Our beautiful daughter Kari came into our lives in 2018, in our first journey through the adoption process. It has been an amazing adventure, where we have been able to forge lasting connections with many people, including her birth parents. Before Kari's birth, we had the opportunity to regularly communicate with and even visit with her birth parents, where we were all able to get to know one another, and we were, of course, at the hospital on the day Kari was born. Shortly after Kari's birth, we all received the news of Kari being diagnosed with Down Syndrome, and were able to process what that meant together. While unexpected, this diagnosis didn't change the fact that we were being blessed with the sweetest, happy-go-lucky girl we could have ever dreamed of having come into our lives. To this day, we have a positive relationship with and keep in contact with both the birth mom and birth dad, providing updates regularly as Kari grows and celebrates birthdays, holidays, and reaching milestones. To us, adoption means that Kari just has that many more people out in the world to love her.

Our leisure time has definitely adjusted since becoming parents, but something that has not changed is the joy of spending time together and with our family and friends.

Being parents now, a usual evening for us has become very structured, with dinner, bath time, reading books, singing songs, praying to our guardian angels, and then settling down for bed. Once Kari is asleep, we like to take time for ourselves, to watch an episode or two of our favorite TV shows, watch a movie, or play video games.

Most weekends we enjoy spending time with family and friends, whether that involves getting together to host a watch party for our favorite sporting event, enjoying a night of playing cards or board games, or enjoying the outdoors together.

Lastly, whenever we get the chance, we really enjoy traveling on longer vacations, having new and exciting experiences, and really relaxing and enjoying our time. For us, that could mean vacationing in places we know we will enjoy, like Walt Disney World and Disneyland, visiting places to see family and friends that live further away, like Colorado, or setting out to experience a new location, like Virginia Beach, St. Louis, or motoring down the historic Route 66.

We've always appreciated our leisure time, going out to the movies together, playing games at home, and traveling to fun places, but over these last few years, we've found even more joy as we've gotten to introduce Kari to these experiences.

While we are both Caucasian, some of our closest friends are bilingual and of different races, and we have been blessed to enjoy many diverse experiences with them. Through these relationships and experiences, we have been able to learn a lot about our cultural similarities and differences. Kari, our daughter, is mixed race and we have worked to explore her diversity in the same manner, with the support of our community of family and friends. We explore the traditions of her culture, seek out assistance or read material about things that we may not know about, and are always looking for ways to learn more about and celebrate her culture. We are also lucky to live near larger cities that host various cultural events and festivals, that allow for us to explore different cultures through food, dance, music, and art.

When we bought our home and moved into our community, it was largely driven by the positive experiences that Danielle had working as a teacher for the local school district. We quickly discovered the charm of living in a small town in Kansas, that boasts only having one stop light, even though we are home to an established university and a huge annual arts and crafts festival. While our town is full of rich history, we also enjoy the parks and walking paths, swimming pool, and downtown farmer's market. We also have an active recreation commission that organizes events year round, giving us numerous opportunities to enjoy holiday festivals, food trucks, live music, shopping, parades, fireworks, and more. Since adopting Kari, our eyes have been further opened to the multitude of experiences designed for families in our community. We also have the benefit of being a short distance to larger towns, that gives us access to an even wider array of experiences for family outings, date nights, concerts, or vacations.

Our house is considered a California split with 4 bedrooms, which gives us a great space for family gatherings, as well as room to bring in another little one. One of our favorite rooms in the house is our living room, which is open to the next level with our dining room and kitchen. It is our central hub and allows us to keep an eye on Kari as she plays while we cook meals and complete chores.

We are both blessed to come from large supportive extended families.

While our parents each come from very large families, our own immediate families are definitely smaller. Tyler is the youngest child with one older brother and Danielle is the middle child with an older sister and a younger brother.

We are very family oriented, and regularly get together with both of our families. Within the last few years, Danielle's parents have moved to the same city as us, allowing us to get to see them quite often. We regularly attend church together, recruit them to help babysit when needed, and we regularly have them over for family meals, movie nights, and sports watching.

Tyler's parents live in another state, but we still get to see them multiple times throughout the year, between long weekend trips, summer vacations, and holidays. Even though they don't live close by, their love and support is very much present in our lives. When we are able to get together in person, a tradition that both of our families share is a love for board games and playing cards. Our family gatherings often consist of several great games of Pitch, Rummy, Phase 10, Dominoes and/or Settlers of Catan. Owning several decks of cards is a necessity in our family.

When we told our families that we were going to adopt again, they were beyond excited and couldn't be more supportive. They can't wait to add a new family member into our energetic family gatherings.

Our names are Tyler and Danielle. We have been together for over 19 years, and have been married for over 13 of those. After meeting during college, we worked hard in our professions, spent time sharing our love for the nerdy things in life, got married, and moved into our home. Once we settled down, we turned our focus to our dream of becoming parents, and while attempts to conceive on our own were unsuccessful, we were not content to give up on that dream. In 2018, our dream came true, with our first child, Kari, becoming a part of our family through adoption. In hopes of growing our family and sharing our love with another child, we are looking to adopt once again. This is where your story and our story come together.

Tyler has a Master of Architecture degree. While he has continued to work in that field, doing freelance residential architecture, his chosen career path began back in high school and continues today, as he is in his 24th year of working with Walmart. While he has worked many positions within the company, he is currently a Store Manager, where he enjoys getting to work with and supervise a wonderful team of associates, as well as getting the opportunity to be a community partner. In addition to helping people from the community everyday, he especially enjoys having the opportunity to be able to work with and support local schools, food banks, and various other charitable organizations. In his free time, he enjoys watching movies, playing video games, and hanging out with family and friends.

Danielle has a Master of Arts in Education degree, and has taught high school math for over 16 years, getting to help develop and shape the minds of future generations. As a teacher, she has had the opportunity to be actively engaged with many school and community activities through coaching, sponsoring clubs, and dedicating time to tutoring. One major perk of being a teacher is having a schedule that allows Danielle to be able to spend increased amounts of time with children. With this time, she's able to go to our community pool, partake in local events, visit the library, or just enjoy a wagon ride around the neighborhood. She also loves using her teaching skills at home, to create an atmosphere that fosters an excitement for learning, and works hard to provide a support system for when challenges and struggles may arise, especially in math. In her free time, she cantors and sings in the church choir and enjoys family time, cheering for her favorite teams, and completing puzzles.

The emotions that have brought us all to this point are very real. While we can't imagine what you are feeling at this moment, we can tell you that our journey to parenthood resulted in us experiencing some of the most difficult emotions that we have had to face together. The journey of bringing a life into this world can be a difficult one, and to experience loss through miscarriage, we were presented with a tough struggle between wanting to keep trying, but also wanting to shield ourselves from additional pain and hurt. Ultimately, we decided that the life changing adventure of becoming a parent and being able to raise a child was still a possibility through adoption. We wake every day knowing how blessed we are to have Kari. The emotions we experienced as we readied ourselves for Kari's adoption are resurfacing because we know that expanding our family hinges on our paths intertwining.

This opportunity holds with it some very large stakes that we take very seriously. We are excited about an open adoption, because it allows us to live out our dream of parenthood, while providing for a unique extended family that includes you. We can't wait to send pictures and letters that share with you all of the milestones, the birthdays, and the achievements that your child will have. We also feel that it is important that your child knows your history and how much we respect and appreciate you for making the decision that will have allowed us to be a part of their life.

Tyler & Danielle