Hi, I’m Carina — Welcome to Our Little Corner 🤍
I’ve been wondering how to begin this first post, and I figured the best place to start is probably right at the beginning — with me, my little family, and the slightly unexpected story of how we came to be.
I’m Carina, wife to Tenison, soon-to-be mum to our first little love, and the person behind this little corner of the internet.
If you had told me a few years ago what my life would look like today, I’m not sure I would have believed you.
Somehow, a move to a tiny country town, a little café, an unexpected friendship and a whole lot of life happening in between led me to my best friend, my husband and now...
Our very own little mini.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
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How We Met
Our story starts back in 2023, when at the ripe old age of 23, I decided to take a pretty huge leap of faith.
I had recently moved to a brand-new little country town with my mum and my partner at the time, and decided that apparently moving towns wasn't enough of a life change... so I opened a café too.
Hospitality was all I'd ever really known. I'd spent years working in cafés, running kitchens and doing just about everything in between, so opening my own little place felt like the natural next step — albeit a slightly terrifying one.
While I was getting everything ready to open, I met a lovely lady who popped in to enquire about working with me once the café opened.
Little did I know just how important that woman — and her family — would eventually become to my life.
She started working with me, and on opening day, her beautiful family came down to support us. Among them was her son, Tenison, and his fiancée at the time.
We met. He was lovely. And... that was about it.
No movie moment. No sparks flying across the café. No “that's the man I'm going to marry.”
Just a quick meeting with my new employee's son — and life carried on.
Over the next year and a half, though, his mum and I became incredibly close. We laughed together, cried together, went on holidays together, caught up outside of work and, before I knew it, she had become one of my very best friends.
I'd moved to this tiny town knowing hardly anyone, and somehow I'd found one of my people.
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Then, life got a little complicated...
Around July 2024, Tenison left for a three-month road trip with his best friend. It was supposed to be one last big adventure before he came home and got married the following February.
But just two weeks into the trip, everything changed.
His relationship unexpectedly ended while he was almost 25 hours away from home. It took him a couple of days to make the trip back, and when he arrived, the relationship officially came to an end.
He only had four days at home before he was due to leave again and continue the remaining two and a half months of his trip.
During those few days, his mum would talk to me about how worried she was about him. He was understandably heartbroken, spending most of his time at home, and she worried that once he left again, he might never want to come back to a town that held so many memories for him.
So I made a suggestion.
“Why don't I take him out on his last night here?”
Not as a date. Not because there was anything between us. I simply wanted him to know that when he eventually came home, there was someone in town he could call if he needed a friend.
So that Friday, I picked him up.
I remember telling him:
“We can talk about her, or we can completely avoid it. You can laugh, you can cry — whatever you need right now, I'm here to listen.”
We ended up spending most of the night at my house with my housemate at the time. There was venting, a couple of drinks, plenty of laughing and just... talking.
Then I dropped him home.
The next day, he flew back up to continue his road trip with his best friend.
And that was that.
Or so I thought.
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Somewhere Along the Way...
While Tenison was away, we'd occasionally check in with each other. I'd ask how he was doing, he'd send me random photos from places they'd visited, and we'd have the odd conversation here and there.
Nothing more.
At the time, I was still engaged myself. But without going too deeply into a chapter that doesn't really belong in this story, that relationship had been over in many ways for quite some time.
A couple of weeks before Tenison was due home, I finally made the decision to walk away from it and start rebuilding my life.
And let me make one thing VERY clear...
I had absolutely no intention of getting into another relationship.
I wanted time on my own. I wanted to work out who I was again. Dating was about the furthest thing from my mind.
Apparently, life had other plans.
When Tenison returned from his trip a couple of weeks later, he messaged me.
I'd been there for him when his relationship ended, he said, and now he wanted to be there for me.
So he took me to our local pub for dinner.
Again — not a date.
At least, that's what we told ourselves.
We spent the night looking through all the photos he'd taken on his road trip, gasbagging about absolutely everything and just enjoying each other's company.
And after that night... things changed.
His mum started noticing that her son was suddenly finding a lot more reasons to pop into the café.
And honestly?
It became pretty difficult to keep the two of us apart.
People always say, “When you know, you know.”
I used to think that was just one of those things people said.
Until I knew.
There wasn't one huge dramatic moment where everything clicked into place. Being with Tenison just felt easy. It felt safe.
He very quickly became the person I wanted to tell everything to, the person I wanted beside me and, most importantly, my best friend.
And despite being adamant that I wanted absolutely nothing to do with another relationship...
I knew very early on that one day, I'd be walking down the aisle towards him in a white dress.
Things moved quickly — but they never felt rushed.
One month in, we moved in together.
Eleven months in, he proposed.
Twenty months in, we got married.
And just two weeks after our wedding, we found out that our biggest adventure yet had already begun.
And Then There Were Three...
We were having a baby.
Our own tiny little combination of the two of us.
After everything that had brought us together, there was something pretty special about finding out that almost immediately after becoming husband and wife, we were also going to become Mum and Dad.
We'd barely had time to get used to calling each other husband and wife, and suddenly there was this tiny little person growing away who had made us a family of three.
Well... technically three plus our four-legged family members, who would probably be deeply offended if I didn't count them.
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So, That's Us
There's me — Carina.
There's Tenison — my husband, my best friend, the person who somehow went from being my employee's son to the love of my life, and now the daddy to our little baby.
And then there's our tiniest member, currently growing away and already so incredibly loved.
When I think back to 23-year-old me opening the doors to that little café in a town where I barely knew anyone, I can't help but laugh at how life works sometimes.
I thought I was opening a café.
I had absolutely no idea that somewhere amongst the coffee, chaos and everything that came with it, I was setting off a chain of events that would eventually lead me to my family.
That café gave me one of my closest friends, who would eventually become my mother-in-law.
It introduced me to the man who would become my husband.
And now that man and I are getting ready to meet the tiny little person who gets to call us Mum and Dad.
And knowing everything that had to happen — every move, every decision, every ending and every unexpected turn — for our paths to eventually meet at exactly the right time...
I wouldn't change a single part of it for the world.
So, that's a little introduction to us. 🤍
There is so much more I can't wait to share — including how finding out I was pregnant, having absolutely no clue what I was doing and approximately eight million Google searches eventually sparked the idea behind this little corner of the internet.
But that's a story for another day.
For now...
Welcome to our little family.
I'm so glad you're here. 🤍
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