Hello! We are Bryan and Ellen. We have been together for 14 years and just celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary. We love going on road trips, visiting national parks, trying new foods, and reading. Ellen is caring, funny, creative, and tells a great story. Bryan is quiet, goofy, and intelligent; he doesn't like to admit it, but he's a good dancer. Ellen has been working as a special education teacher for 14 years. She works with students with significant disabilities on developing life skills. Bryan is a nurse practitioner and focuses on adult care. He really enjoys working with the older population, listening to their stories, and helping them with their health. Lucas (2) loves singing, dancing, and spending time outside. We became a family of three through the blessing of adoption and are looking forward to watching Lucas grow up with a sibling to bond with and create lots of memories.

We spend a lot of time with our extended family and are blessed they live nearby. Ellen's family lives in the neighboring town. Her parents are retired, and her brother and his wife have two young boys. Ellen's parents host a large event on Labor Day weekend to get family and friends together and make homemade sauerkraut. This tradition has been going on for over 50 years! Bryan's parents and his middle sister with her husband and four children live in the same town we do! This allows us to attend soccer games and choir concerts to support our nieces and nephews. His youngest sister, her husband, and children live a little farther away but come to town often! We all celebrate holidays together, and Bryan's family has even joined in on the sauerkraut tradition! We love that our families are close and are by our sides through everything!

Our friends, or what we like to call our chosen family, also live nearby! We often plan trips and activities together. Football games, cooking competitions, and holidays are just a few. During the summer, we attend our annual "friends trip" and enjoy time together. The summer of 2025 was our ninth year celebrating.

We live in a four-bedroom home we built in a wonderful neighborhood. Our big yard is wide open and is located next to a bike path we use to walk the dogs, visit the neighbors, and watch many bikes go by. Our two goofy dogs, Marley Mae (10) and Henry (7), enjoy spending time outside watching the world go by. This is especially easy with beautiful prairie common areas and a neighboring farm. Our neighborhood is the perfect mix between the hustle and bustle of the city and the serenity of the quiet country. The dogs love to snuggle and are big couch potatoes! Bryan loves to cook, especially on the grill or smoker, and together as a family, we love to spend time outside.

We have been hoping to see our family grow for a few years. We have had the chance to see our three nieces and five nephews grow up and love spending time with them. In 2023, our son, Lucas, was born. After adopting Lucas and watching him flourish and grow, we would love to expand our family even more. We are so blessed to continue a positive and open relationship with Lucas' birth parents and now get to see him run around with his cousins at family events. We feel this is our journey in life, and we have so much love to share!