Addie and Dan
Hello,
We are Dan and Addie and we are very grateful that you are taking the time to read our letter.
We have been a couple since we met in college 15 years ago. Four years ago, we decided to get married and move to the Pacific Northwest. We had spent a wonderful and exciting ten years in Brooklyn, New York, but we knew that it wasn’t the right place for us to raise a family. As it turned out, moving west was the best decision we’ve ever made. Though our frequent trips back east to see our friends and family are very important to us, we’ve built a great community of friends here and love our new home.
We’re often happy to just hop in the car and explore. From the city to the mountains to the ocean and everything in between, we like to head out with no destination just to see what we find. We also love to travel farther afield. Every year we visit our families — who are spread all over the United States, Canada and Mexico — and we always try to squeeze in at least one trip somewhere new. When we’re at home you’ll find us gardening in the spring and summer, watching football in the fall, and in the winter hiding from the rain with our cat Mae in our laps. Addie loves to read a good book (or a bad magazine) and Dan makes beautiful art. Whatever the season, our home is full of our friends and family visiting from across the county or down the street. No one goes hungry at our house; we both love to cook.
Addie is a private investigator (it’s true, they do exist!). Dan might say that she likes her job because she’s nosy, but Addie likes to think of it as a healthy curiosity about the world. She used to spend her time on stakeouts and following cars, but these days she happily works from her home office — often in her pajamas — with her most trusted associate by her side: Lilly the rescued coonhound. Truthfully, Lilly is not a very good investigator, but she does have very cute long ears.
Dan is graphic designer. He is fine with having the second most interesting career in the family. Dan is very humble, but everyone he knows is amazed by the beautiful things he designs: websites, album covers, t-shirts, invitations... Addie can’t wait to see what he creates for (and with) their kids.
We both work for ourselves and love the independence this gives us. While our jobs are very important to us, we often jokingly bicker about who will get to be the stay-at-home parent. We feel really lucky that we’ll be able to have a lot of time with our children while maintaining our careers. We are a true team in all other areas of our life, and we envision raising children will be the same.
Although we were disappointed when we realized we couldn’t have children on our own, we had always talked about the possibility of adopting a child. When we learned about open adoption, our disappointment faded. We are truly excited to have the opportunity to have our child’s birth family in our lives, and even though we haven’t met yet, we believe that it takes a brave, determined, and strong individual to consider open adoption. Our hope is that our child will be proud of all of us and thrive in the love of all of their families.
Best,
Addie and Dan