We are fun, thoughtful people who value relationships with lifelong friendships and our close-knit families. We are creative types with various artistic outlets. We are always laughing and making others laugh. Some of our passions include travel, hiking, zoos, museums, space, NASA, bowling, board games, movies, eating out, breakfast tacos, craft projects, animals, bike rides, and generally being silly! Laurie likes writing, acting, filmmaking, knitting, gardening, sewing, decorating, animals, ghost stories, history, languages, science, true crime, music, puzzles, and bookstores. James likes triathlons, swimming, electronic music, camping, deserts, volunteering, scuba, reading, math, dogs, cats, sailing, water parks, amusement parks, and fast roller coasters. We both work from home regularly. James works in animation for large-format museum displays. Laurie is a video editor and writer. We met while working for a small company and quickly realized we wanted to be together forever. We share values of compassion, patience, and commitment.

Even though we don’t all live in the same state, we have a large, extremely close-knit family who get together often. Our future child will have aunts and uncles, cousins, two grandmothers, and many great-aunts and great-uncles who are already so excited to welcome them into the family. They just can’t wait to be a part of their life! As a family, we do several trips every year to visit each other both to other states and Ireland. Our future child will have five cousins already and maybe more to come plus new second cousins to grow up with. With multiple aunts and uncles, they will be welcomed into many homes and get to welcome many family members into their home for family and holiday celebrations.

We live in a quiet, diverse suburb near a cultural city. There are many families in our subdivision. Our house has two living areas, three bedrooms, and 2.5 baths. We have an extra-large backyard perfect for swing sets and running and playing. Our HOA has a pool and basketball courts. There are tons of great family activities nearby, like water parks, movie theaters, climbing gyms, trampoline parks, swimming pools, parks, hiking trails, lakes, and more! We also have family ranchland a couple hours away. We have three rescue cats, an outdoor cat, and one border collie puppy. The puppy LOVES kids more than anything and can’t wait to have a wee human of her own to be best, best friends with.

It feels like we have always known we wanted to adopt. Laurie was adopted, and it’s just something that is such a part of her life; there was never a time she didn’t think about it. She talked to James early on, and we knew even before we were married it was the way we would one day build our family. After seven years of marriage, we got into foster care, learning about children and families from different backgrounds before deciding it was the right time for us to pursue infant adoption and to expand our forever family.