How we met is quite a story! We had mutual friends who bugged us to see each other for about a year before we caved in and agreed to meet up. Our friends had arranged a group blind date where they accompanied us to our local mini golf center, Golf Land. The moment that Dustin saw Michael, handed him a golf ball, and there was the slightest touch of hands in the exchange, he knew that Michael was going to be his person for the rest of his life.

Michael, however, was very wary and unsure. After an embarrassing scenario of Michael's sandal breaking and falling into one of the water features, Dustin then proceeding to almost fall into the water feature to save said broken sandal, and our friends ditching us intentionally so we had to spend some time alone together, we were at a loss as to what to do. Dustin had his car and Michael was stranded, so we decided to head to the Century dome-topped theater where Dustin worked as an assistant manager at the time. He reserved an entire theatre for just us to view a movie he'd prepared after hours with a huge bag of leftover popcorn from the day. Since then, it’s been eighteen years and we haven’t played mini golf since!

Dustin has strong creativity and can make anything work with just a few materials or ingredients! He can see the big picture and works to accomplish it in the best way possible. He has the ability to hyperfocus on something that we want or need and research it to find the best choice in anything. Dustin is always optimistic and stays curious when he doesn’t know about something. He doesn’t judge or stray away from something he is unsure of and is always patient.

Michael has interpersonal leadership skills that make him an amazing organizer and planner. He can problem solve anything that comes his way and is eager to be a listening ear to whoever needs it. He keeps people connected and makes sure that nobody feels left out in any situation and ensures that everyone has a say. He creates structure in our home and makes decisions that benefit everyone so they can feel seen, heard, and recognized. He is definitely what one calls a servant leader, even when it comes to taking care our zoo!

Family is incredibly important to us. During the holidays, we always make sure that we celebrate spending time with each other and distant relatives from around the US. Thanksgiving is when we rotate houses and come together over a large dinner to celebrate the many accomplishments our family members may have had during that year.

We also have hosted Friendsgivings for the past ten years that has grown from small three or four guest gatherings to an almost fifty guest potluck buffet when Dustin made two different styles of whole turkeys, a ham, and three types of gravy for our chosen family! Halloween has a special place in our heart; we adore decorating the house to excite all the children who Trick or Treat. We attend an Annual Family Halloween Movie night at Dustin’s mothers’ house where we use a projector and pick two movies to enjoy over homemade treats.

For Christmas, Michael loves to make Dustin's Grandma’s traditional holiday candy and give it to the family. In between our cherished holiday visits, we make sure that once a year our friends come together and have a small gathering at a cabin in the woods where we catch up sharing experiences and laughing over memories, all the while enjoying a warm cup of coffee or a favorite recipe at the dinner table. We also try to go to the happiest place on earth once a year with all our nieces and nephews to visit Mickey Mouse at Disneyland!

We have some of the most supportive and diverse collection of relatives and chosen family that make up our extended family and community. Dustin's family is very tight-knit and our immediate family all lives fairly close together, which allows us to get together for BBQs, movie nights and holidays easily and often. His mom and her wife love to host the whole family at their house and enjoy their pool during the hot summer months. Dustin's sister, her wife, and their kids join in, and even his dad, step-mom, and sister-in-law's family get into the mix occasionally! We travel for big holidays to Dustin's aunts and uncles out of town for even larger family gatherings.

Michael has a mix of family who are near and those who live out of state. His parents and younger brother live very close while his older brothers and their wives and kids live in Utah. Although we only occasionally get to spend time with Michael's side of the family, some of his most cherished memories are seeing movies and laughing with his younger brother Travis, or visiting his family in Utah when they can with his dad.

Lastly, some of the most memorable moments we have are with our extensive chosen family we have built since high school. From experiencing our expanding families to witnessing milestones like weddings and anniversaries we always take a little time to gather around with a cup of coffee and celebrate life with our beloved pets and friends.

We are both extremely fortunate to have grown up in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area of California where diversity and acceptance are a huge part of our daily lives. Through lots of hard work and careful planning, we have been able to buy our first home in a semi-rural, semi-suburban, small but growing town in Northern Central California. Our two-story, five bedroom home (with a common loft area upstairs that we love to watch movies and play video games in with each other and our family and friends) is in a neighborhood of new homes that are full of families with kids of all ages and has a huge new park being built less than a block away from us! We love living in this area not just because of our diverse immediate community full of growing families and supportive neighbors, but also because we are always within a day's drive to so many of northern California and neighboring states' micro-climates and tourism spots (including the Monterey Bay Aquarium that our sister and her wife have passes to, as well as Disneyland!).

There are endless amounts of activities of all varieties that we can be a part of from cultural festivals to traditional holiday events that have been around for years! Everyday we are discovering something new that we fall in love with in the town we live in, including annual harvest festivals, local community organizations, and family-focused events like parades and other downtown events.

We are so deeply honored that you took part of your precious time to view our profile and consider us as the parents of your child. We understand that this is a difficult and emotional time and that you may have many things demanding your attention. Just the fact that you chose to spend some of that time on our profile makes us so grateful.

We have waited and saved and planned and built a life together during the past 17 years in a way that would now seamlessly and near effortlessly support a child. We are in an amazing place physically, emotionally, and financially to grow our family and provide everything a child could wish for. Not only are we a couple of fun-loving and just plain loving guys, but we have an incredible network of family and friends who cannot wait to support us in raising a child. We have children in our family of all ages to grow up with as well as plenty of doting aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, and so on.

We know that our little zoo may seem daunting at first, but with Dustin working in the veterinary field and Michael having grown up with challenging dogs and being an amazing planner, leader, organizer, and cleaner, we could not have wished for a better environment for raising a well-behaved, well-trained, devoted, cuddly, and child-loving pack of dogs and cats. We cannot wait for our pets to be awesome protectors and companions for this child as they grow up; cuddle-buddies when they are getting snuggled into bed, a comforting wet nose when they are sick, a furry shoulder to cry into when they are sad and just need a big fuzzy hug. Our younger dogs will be there for all of their firsts and grow up with them as another source of unquestioning love and support in their lives.

We ecstatically look forward to sharing so many experiences with our future child. We think back to some of our most treasured memories growing up, like Michael's family having season tickets to theatres in San Francisco when he was younger and Dustin going to some of those same shows in the city with his high school drama troupe. We cannot wait to share our love for theatre with our future child and have family season tickets to theatre shows or take them to concerts that they want to experience. We look forward to providing a sense of balance in all things--we are just as likely to sit and play video games on a weekend day as we would be to have a house cleaning dance party, read some good books, or work on homework together. We will provide structure, but give them ample room to learn and grow and be themselves, and to express that in any age-appropriate way they feel safe to do so. Most of all, we will always stress the importance of being a good, compassionate person in their every day life and how to take pride in themselves for who they are and where they come from.

There are no words that we could give to make what you are going through any easier. We understand that this is not an easy choice, but we will be there for you if you choose us as the next family to love and raise your child. We are committed to maintaining contact with pictures and letter updates to you, as well as working closely with you and our adoption and your birth mother specialists in the time leading up to your birth to plan out any additional contact that we collaboratively feel would be beneficial. We will be forever grateful that you gave us this opportunity, and there will never be any question that you are their birth family and will always be a part of their life.

Thank you so much once again, and we hope to hear from you very soon!

Michael & Dustin