Jill’s Family

Jill has a wonderful extended family that includes two brothers and 10 first cousins, most of which live within an hour of us. Jill's older brother was just married and her younger brother is a school teacher temporarily teaching abroad in southeast Asia. Jill's parents (along with both of her grandmothers) live about 40 minutes away. We frequently get together for holidays, birthdays, graduations and other special occasions. Jill's family loves the beach and has many fond memories of vacationing together on the shores of North Carolina. Some of the best memories are of spending a long day at the beach followed by a big seafood dinner at the house including Grandma's crab cakes! Jill's parents always host a Christmas Eve party where the extended family and close friends gather to celebrate the holiday.

Tony’s Family

Tony’s family is smaller and lives a bit further away, but is sure to get together several times a year. Tony's family was thrilled to become part of Jill's larger family and Tony's parents recently came up for the wedding of Jill's brother. Tony has one younger brother, Jason, who is also a civil engineer and is married to a lovely school teacher. They just recently had twins (a boy and a girl). Tony has a small extended family in the Midwest. Tony has many fond memories of family vacations at the beach, riding horses in the Rocky Mountains, visiting extended family, playing cards, and going fishing with his Dad and Grandpa.

Three years ago (after a long search) we finally found our dream house and hosted our first Thanksgiving for 17 of our extended family members. Tony was thrilled and wants to host a larger Thanksgiving gathering in the future. Jill was a bit nervous about hosting such a big event, but our families were very helpful and everything went smoothly. It was a great time for our extended families to spend time together, get to know each other, and eat deep-fried turkey!

Our Home

We hope you will take comfort in knowing the type of neighborhood, house and community that we have made our home. On the quiet streets of our neighborhood, we can easily walk to the local library, playground, and tennis courts. Just a bit further down the street are the local shops and restaurants that give our community a small-town feel even though we are in the suburbs of a major city. On warm summer nights, parents and kids extend the line at the local ice cream parlor out the door and onto the sidewalk. We are also minutes from a river and national park where Tony loves to go cycling and mountain biking.

There are many young families with children in our neighborhood. It is fun to go for strolls in the evening and meet up with all the neighbors. Noah especially likes to see dogs that are out for walks and he always pets them.

Games at Our Neighborhood July 4th Picnic

We live in a 5-bedroom, 3-bath house with lots of room to grow our family and host out-of-town friends and family. We spend much of our time in our family room, which has sky lights and a nice view of the back yard. We also have a large deck on the back of the house where we love to grill out and entertain friends. The mature trees in the neighborhood are beautiful in the fall - it's a good thing Tony loves the outdoors as raking leaves is now one of his fall hobbies!

The schools in our community are excellent, which is one more reason we chose to make this our home.

Our neighborhood hosts a number of annual events that bring parents and children together: Easter egg hunt, progressive dinner, July 4th picnic, hay ride, and others. The progressive dinner is a great way to get to know the neighbors. We host dinner for 10 at our house every other year and truly enjoy it.

At the July 4th picnic, all of the kids decorate their bikes and "parade" down one of the streets, led by the local fire truck. We then gather in a large open lot for a barbeque and games (egg toss, 3-legged race, tug-of-war, balloon toss, etc.). This year Tony entered the 3-legged race and balloon toss with our son Noah. They came in nearly last place in both events, but had great fun. Tony helped cook more than 150 burgers for our neighbors.