We live simply, with a focus on good food, good company, and stability. Our daily lives consist of cooking, singing and dancing, watching silly shows, reading, walking, biking, playing games, and snuggling with our cats.

Most mornings, we wake up to feed our cats, tidy the kitchen, and eat breakfast together. When the weather is nice, we'll sit outside in our lovely backyard, drink coffee, chat, and listen to the birds. After the work day, we like to hang out and watch something funny or play some video games together. Then we cook together; we love to make delicious meals. Since Megan has some dietary restrictions, we cook a lot, and we love to explore and experiment with new recipes. It's one of our favorite things to do together! Our home is usually full of the delicious aromas of our cooking.

Our home is also filled with the sound of music. We love music, and we're usually either listening to records from our collection, playing guitar, or singing little songs about our cats. It's a big part of our lives.

Even though we live in the city, we both love to be out in nature, too. We often go to the park that's a few blocks away to walk around the lake and watch the baby ducks. We also love to drive out of the city to go hiking in nature, and when we're able to, we love to take road trips to explore the country's national parks.

Megan About Dylan: Everyone who meets Dylan falls in love with him right away. I know I did! It's because he is so kind and funny, the type of person who immediately puts one at ease. He can talk with anyone about anything, which means he's quick to make friends!

I am in awe of Dylan's passion and drive, positivity, and quick wit. He's really good at teaching himself things, like how to write code or fix a synthesizer, and at the same time he's really modest.

I am excited to parent with him because he is so good at playing and connecting with kids at their level. He also brings a steady presence that helps everyone to feel safe and secure.

Dylan About Megan: Megan is a sweet, tender, caring person who makes me laugh every day and fills my heart with so much joy. She has a wonderful laugh and sense of humor that seem to uplift everyone around her. She has a heart of gold and has taught me so much about self-reflection and personal growth.

I really admire her tenacity. She has a drive, determination, and curiosity that are remarkable. She's a talented writer, designer, carpenter, gardener, and cook. She's always learning something new, whether it's how to use a circular saw, grow corn in our garden, or bake gluten-free bread.

I'm so excited to parent with Megan. I know she's going to be an incredible mom. She has such a sweet, caring tenderness to her and she's always great with children.

We're excited to learn about and celebrate our kid's cultural heritage with them. We think that one of the most important things we can do as adoptive parents is to connect our child with other adopted kids as well as to their cultural background. We plan to do this through food, particularly by cooking together, seeing music and shows, reading books, and connecting with others of the same background.

We are also lucky to live in a very diverse part of the city! We are surrounded by so many different types of food, music, activities, art, and traditions and celebrations, particularly in our neighborhood. Near us is a marketplace for shops and restaurants from all over the world and community gathering. They frequently host fun family events there, like music or dance performances, creating tons of opportunities to learn about and connect with others from different cultures.

We live in a beautiful old home that we've fixed up ourselves. It's in the heart of a mid-sized city. Our neighborhood is busy and diverse, with lots of young families, musicians, and small business owners. When going for walks, you can often hear people practicing instruments and singing.

We're located just a few blocks from several culturally diverse stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. Our home is also just a few blocks from a big park with several playgrounds, a rec center with art studios, basketball courts, baseball and soccer fields, and a small lake. Most weekends there's some type of event happening there, from parades to soccer games to art fairs. We love taking walks around the lake and watching the baby ducks and geese grow up over the summer. The park has several playgrounds, and a great kiddie pool, too, so we know we'll be spending a lot of time there playing with our kid and being in nature.

We have a big family that loves to laugh. It's very supportive, too, and we're all there for each other anytime someone needs help. We love to get together to cook, talk, and play games.

Nearest to us lives Megan's sister Ali along with her husband and young son. Megan also has multiple step siblings who live with their families across the country. Summers are when we're all able to get together. We usually barbecue and play lawn games. These often rambunctious gatherings remind Megan of when they were all kids together.

Megan's mom and step dad live on the shore of a big lake in Minnesota and Megan's dad and stepmom live in California. We all travel to see each other and text and talk on the phone often.

Dylan's brother, wife, and young son live in a nearby town, as do Dylan's parents. We've celebrated many Christmas Eves together in Dylan's childhood home by hanging the ornaments he made in grade school and eating a special meal. We also love to catch live jazz and baseball games together!

We love spending time with our families and especially love playing with our young nephews.

We are so nervous and excited to be writing this letter because it means so much to us. We don't even know your name, but we do know you're looking for a loving home for your child, and that we're looking for a child to join our loving home. Perhaps we have been looking for each other!

The two of us have been together for 16 years and married for 12. We're not just husband and wife, but also best friends. Our relationship is built on a foundation of love, trust, respect, and joy - and that foundation is rock solid. We have so much love for each other and we want to share that love with a child. Sometimes we feel that our hearts will burst from all the love we have to give.

Over the years, we've built a wonderful life together. We live in a modestly sized home smack in the middle of a city. We're surrounded by trees and close to a large park with a lake. Our backyard is alive with flowers, birds, squirrels, and the occasional neighborhood pet stopping by to say hello. Inside our home, you'll often smell Megan cooking something new and delicious, and you'll often hear the sound of laughter as well as Dylan playing guitar or one of his synthesizers. Occasionally, one of our cats will also add a chirp! We can hardly wait to share all of this with our kid.

We often imagine taking walks or biking around the nearby lake with our child, playing together in the backyard, reading, snuggling, and sharing a curiosity about the world. We can't wait to play music, cook, make crafts, and construct forts, toys, and costumes out of cardboard. (Cardboard is Megan's favorite art material!) We both value creativity and imagination, and we're so excited to share that.

We also talk a lot about how we want to parent. At the top of our list is helping our kid to know and love themself for who they are. We want them to have confidence in their opinions and experiences, and to be equipped to step out into the world as their bravest self. We want to teach them to be a good listener, to know and respect boundaries, and to be forever curious and open-minded. We want to support them as they discover their interests and passions. Finally, we want to instill love and kindness in them - and a good sense of humor, too.

We promise to nurture the type of relationship and the amount of openness you choose to have with your child. We're committed to sending you letters and pictures, and we are open to more contact if you would like, such as exchanging emails, phone calls, and future visits.

We also promise that we will always speak with the utmost respect, care, and compassion about our child's first family.

Adoption is equally complex and beautiful. It takes tremendous courage to navigate this process and we hold much room in our hearts for the birth parent that chooses us to raise their child.

Thank you so much for getting to know us.

Dylan & Megan