Our relationship is built on a foundation of love, support, and open communication, which we intend to share with any children that join our family in the future. But our relationship is more than that! We love to have fun, and spend much of our free time hosting friends for dinner, board games, or even our annual friends Thanksgiving (which we've been hosting since 2012).

We also love to travel and explore our home city, whether it's trying (or cooking up!) new foods and new experiences, or meeting new people. We've been on many adventures together, from touring ice caves in Iceland, to swimming with manta rays in Bora Bora, to celebrating a good friend's wedding in India. We hope to share our love for fun and adventure with a child.

We're also animal lovers. In 2018, we adopted our second cat, Oliver, a ginger tomcat, who is now a senior! Our first cat, Alastor, joined our family in 2013 and was with us for four years until his passing in 2017. Oliver is a complete sweetheart, welcoming our friends and visitors with cuddles, purrs, and a playful demeanor. He's also excited about the idea of welcoming a new member to our family!

We treasure our time with our nieces, nephews and close friends' children and are blessed to have a number of terrific parental "role models" in our lives. We hope to share our love of fun and adventure with a child, whether we are traveling, exploring our hometown in DC, or trying out new foods, books, games, art projects, or more at home.

Our story began in 2012 when we first met while out with friends at a local bar. We immediately hit it off and, after dating for a year, decided to begin joining our lives by moving in together. In 2015, John was accepted into a graduate program in the United Kingdom. Although the program was just for a year, Mike decided to quit his job and move with John. Moving abroad together was a tremendous adventure, and really cemented our commitment to one another.

Shortly after we returned to the U.S., we took a vacation to visit John's brother, embarking on a road trip from Denver to the Grand Canyon, stopping for hikes at the gorgeous national parks along the way. During a morning hike at Arches National Park, John proposed! Although we'd talked about getting married for years, Mike was still incredibly surprised (perhaps because John's proposal was interrupted by chipmunks trying to steal our breakfast). We got married in fall 2018 in DC, joined by our friends and families, with a close friend as our officiant. In 2019, we bought our first home, which we've been working hard to make ready for our future family.

We have always known that we wanted to grow our family via adoption. We know that parenting isn't easy, but are excited to share our home, traditions, and love with a child.

Mike grew up in upstate New York in a loving family. Most of his family still lives in his hometown, and we see them often. This includes visiting Mike's two siblings and our four nieces and nephews. His family has always been close, and is ecstatic about welcoming a child into the family through adoption.

Mike has always had a great rapport with children, and worked for years with young kids, including as an assistant preschool teacher. Mike had actually planned to become an elementary school teacher, but, after years of volunteering, decided to go to law school to help students and families through the law. One of his first jobs was with a nonprofit, advocating for children in foster care and adoptive families. Seeing the love those families shared cemented Mike's desire to create his family through adoption.

Mike is fun-loving and easy-going. He enjoys playing board games and solving riddles and puzzles. He has an artistic side, including playing guitar and making construction paper art (including annual birthday cards for each of his nieces and nephews, a tradition he plans to continue with a child!). He also loves to bake and cook up tasty meals, as we make sure to eat dinner together as a family every night.

He's also a big reader. For his whole life, Mike's mother has worked as the storyteller for their hometown library. Her storytelling skills rubbed off on Mike, who loved reading stories to the kids in his preschool classes, and has always looked forward to sharing stories-and storytelling-with our family one day.

John grew up in southern Indiana with two loving parents and an older brother. He moved to Washington, DC in 2010 after graduating college, where he moved to start a career in energy policy. As a child, John often traveled across the U.S. and overseas to visit family. His career has allowed him to continue traveling (a hobby that we enjoy together), and he's eager to share the excitement of travel with our growing family.

He's an environmentalist at heart, and scouting was a big influence in his childhood. He tries to find any excuse he can to go hiking on vacation, and he often talks about how excited he is to go camping or hiking together as a family. In college, he was a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, where he spent the summer taking crews of high schoolers on weeklong backpacking treks.

Some of John's fondest childhood memories involve little moments: taking long bike rides with his dad, helping his mom decorate the house for Christmas, going blueberry picking with his grandma, his dad teaching him how to change the oil in his first car, and his parents cheering him on at swim meets.

As a future dad, John hopes to be the same kind of cheerleader that his parents were for him and his older brother, and to provide a nurturing, supportive environment for a child to fearlessly explore their world and pursue the things that spark joy.

We live in a vibrant and diverse family-friendly neighborhood in Washington, DC. We love our community; several neighbors have young kids or are just starting their families, and our house is just a few blocks from a public elementary school, a Spanish bilingual charter school, a playground and recreation center, and a public library. We are active in our community and love connecting with our neighbors, who--despite living in a big city--really make our neighborhood a close-knit community.

When searching for our home in 2019, we specifically sought a place we felt we could grow into. We were delighted to find a spacious home in the city with some yard space for outdoor play, but only minutes by car or Metro from all the necessities. Our home is bright and welcoming, and decorated with reminders of our friends, family, and good times. Photographs of family and travel, homemade artwork, or the dozens of magnets on our fridge from trips we've taken together fill our home. We love to host friends and family for dinner, game night, our annual "Friendsgiving," or a longer visit--and we've focused on decorating our home so it's cozy, comfortable, and warm for everyone.

One of the best parts of our home and community is that our close friends--our local "family"--are located nearby, several of whom have newborns and young children. John's employer is very family-friendly, with an on-site childcare center and lots of colleagues who have little ones at home. Though we visit with our families regularly, we're blessed to also have our community of friends here in DC to lean on.

We are both privileged to have close, supportive extended families. Although no immediate family members live in DC, we chat frequently with our families via text, phone calls, FaceTime, and WhatsApp.

Mike's parents and family live in upstate New York, where he grew up. Mike's family hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations each year, which include Mike's siblings, nieces and nephews, uncles, cousins, and their kids. When visiting, we spend a lot of time with our nieces and nephews, whether baking together, going swimming, going to their sports games or performances, or simply hanging out. We love spending time with them and they're all excited about welcoming a new child into the family.

John's parents still live in southern Indiana, while his older brother lives in Colorado. His dad comes from a tightly knit, German farming community in Michigan, while his mom grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. John grew up speaking Spanish with his mom and abuela, traveling to visit family in Venezuela, and learning to make (and eat!) arepas, empanadas, and fried plantains. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summers meant his family would drive to Michigan to visit his paternal grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins.

As a family, we enjoy each other's traditions. For Father's Day, we often travel to play golf with Mike's dad. For Christmas 2021, we spent a whole day with John's parents making hallacas (Venezuelan tamales) and listening to gaitas (Venezuelan holiday folk music). One of our favorite holiday traditions is to do a Christmas Eve driving tour of neighborhood Christmas lights--something both our families do that we've continued!

Thank you for taking the time to get to know more about our family. We hope that what we've shared has given you a picture of us, our home and family, and our hopes and dreams of being adoptive parents. We are truly grateful for your open heart and the great act of love that you are showing by considering an adoption plan for your child.

If selected as adoptive parents, we promise:

• To provide a welcoming, safe, and nurturing home to the child full of unconditional love
• To surround the child with friends, family, and traditions that enrich their life
• To provide the best possible opportunities for self-discovery and learning
• To teach the child about how much you, their mother, loves them and how you are the one who chose for us all to become a family
• To open our hearts and life to you - there will always be a role for you in the child's life, if you choose, however you feel comfortable.

With our sincere gratitude,Mike & John