Melissa is an outgoing and caring person. When she is not working as a receptionist, she enjoys cooking, baking, gardening, and canning. She loves going out to dinner with her friends. Tyler enjoys spending time playing online with his friends and going to his weekly D&D group. He thoroughly enjoys his career as a manager for a home remodeling company and has recently finished redoing the kitchen and living room floors, as well as the downstairs bathroom. His next project is the upstairs flooring and nursery. We both enjoy taking our dog to the park and going on walks in the snow!

Melissa has a very large family, she has 13 aunts and uncles! There are literally too many cousins to count. Most of these are adults now and have children of their own as well, so that means even more! She is the oldest of three children and has three nephews! Her family lives in Oregon so we get to visit whenever we go visit Tyler’s family.

Tyler’s family is decidedly smaller, but his family is always getting together for birthdays and holidays. Tyler is the youngest of three with two older sisters. He has five nieces and one nephew. With most of his family residing in California, we only get together once a year or so.

Each year Melissa’s aunt and uncle come over for Thanksgiving dinner. For Christmas each year, we travel to their house for dinner and exchange gifts. On Christmas Eve, we bake a pizza and then go look at Christmas lights around our neighborhood. Around Tyler’s birthday, we go visit with his aunt and uncle. Sometimes we even go camping for a week. It’s so nice to be out in nature and smell the fresh air!

We live in Colorado and could not love it more! The mountains are everywhere you look, and the sky is always so blue. There are several parks in our neighborhood, including one directly across the street. We are within walking distance of several hiking trails as well as nature preserves. There is always something to do here, and we are rarely bored. We live in a very nice neighborhood, and during the summer, there is a farmers market in the larger park behind our house. During the summer, we also have the opportunity to spend a few hours volunteering at our local CSA farm once a month. We currently have one dog and two cats and enjoy all the love and cuddles we get from them.

When we first started dating, we were in a long-distance relationship. This afforded us the unique opportunity to get to know each other over the phone. During these phone conversations, we spoke about what we wanted our family to look like. We always wanted to have two biological children and two adopted children. When we found out we would not be able to have children biologically, our conversation then turned to how many children we would adopt. We followed a friend as he and his wife went through their adoption journey with their youngest child. We've seen the joy this brought to their family and can’t wait to have our own story to tell.