Dara and Mike
Hello!
We are Mike, Dara and Max. We are a playful, adventurous family that values spending time together, making each other laugh, and having fun with our family and friends.
Mike and Dara have been married for 14 years and our relationship is based on complete mutual trust. Five-year-old Max was adopted as a newborn and is the center of our lives. When we get together with his birth family, Max loves to rough-house and act silly with his birth siblings. We are so excited to expand our family further, and Max is eagerly saving his favorite toys for his future little brother or sister. We live in a 1912 house in a semi-urban neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest. We love hanging out on the porch and in the yard, where we spend the summer chatting with our neighbors and sharing meals.
Our most important priority as a family is our time together. We all love playing board games, doing family research projects, and making each other laugh! We listen to all kinds of music at home—everything from old jazz to punk. If you walked by our house at night, you might (embarrassingly) see some dancing and air guitar before bedtime. An important value we all share is treating each other and others with kindness, and as parents we try to model that behavior for Max.
Max is a bright, creative, and joyful young boy. He’s curious about everything but especially volcanoes, ancient Egypt, and medieval knights and castles. He got to visit a lot of castles first-hand when Dara’s work brought us to Europe for the summer. He especially likes to discover new things while wearing a cape or super-hero costume!
Mike is a research scientist by trade but is currently a stay-at-home Dad. He loves to use his scientific skills in the kitchen where he creates extravagant meals of all kinds. He’s also quite handy and recently remodeled our bathroom and built our back deck. Mike likes to keep track of current events and is a voracious reader of nonfiction books. He volunteers weekly in Max’s classroom, organizes outings with other Dads, has a weekly dart night with friends, and loves to take the family canoeing, camping, and backpacking.
Dara works from home for an international nonprofit organization. She loves that her job allows her to travel internationally occasionally, especially when she can bring the family along. She has flexible hours and takes breaks during her day to spend time with the family, including eating lunch together. She loves to read books of all kinds and she is the designated adventure planner for the family! She sits on the advisory council at Max’s school, and plays (late-night) indoor soccer on two teams.
We love our community. Max is on a first-name basis with our entire neighborhood, including our mail carrier. We joke that he is more social than we are! We have lots of friends and family nearby, including Michael’s parents who are just 10 minutes away. We are a few blocks from our local elementary school, a large park, a library, shops, and park trails. We could equally spend a day browsing bookstores or thrift stores, walking around downtown and grabbing lunch at a food cart, or discovering a new hiking trail or waterfall.
We are very excited to begin the process of parenthood once again. We especially look forward to building a relationship with our second child’s birth family. Max’s relationship with his birth family has been invaluable for his identity. Plus, he is surrounded by so much love from both his adoptive and birth families that we couldn’t imagine it any other way. We have warm, affirming relationships that are open and honest, and we support each other in difficult and harmonious times. If this matches your vision, we would love to build a similar relationship with you.
Our best wishes for you as you embark on your journey, and we look forward to meeting you should you consider our family to be a good fit.
Warmly – Mike, Dara and Max