Caitlin & David are planners. Their favorite date out is at a bar which has white board walls and desks for them to work while enjoying a couple of marked up glasses of a coastal Cali Pinot Noir. They wrote a revised grant draft on one of these dates and made a two year life plan on another. That plan led to the Birth of their first child (is “first” an operative word??? We will see…) back on March 25th 2023. Giada Rey Moreno entered the world at 5:22am EST and she has been pooping and peeing constantly pretty much every day since, just like her father. Caitlin & David will continue to forge their path in the interest of their children, their hopes, and their Ikigai. They will not stop, and they will savor the journey together forever and always. They are grateful you can be with them this weekend, in person or in spirit, as they celebrate a milestone of this incredible journey thus far.