In our leisure time, we each have our own preferences but together we enjoy hiking and watching movies. We are lucky to live in an area with an abundance of outdoor recreation opportunities such as hiking, kayaking, swimming, biking, fishing, and more. We love to explore hiking trails. The area we live in is known for having a lot of waterfalls and many of them require hiking to some extent. One of our favorite things to do after a long work week is to do a Friday night movie night. We will either get pizza or find some fun snacks to enjoy during the movie.

Separately, Megan enjoys reading and gardening, and Zach enjoys working on his car and outdoor work. Megan unwinds every night by reading. She loves sharing her hobby with their child and going to the library together. In the summer, she loves working in her garden. When we moved into our home, there were no gardens. We now have four 20-foot gardens that provide us with vegetables and flowers every summer. We also added two new native garden beds for the pollinators last summer. Zach enjoys working outside in the woods. He cut a trail for hiking through our wooded property all on his own, and we now use it year-round. Zach also enjoys working on cars. Our child has also taken to this hobby and loves riding in the "fast car."

Megan About Zach

Megan loves Zach's sensitivity, open mind, and ability to better himself. One reason she married Zach was because he inspired her to have a more open-mind. His military career allowed them to travel and showed Megan a whole new life she never would have been exposed to otherwise. Megan appreciates Zach's sensitivity because he is emotionally available and intelligent. He meets difficult situations with kindness. Since Megan and Zach got married, Zach has shown over and over again his ability to make changes to himself to better our marriage. Megan is very proud that she is not a burnt out mother because Zach is an adequate father and partner.

Zach About Megan

Zach loves Megan's strong will, thoughtfulness, and honesty. Zach respects how hard Megan fights for what she wants and believes in, and that she never gives up. Megan has shown Zach that there is always a way to make something work if you want it badly enough. Zach admires how thoughtful and considerate Megan is towards everyone she meets, she motivates Zach to be a better person. Zach has never met anyone as honest as Megan and he can always count on her to tell the truth and share how she feels which makes everything so much easier in the relationship.

We are very proud of the family traditions that we have created together. We are not religious but still enjoy celebrating holidays that align with our beliefs. Winter solstice is one of our favorites as we celebrate the shortest day of the year and the return of longer days. We get gifts for each other and our child. Megan enjoys baking and makes a Yule log cake to enjoy with dinner. Once evening has arrived, we take a walk through our woods with lanterns. Our child talks about this often as it is her favorite part. Once Christmas comes along, we do celebrate with family as they are all religious and celebrate very traditionally.

In the Spring, we celebrate Easter as a holiday signifying new life and the coming of spring. Depending on the weather, we will buy a new tree to plant. Our chickens provide us beautiful eggs to decorate, as well. Our favorite Easter tradition is hiding eggs for our child who is absolutely thrilled about it every year. Although our traditions are not like many others, we still have our own and continue to celebrate with those around us to give our child all of the experiences she can get.

Megan's family lives a few hours away and we love going to the lake house with the whole family. We all take turns cooking, we swim, boat, fish, and spend time laughing with each other. The winter months fill with holiday activities like baking and birthday parties. Megan's family has very strong traditions! Every Christmas spending Christmas Eve and Day with them. We try to do a traveling vacation with Megan's whole family at least every couple of years. We try to visit Megan's family every couple of months at least so that our child can spend time with her cousins.

Zach's family is spread around. His parents and grandmother live in Illinois, one brother lives in Minnesota, and the other in Colorado. We enjoy making visits to see them a couple times a year where our child gets plenty of attention as the only grandchild. Zach and his family enjoy reminiscing about fun times growing up.

Our families are supportive of our adoption plan and ready to jump into action and help where ever they are needed.

We live in a child-friendly rural community. We love taking our child to events and then going out to dinner as a family. Our child has been doing sports since she was a toddler thanks to the multiple organizations that hold events specifically for kids. We take our child to the library and playground a lot. Our library also has an amazing kids section with many activities and events for kids. Down the road from our house is a small family owned zoo that always has hands on participation. Our child has held a baby wolf twice at this zoo and fed a hippopotamus. We are so excited to share this all with another little!

We do not have nearby neighbors and live in a very peaceful, wooded area. We live in a modest home with 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. Our favorite room is our living room, which is bright and full of our family activities. In the summer, we love spending time in our large fenced in yard. We have added vegetable gardens and native flower beds for the pollinators. We love watching all the birds, insects, and other wildlife that visits our yard.

We look forward to having another child join us in our favorite family activities. We love exploring nearby hiking trails, lakes, and waterfalls. Our family will be thrilled to have another little one to love and join us on vacations. Mostly, our child will be overjoyed to share her favorite playgrounds and books.

We are so honored that you are taking time to learn about our family. The choice you are making is difficult beyond comprehension, and we want you to know that we do not take it lightly or for granted. Our names are Zach and Megan, and we have been married for 12 years. Four years ago, we had our daughter and our lives have not been the same since.

Parenting our daughter has been the most challenging and rewarding adventure yet. We are constantly learning more about her and ourselves. We choose to gentle parent our daughter, not to be confused with permissive parenting, which is proving to serve us all well as we have firm boundaries while all maintaining respect for each other. Our daughter is a loving, kind, and nurturing girl. She desperately wants a baby brother or sister which we have not been able to give her. It is our wish to love another baby and provide this little person with a safe, healthy, and happy home. However, with this gift that you consider giving, we hope that you will consider being a part of our family, too. No matter where you are, this baby and our family as a whole will need you throughout your lifetime. As parents, we know the love you have for this baby and the ache you will feel with your decision. We hope you lean on us in your healing process and someday can do the same for your child that undoubtedly will have questions.

For your child, a life with us would look like slow living to cherish all the sweet moments together. It would be full of love from us and our extended family spending holidays and warm summer days together laughing, fishing, and boating with grandpas and grandmas, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We would play outside at home a lot taking hikes through our woods, digging up worms in the garden, planting vegetables and flowers, and our daughter's favorite, jumping in muddy puddles. When winter lays over us we will play outside with big snowflakes falling on our faces and listening to the sound of the trees creaking in the cold wind. Obviously, we would follow up playing in the snow with hot chocolate and extra marshmallows. Living in the country means we cook at home a lot. Our daughter loves pulling up her toddler tower and helping Megan with her special kid friendly kitchen tools. She's been on the counter cooking with Megan since she was in diapers. It would be our pleasure to share these moments with you through letter and pictures. We truly want our children to be a part of our everyday lives so that they can learn while having connection time with us.

We are so excited to learn your name. Even more so, we are excited that you are considering us to raise your child. Growing our family has been a long time wish for us and we are so anticipating having another to love, nurture, and help discover who they are. We hope to talk to you soon and learn more about you and your hopes for your child.

With much gratitude,

Zach & Megan