American Adoptions -- America's Adoption Agency
 We are excited for our family to grow through adoption. It is something we've been planning for some time and are glad to be in the process now. We are eager to share our love of life and laughter and to provide a joyful, loving, happy home to a child. |
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We are so fortunate to live in Hawaii and have sunshine all the time! We love warm weather and going to the beach or the park with friends or just the family. Jim loves to surf at the beach and then build sand castles with Melisa and Nicolai. One of Nicolai's favorite things is to go to the planetarium and the volcano exhibit at a museum downtown. He also likes the zoo, the bouncy house place in the mall, riding his bike on our street and playing with the neighborhood kids. Melisa and Nicolai like playdates at the park or at our home or a friend's home. There are always lots of kids to play with and lots of moms to chat with. The whole family likes to go to the YMCA. It has a great fitness facility with a pool, child watch area for kids and big playground. Sometimes we go to the pool at our community center too with friends. We also like to have friends over for family potlucks and game nights.
Our lifestyle is definitely child centered. Melisa is a stay-home-mom and spends most mornings doing educational things with our son - teaching him to read, practicing piano, doing activity books and crafts. Then it's play time on the playroom floor! Our son loves to create and is a master Lego builder. On Jim's days off we plan fun family outings like the beach or picnics in the park. We have a large group of friends who also have young children so we all get together frequently either for playdates, picnics, potlucks, tea parties, birthday parties, baby showers, game nights or any other reason just to visit with each other! Whether it is our big group of close friends that we consider our extended family or the neighborhood kids, our house is often the gathering place!
We plan to let the child know from the beginning that they are adopted. We will read children's books about adoption and keep a scrap book about their adoption to include where they came from and any information the birth parent(s) feel comfortable sharing. We know how important it will be to this child to know these things. We will let the child know what a wonderful person their birth mother is to have made the decision she felt was best for her child. We will explain to the child how fortunate and happy we are to have been chosen to be her/his family.
