Family Life

Family is a huge part of our lives, and we feel blessed to have family on both sides close by.  Rachel was born and raised in New Jersey and lives less than 15 minutes from her hometown, where her parents still live.  Vin moved to New Jersey in his early twenties and his mom followed him a couple years after and lives five minutes away.  Vin still has family in Syracuse, New York and we look forward to visiting them every year for their annual 4th of July party.  Vin’s sister lives in New Orleans and we are fortunate to be able to visit her and have her come visit a couple of times a year.

We typically celebrate holidays together with Rachel’s family, including Vin’s mom, and feel lucky that we can all celebrate together with both sides of the family.  We are looking forward to welcoming a child into our home so we can start hosting Christmas at our house! Both of us have so many positive memories of holidays from our childhood and we can’t wait to build new memories with our future children.

We were both raised in the Christian faith; Rachel was raised Lutheran and Vin was raised Catholic.  While we do not go to church on a regular basis, we live our lives practicing values of love and compassion for others.  We look forward to teaching our child these same principles and will support our child on any spiritual journey they feel drawn to.

Both sides of our families have grown through adoption. Rachel has four cousins that were adopted, Vin’s cousin and his wife recently welcomed their son through adoption, and Vin’s mom was adopted by her stepfather at a young age.

We have one dog whom we love, our three-year-old Bernedoodle, Pepper. We’ve had Pepper since she was eight weeks old and could not imagine our home and lives without her.  She is the friendliest dog and loves everyone that walks into our home.  She absolutely adores children and is the best with our friend’s and family’s babies.  We just know that Pepper will be great with any child that joins our family.

Lifestyle

Our favorite thing is spending quality time with each other (and Pepper).  We often go on family walks, hikes, and trips to the dog park together. Pepper even hangs out with us in the kitchen when we cook dinner together every night.  We really enjoy traveling together.  Some of our recent trips have included traveling out of the country with friends or visiting Vin’s sister in New Orleans.

We make sure to plan date nights on the weekends.  We are big “foodies” and enjoy finding new places to eat and enjoy going to food truck festivals around the state.  Friday nights are reserved for movie nights or are spent playing Nintendo Switch or card and board games together.

We spend lots of time with friends and family.  Some of our favorite things include having them over to our house for a game night or just hanging in the backyard at our firepit.  Many of our friends have young children and we enjoy watching and spending lots of time with them.  Your child will have plenty of friends their age to grow up with!  Some of Rachel’s favorite hobbies include reading and watching TV.  Vin recently built a computer and spends some of his free time playing video games and doing work around the house and yard.

Adoption

We welcome the idea of an open adoption with you if that’s what you are looking for. We love the idea of meeting at the Family Option’s picnic for annual visits.  We are open to sending letters, pictures, and updates at whatever frequency you are comfortable with.  Ultimately, we are open to learning about the contact that you desire.  No matter what openness level you choose, we will make sure your child knows that the selfless decision of adoption was made by you with the most love and admiration.

Adoption has already enriched the diversity of our family as Rachel’s cousins were adopted from Chile, Honduras, and China and Vin’s cousin adopted his son last year from the Philippines.  We have experienced first-hand how to incorporate new ethnic backgrounds into our family.  Rachel’s family celebrates holidays from her cousins’ nationalities. Vin’s cousin and his wife have done an amazing job celebrating and incorporating the Philippines culture into their family.

If we are blessed to adopt a child that has a different ethnic background than our own, we have exceptional role models to follow. We would love to learn to cook meals from your child’s culture, incorporate their traditions into our own, celebrate their holidays, and even learn their native language.  Especially if that means we will better be able to communicate with you.  We are excited to be able to learn with your child and feel that your child’s ethnic culture will enrich our family.

We live in a very diverse, multi-cultural neighborhood in Central Jersey.  Regardless of the race and ethnic background of your child, they will have classmates and community members that share in their ethnic background.  We feel fortunate to be able to live in a community where your child will be able to connect with children and families of their background.