Mark and Lara

Hello, we are Mark and Lara, thanks for taking the time to learn more about us and our family.

We met and became friends as teenagers in high school, stayed friends through college, including one year spent as roommates, and started dating after graduation in 2009. Lara had always thought Mark was cute, kind and sweet, and Mark was attracted to Lara’s smile and intelligence. Our relationship is based on two decades of friendship, love, honesty and respect. We appreciate how much fun we have together and nothing is better than making each other laugh, smile or sharing a new experience together.

We have built a life together with our dog Nova, a lab mix, and our cats Buster and Maeby. Buster and Maeby love to chase each other around, and their favorite toys are the boxes their toys come in. We live in a small rural town in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. It’s less than an hour away from the Oregon coast, and we’re surrounded by lots of great hiking spots. We love our town because it’s small, close to nature and easy to get around, but we’re not far from bigger towns and cities where we can go for Blazers games, food, theater and concerts. We especially enjoy trying foods from different cultures.

Lara works for a nearby city as a contracts and procurement specialist. Her favorite thing about her job is the great people she works with and the environment that is both fun and professional. Mark works for the US Forest Service as a Field Coordinator. His job allows him to spend time in the wilderness during the summer, and he gets to train and mentor young folks with similar enthusiasm for the outdoors.

Weekends could find us enjoying our beautiful state hiking, camping, rafting or enjoying the beach with Nova. We also enjoy cooking together or going out for a meal and some local beer, as well as working out, watching movies and reading. Mark likes to go on occasional backpack trips and fishing trips with his dad or friends during the fall and winter. He is excited to pass on his love of fishing and nature to a child. In the spring and summer, Lara spends a lot of time in the yard gardening. She loves seeing all her work pay off with beautiful flowers, and it’s something that connects her to her dad, who also loves gardening. She also likes to bake, especially bread, pizza and cookies and trying new recipes. She baked with her parents growing up and looks forward to sharing this love with a child.

We’ve been lucky enough to travel to several locations outside of Oregon and outside of the US together. We have many other places on our bucket list and hope to go on many travel adventures with our kiddo.

We cannot wait to share our life with a child, and we look forward to building a relationship with their birth family, in whatever way works for them. We know kids can’t have too much love, and we welcome open communication and connection with all of their birth family members.

Thank you for reading our letter.

Wishing you all the best,
Mark and Lara