This is what we promise you: We will love your child with all our hearts. We will provide a safe home filled with love, laughter and kindness. We will constantly encourage your child to be the individual that God created him/her to be and daily tell them how very much we love and are proud of who they are, so that they may grow up secure as the wonderfully unique person they are.

Matt Katheryn Job Description Banker/Loan Officer Artist, Private Tutor, Art Teacher & Future Stay-At-Home Mom Education 2.5 Years of College B.A. in Liberal Arts Favorites Food Katheryn's Lasagna Food Anything Italian Form of Exercise Biking Form of Exercise Running & Yoga Leisure Activity Playing the Piano Leisure Activity Painting & Reading Musical Group Snow Patrol Musical Group Nickleback Vacation Spot Mountains for Skiing Vacation Spot California Children None

We come from very culturally diverse extended families (African American, Japanese, Vietnamese, Bi-racial, Brazilian), and from the time we were young children, those differences in color and culture were celebrated and honored. Seeing how much richer these differences made our families made us both grow up dreaming of having a culturally diverse family of our own someday. When we started dating, this shared love of diversity and dream of adoption was one of the things that made us realize we were meant for each other. We want your child to always feel supported by us so that he/she is comfortable about sharing his/her questions about ethnicity and identity with us. We are happy to have so many other family members who are of different races and were adopted that he/she can relate to. We will do a lot of research about the child's ethnicity so that we can educate and raise him/her with a proud sense of who he/she is and know that their differences in culture and heritage are part of what make them so beautiful in our eyes. We plan on celebrating this by age appropriate ways as he/she grows: through toys, dolls, and books when he/she is younger, and through food and travel as he/she gets older.

Two of Katheryn's sisters were adopted from Vietnam last year, and they have brought so much life and joy into our extended family. We love Katheryn's sisters with the same deep and true love as the rest of the family. Becoming a Mommy and Daddy has always been important to us and we are so excited to do so through adoption. Ever since we first started dating we talked about how important it was for us to build our family through adoption. We have dreamed of a family rich in diversity and different birth stories, but united in the same love for each member for a very long time. Our infertility has just made us desire a child through adoption even more. To us there simply is no difference between a child who comes to us through our bodies or through our hearts in adoption. We know without a doubt that the love is exactly the same; just the stories are different. A child who comes through adoption is doubly blessed: he/she has the love of two sets of parents and we will make sure that your child never doubts that. We are very excited to be adopting now when the child will be close in age to his/her Vietnamese aunts, who will be more like close cousins sharing the same bond of adoption.

Fun in the Pool with Brothers and Sisters while on Vacation in California

Katheryn's family owns a beautiful vacation cabin up in the mountains a few hours from where we live. It is close enough that we can drive out for a last minute family weekend away and we take advantage of it as often as we can! There is so much to do there all year long. In the summer we have fun hiking, fishing, cave exploring, visiting beautiful parks, swimming in the huge neighborhood pool and having competitions on the golf course. In the winter we spend our days skiing, snowboarding, sledding and having snowball fights. We spend the evenings inside laughing around the fire and sipping hot cocoa. Several times a year the entire extended family spends a week up there enjoying quality family time. We are also a big camping family and we usually go 3-5 times each summer!

Another place we love to vacation is California. We try to make a road trip through there a few times a year because we have so many friends and family that live there. We love the time spent together on the long drive and make sure to hit our favorite sites along the way: Disney Land, the beach, Mendocino, Carmel, Solvang and our favorite burger joint!