r kelly meets kelly ripa

• Cate's parents have always been your typical whire middle class couple. Her father, Miles, has spent nearly forty years of his life climbing up through the ranks in the construction industry, from hanigng dry wall to general contracting. Whereas Lynn, her mother, spent years as an English teacher before settling into a position as vice principal in the last couple of years.
• She likes to refer to herself - and especially her extended family - as 'swamp trash'. This is because while Miles' family descends from highfalutin, sweet tea sippin, slow speakin, Georgia Southerners, Lynn's family comes from the Florida panhandle, Alabama and Louisiana. There in the marshes, Cate's mother's family ascended and evolved to bipedal land mammals like the mud covered cajun gator hunting swamp things they have always been. Just ask her favorite cousin on her mother's side, Andrew King. (The entire description of the Benoit family's roots comes from Catelin and Andrew while high on edibles and should be taken with a grain of salt.)
• As far as religion was concerned, Miles and Lynn raised their children baptist, like his upbringing. Lynn's side of the family, however, has always been deeply Catholic, hence their New Orleans roots.
• Of all of her siblings, Cate has always found herself closest to her older brother Mason. The two have a way of speaking and bonding with one another that she has sometimes found hard to find the same with her sisters. Whether it is because Cate herself has always been more comfortable around boys or because her interests have never been super girly, she isn't quite sure. However in later years Cate has found herself connecting with her sisters much more, and is quite happy that she still gets to remain close to all of her siblings. Right now she couldn't pick a favorite sibling even if you forced her to. She even has a pretty great relationship with Kenzi, the youngest Collins kid.
• Cate's childhood was always fairly fulfilling. She was the little girl who always had to have something going on, whether it was dance lessons or horse back riding or soccer. Her favorite activity was Girl Scouts which she actively stayed involved involved until she was forced to merge with a Boy Scout troop in order to earn Eagle Scout. In Girl Scouts she developed a love of the outdoors via camping and canoing and hustling money via selling cookies. But the most important thing Catelin fell in love with as a Girl Scout was the night sky and outer space via a trip to Space Camp in the mid 90s.
• Miles has always been a bit of a lowkey survivalist. He made a point to teach all of his kids how to fend for themselves - especially his little girls. Because of this Cate has been firing weapons since she was about 9 years old, and has always had a bug-out bag packed wherever she lives. Her father has only gotten more intense with his preps. He currently owns an undisclosed number of acres North of New Orleans, and there is rumored land in other states. Ask him about growing a camoflauged survival garden or how to make a gasifier. He has gotten much worse post-Hurricane Katrina
• In their later age, Cate's parents have gotten a lot more down to earth and off the grid. But even when she was younger they were a bit like this - including urban chickens. Currently they have chickens, goats, bunnies,and peacocks, and they are currently looking into getting a colony of bees. Not only that, they have always kept a small garden and compost pile.
• In middle school, Cate met and became best friends with Austen Glover. They immediately hit it off and realized their weirdness was, for the most part, the same breed. Yes he was a little bit darker, tended to enjoy horror movies a bit more than she did, but their sense of humor and love of fantasy, board games and - oddly enough - crafting, was always right in line together. A couple years later they discovered weed.
• Dungeons and Dragons has been a major part of Cate's life since she was in middle school, taking an even larger role once she was in high school. In the beginning it was Austen's dad, Charlie Glover, who was the Dungeon Master, while Cate played a (questionably) loveable rogue who always had a tendency to try to double cross the party. Everything came crashing down when Charlie died in December 2002, causing Cate to go into panic mode and try to insulate their group by forcing them all closer together - something she has always done, often to her detriment. Luckily this time it didn't end too terribly.
• Personality-wise, Cate has never really been the loudest voice in the room. She knows she has the tendency to disappear into the edges, yet she also has a tendency to be the one taking charge of the group. Because of this, after many years spent playing with Austen's dad, Cate took over as Dungeon Master of the group in spring of 2003.
