Kevin and John
Hey! Our names are John (left) and Kevin (right) and we live in a coastal city in the Southeast. We appreciate the opportunity to introduce ourselves. We admire the bravery and love it takes to place a child with an adoptive family and we are honored to have you read our letter.
We met online on Labor Day weekend in 2002. On our first date at a restaurant near our homes (we only lived a mile apart!) we talked for hours and hours and knew we would spend our lives together. We were married in 2005 surrounded by the warmth of our friends and families. A few months after our wedding we adopted our dog Fenwick, and although he looked like a little old man, he was really an un-housebroken, still-teething five-month-old puppy with whom we fell in love.
Kevin loves John’s ability to warm any room with contagious laughter and to make people feel welcome and wonderful. John can’t think of anybody who is more loving and affectionate than Kevin, whose students look to him for guidance and support years after leaving his classroom. Education is an integral part of our lives. We both teach at the same college and several days a week we ride together to work. Just like the first time we met, we always have interesting things to discuss. John teaches communication courses and is also a licensed therapist. Kevin has taught music at the elementary and high school levels and also mentors student teachers.
Kevin plays the piano, conducts, and sings—both professionally and around the house. He often serenades John and Fenwick with impromptu songs containing silly lyrics. Kevin is also an avid shutterbug and documents our family adventures. John enjoys painting abstracts with bold colors and geometric shapes and is the family cook; his specialties are Mexican and Italian dishes. Kevin is a fan of John’s peppermint ice cream!
We built our home on a barrier island, close to town and two beautiful beaches. The view from our back porch is wooded wetlands, where we watch wild ferns create a lush, green carpet every spring. Over the past five years our neighborhood has grown with the arrival of children who fill our streets with bicycles, Halloween parades, and laughter.
We enjoy entertaining at home, attending music festivals and art walks in our city, shopping at the local farmer’s market, and running charity races. We are frequent visitors to the nearby parks and beaches where John walks, Kevin runs, and Fenwick meets and greets friends of the four- and two-legged varieties. Whether traveling or staying home, our lives are filled with fun, family, and friends! Recent trips have varied from holidays in New York City, to hiking in Arizona, to summer vacations at our family’s cottage in Canada, where we swim, boat, and enjoy big family dinners on the porch. Our library cards are well used: John’s reading interests range from crime dramas to current events and Kevin reads everything from fantasy fiction to professional literature. We have enjoyed reacquainting ourselves with Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle books with our one-year-old niece, Maddie, and we look forward to sharing books with a child we welcome into our family.
We are fortunate to have a vibrant life surrounded by loving people and are eager to expand our family to include a child and his/her birth family. We are enthusiastic about open adoption and its respect for the dignity of everyone involved. We look forward to providing our child with opportunities to travel, engage in service, and explore interests from artistic to athletic, which reflect our values of empathy, compassion, integrity, and justice.
Thanks for taking time to learn about us. We look forward to hearing your story should you choose to meet us.
For this family's complete adoptive parent profile, please contact Open Adoption and Family Services.