Adoption has affected both of us personally. We adopted our daughter Josephine in March of 2024 and it continues to be a dream come true watching her grow over the past year. Owen's maternal grandfather was adopted. Owen's grandfather discusses his adoption with much respect, love and gentleness. It is admirable to hear the stories he shares about his life growing up and how his opportunities were present. He shared with us his experience with reconnecting with his birth family and how he maintains established relationships with both his adoptive and birth family. These discussions usually happen around holiday times and he gets pretty emotional about his experiences. We are glad to hear he has established a full and fruitful life. He has two children, four grandchildren and one great grandchild with more on the way and he is extremely supportive and happy for our adoption journey. Owen also recently discovered in December 2023 that he has a half-brother who was adopted and we have been in communication with him along with his experiences with his adoptive family.

We are very passionately and friendly competitive people. We currently participate in a duckpin bowling league once a week with one of our best friends on a team of three. Owen has been bowling for about half of his life and duckpin bowling is fairly new to James. He has since picked up a passion for competing and becoming better and it is generally a fun activity we like to do together every week. We also participate in a duckpin bowling tournament once a month. We both also love to play video games on PC. We have set up gaming computer systems for the both of us and we play them regularly with friends online from college. This has become a fun and safe space to reconnect with friends who live a little further away now that we all have graduated from college. Watching football games has also been a huge passion of James and his family and Owen, while not quite understanding at first, has also recently found the thrill and enjoyment in watching. James and Owen exercise three to four times a week. We have a Peloton and treadmill in our basement for at-home exercise.

In January of 2020, we moved into our first apartment together and decided it was time to adopt a dog. We went to a local shelter and we walked around until we passed a crate that Bonnie was in. Bonnie immediately ran up to us and we knew she was the dog we wanted to bring home with us. Bonnie loves to cuddle and sleep. She snores every time she sleeps and sometimes she snores while she is wide awake. She is very smart and knows all sorts of tricks.

In February of 2021, we thought it would be a perfect idea to find Bonnie a sibling. While we had a specific dog in mind, there were already many inquiries but the shelter told us there was a dog that didn't have any and was a brother of one of the dogs we were interested in. We went to the shelter to pickup Bennett. Bennett is very lovable, goofy and loves to play all the time. He keeps Bonnie on her toes but he also loves to cuddle with her. They are a perfect pair together and we love them very much.

We live in a two-bedroom corner townhouse in a suburban neighborhood. There are many children in the neighborhood that love to play outside. We see them riding bikes, playing tag and chasing the ice cream truck. Sometimes in the summer we see children in our neighborhood playing in the Slip N' Slide on the side of our house.

We do have an HOA which maintains the quality of the neighborhood and we also have a Facebook group that shares when events are happening such as the yearly Halloween block party.

There are a couple of elementary, middle and high school's all within ten to fifteen minutes of our home. A school bus picks up children in our neighborhood at the corner of all the streets. We have a couple of parks and pools that are close to our home as well.

Our favorite room in our house is our basement. We have added lighting that can be changed to any color and it is also where our gaming computers, some of our daughter's toys and exercise equipment are. We even have our "Movie Theater" TV down there for movie and TV nights and James exercises down there as well.

We have recently renovated many aspects of our home which include: rebuilding our fence, replacing our shed, designing a new garden area, recreating all of our closet spaces, adding a railing to our front steps for safety and painting every room. Our children's future room is painted a warm, beautiful coral.

Family is a core value for us that presents itself in many forms. We prefer to treat the people closest to us as family and we believe family is chosen. Owen's mom and grandparents live within fifteen minutes and we see them regularly at our local Friendly's. We have gotten together so much that the waitress knows our order by memory. We love to travel and while James' parents, brother and sister moved to California in 2022, we have visited them three times. They have also visited us about six times since moving. We do have a feeling they will move back to Maryland to be close with their grandchildren. We FaceTime them every day and they are very excited to hear that we are adopting again soon. We are also very close with Owen's cousins and their significant others with small children. Our daughter currently goes to daycare with Owen's cousin and her four children. We are proud to be the godparents of our niece and we attend the children's sports and activities which include: bowling, football, baseball, basketball, dance and gymnastics. We have many game nights filled with various board games and it has been a lot of fun watching the children learn the games and grow into their unique personalities. Thanksgiving and Christmas are usually the holidays where we spend quality time with our families and everyone is excited and supportive of our adoption journey.

We both went to different colleges and we met online during our college years and after a few dates in person, we began dating in 2018. We moved into our first apartment together in 2020 just before the pandemic and bought our first house together in 2021. Shortly after buying our house, we got engaged at one of our favorite Italian restaurants when James asked the waitress to deliver two rings with the dessert. Approximately one year later in 2022, we got married at the courthouse and another year later, in 2023, we had our official wedding ceremony to celebrate our marriage with our closest friends and family. Fast forward to March 2024, and we adopted our daughter Josie which was the most joyful moment of our lives. Over the last few years we've explored places including, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle and Hawaii and we had the opportunity of traveling to Santorini, Greece for our honeymoon!

James currently works as a senior loan processor for nursing homes at a bank. He shines every day as he gets to demonstrate his organizational skills working alongside coworkers who celebrated his marriage with him and continue to have conversations about work and life. After almost five years of working here, James enjoys the flexibility his job offers with having the ability to work from home two days of the week. He has gotten extremely close with his coworkers and manager and continues to succeed in his department.

Owen works as a senior auditor for the Maryland State Government. He relishes in the fact that he can travel to different state agencies. Owen enjoys the autonomy and flexibility of working as an auditor as he currently has the ability to work from home three days of the week. Recently, Owen has been taking on his own projects as a senior. He has established a great bond with his coworkers due to his radiant personality and ability to get along with anyone he builds a relationship with.

In our free time, we both like to explore some of our artistic interests. We both love to casually paint, write stories and poetry, and have interests in learning to play a musical instrument. We also enjoy playing video games, board games, going to the movies, and streaming our favorite TV shows. We also bowl weekly in a duckpin bowling league, a type of bowling that isn't available everywhere! In the spring and summer we also enjoy playing tennis.

Both of us have known since we were young that parenthood was something we wanted to experience. We have been researching adoption before we got married so that we could be prepared, and we are so excited to know that we continue to be in the midst of our second adoption journey. We can't wait to raise and nurture our children and watch them develop into kind, confident, and compassionate human beings who live their best lives and leave a positive impact on the world around them.

As an interracial couple with a diverse family, we have experienced many life moments that are worth having discussions about. While these discussions are very important in today's world, the most helpful tool that we have learned over the years is to actively listen and be respectful of other's beliefs. We intend to listen to our children and let them fully express themselves in ways they desire. We believe to teach respect you must give respect and to a child that is no different. Children are entitled to their own beliefs and opinions and that it is more than okay to ask questions.

We will always welcome you with open arms, however much you choose for that to be. We are more than happy to send email updates with pictures, videos, and letters from places we've traveled to and experiences in your child's life. We are also open to making arrangements for visits when you are comfortable. We are excited to get to know and work with you in maintaining a healthy relationship. We will always respect you for your choice and forever be grateful for you and your well-being.

James & Owen