We met at a college running club event over 10 years ago and soon became best friends. It wasn’t until years later that we started dating and eventually got married. Joshua lives a carefree life of spontaneity, while Josh thinks he always needs to have a plan. Luckily we bring the perfect mix of both our personalities to our relationship, which makes our lives work so well. We both work in IT fields, and when we aren’t working, we share a lot of the same interests, like running, traveling, and adventures. In fact, one of our biggest goals in life is to run a race in every state. Outside of our day jobs and traveling, we are very laid back. We love to walk our dog, Wayland, around the neighborhood, experience new foods, and just relax by catching up on our current shows or spending time with our close-knit friends and family.

We are both extremely close to our families and friends. Each of our families live less than two hours away but in different directions, so it’s not uncommon for us to drive all over the state for holidays and events so we can see everyone.

Joshua's immediate family includes his parents (Papa and Nana), sister, brother, brother-in-law, and two nephews. Josh’s family includes his parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and many cousins. It’s always a good time when everyone gets together. When we are not with our families, we are with our best friends, whom we also consider family as we’ve known most of them over ten years and they stood beside us on our wedding day.

We get together with our families and friends for everything: holidays, birthdays, family reunions, festivals, vacations, or just dinner. We love going on boat rides, camping, sitting around a bonfire, going on group runs, bike rides, paddle boarding, playing board games, and exploring new cities and national parks together.

We love our amazing neighborhood. It is walkable to the schools in one of the best districts in the state, parks, lakes, restaurants, and grocery stores. It’s a short ride downtown to the zoo, museums, and a variety of shows, festivals, and concerts. There is never a shortage of fun things to do. We own a five-bedroom home with a backyard perfect for yard games, campfires, and playing with our friendly dog, Wayland. We often joke we bought our house just so he could have a backyard to enjoy. Wayland is a vizsla whose favorite things include zoomies in the yard and curling up on the couch to cuddle. All three of us can’t wait to have another human to play, explore, and cuddle with.

We both have always known we wanted to have kids. As our relationship became more serious, we realized the family we envisioned could become a reality. We created goals and priorities, studied and worked hard, and created a safe and stable home so we could finally begin our journey toward parenthood. While working toward our goal of growing our family, we never thought twice about how we would do it; of course we would adopt. We are both strong believers that blood doesn’t bind a family together but love does. We have living proof of this in our daily lives as both of our families have been so positively impacted by adoption. Bringing a child into our family through adoption was a no-brainer for us.