Anna and Nick
We are Anna, Nick, and our son, Gabriel.
We grew up in England and, after travelling widely, arrived in the Pacific Northwest and fell in love with it. Nine years later we are still here! We love the camping and hiking, the kayaking and cross-country skiing and the close friends we have made here.
We met as teenagers, and have lived and worked together in a number of different parts of the world including Indonesia and Bosnia, but it is only relatively recently that we felt we were ready to start a family. In retrospect, we think we had to grow up and discover where our passions lay before we were ready to become parents. The journey to having our biological son Gabriel was a complicated, painful one, but, like other situations in our lives, that difficult path led us to something more amazing than we could have imagined. It was the best decision we ever made.
Gabriel is an energetic three year old who spends most of his time laughing, jumping, asking questions, and exploring the world (with the occasional tantrum thrown in as he figures things out!). He loves imaginative play, and the morning we wrote this letter, he had already been a pirate, a firefighter and a hedgehog! He is excited to become a big brother and has announced that he will ‘share all his toys and books’ with his new brother or sister.
As a family, we love exploring the range of culture and activities that are available - from children’s theater to street festivals, music classes to nature walks. Recently we went strawberry picking at a local farm – the highlight for Gabriel was the tractor trip and pony ride. There is always a long list of things that we’re excited about doing, and we are hopeful that we may soon be introducing another child to these delights.
We are lucky to have jobs we love – we have both worked for an international non-profit for over ten years, which allowed us to travel all over the world before having Gabriel. We are even luckier that they are flexible in allowing us to work part-time so that we can take turns caring for our family and pursuing our careers. Gabriel goes to pre-school two days a week, which will allow us time to spend one-on-one with our next child.
We both come from large, somewhat complicated families, but that have a lot of love to go around. We have strong ties to our relatives in England (who visit often) and we also make sure Gabriel is able to experience the best of what is British - from tea rooms to castles. We believe that family ties are not always biological; in fact some of our closest family are not biologically related to us. We want our children to know where they came from and to build relationships with everyone who is important to them. This is why we are choosing an open adoption. We can’t wait to welcome another child into our family.
We know you have very difficult decisions to make right now – thank you for taking the time to read a little bit about us. We would love to have the chance to get to know you better.