• One area where Cate probably should have clashed was in her friendship to Liz Kaldwell. From the beginning it was obvious that the two girls were pretty much the same side of the same coin - a coin which would eventually evolve and prove that they weren't actually exactly the same. But back then, they were both the same super high strung, super type-A, smart, organized and easily exciteable girl. More than that, they were inseperable, a sort of codependence which wouldn't lighten up for many years.
• In high school, Catelin did the thing that all girls are told not to, and pretty much fell in love with the first guy she ever kissed. Pretty much because she had kissed a couple of boys before and even considered two of them 'boyfriends' (one is now absolutely gay while the other is in extreme Christian repression), but Matias Escalera was her first real relationship. While they began dating in fall 2002, it wasn't until Austen's dad died that things took a more serious tone, making them just want to be together. From then it was a whirl-wind while they bonded heavily over their loves of space, science, fantasy and all things nerdy.
• Mat graduated in 2003 before going off to college at the IDONTKNOWYET. They dated, though long distanced, if you could consider the two hour drive actually long distance. Cate fell head over heels for him and it didn't take long for the plan to hatch that they should marry once she finished high school. Her parents were shocked by the idea but also feared she may hold it against them if they didn't support them. Matias and Catelin were wed with a fairly large backyard reception which brought together a myriad of Southerners and Mexicans.
• Cate and Mat were married for seven years, hopping from college to college and spending way too much time apart from one another, as they both pursued various degrees in engineering. At first Cate and Mat lived with friends in PLACE, including Austen, which was pretty great. And then Mat transferred to Berkeley and Cate finished her bachelors degree on her own and the two really learned about living in a long distance relationship. After that Cate moved out to California to live with Mat and pursue her masters degree.
• While Cate looks back on their time in California as some of her happiest days with Mat - they were finally together - this time also brought some of her darkest and worst days with her husband. As a sort of cruel bookend of death to their relationship - starting with Austen's dad on one end - in 2011 Matias was diagnosed with neurocysticercosis and was hospitalized. At times Cate was reminded nearly daily that she needed to prepare herself for the reality that Mat wasn't going to make it. While he did pull through, their relationship came out the other end battered and bruised, especially when they chose not to pursue aftercare. Suddenly they couldn't communicate the way they used to, walls built up between them, and not connecting turned into not speaking, not touching, not talking. They were two people living in the same apartment, but they were not the same married couple they had once been. Mat felt the pressure to finish his doctorate while Cate felt the pressure of high profile head hunters. Cate and Mat divorced in summer 2012. She considers their divorce her greatest failure and the one time in her life she ever really gave up.
• Right now Cate splits her time between Cape Canaveral and New Orleans, while also occasionally working in Vandenberg, CA, Houston and McGregor, TX. When she moved back to Louisiana following the divorce Cate really did not want to spend all of her time alone so, while she rented and eventually bought a studio apartment in Cape Canaveral, she also moved in with Liz. She considers Liz to be the main reason she didn't fall into a deep funk in the wake of her divorce, though she will never admit to the girl that she really was pretty depressed for a while. It was Liz who saw her through it.
• In September 2014 SpaceX suffered a pretty major loss when one of the Falcon 9 rockets self exploded due upon test flight. Needless to say, Cate was pretty stressed considering she works as a fluids specialist and ultimately the culprit was found to be an anomoly with pressurized liquid oxygen. That said, in a few moments of weakness she found herself letting her exhusband back into her life - he was working for SpaceX as well and the two frequently ran into one another at the development lab in Texas. Conversations turned to more which turned to sex and a full blown affair. At the time Cate was in a pretty serious relationship. Their affair just grew increasingly until her boyfriend found out and dumped her in early 2015. Then all bets were off. Cate and Mat went back and forth over the next few months before finally ending it in June because there never seemed to be any effort made toward fixing them. Yet things have a way of coming back around. They rekindled their relationship with a renewed commitment to make it work and go to counseling. Mat and Cate got engaged in January 2016.
• Cate enjoys board games, camping, medical marijuana, cooking, crafting, Skeet Ulrich and of course table top gaming. Right now she is working on a new campaign for her crew.