With Jeff’s Extended Family at Breakfast in San Francisco

Both of us look to our families for fellowship, guidance, and friendship. We both realize that our family members nor ourselves will be here forever so we do things as a family now to create strong ties that, we hope, will carry though the generations.

Jenny’s Extended Family

Jeff was raised in a home with two younger brothers. Jeff's parents divorced when he was a teenager. Even though this was hard on them as a family, Jeff gained a strong value for marriage. He realized that families can also include stepparents and stepchildren. We are both very close to all his family members today. Jeff's mom and dad have brothers and sisters whom also have families. Most of the aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews live in our city. We look forward to spending time with each of them. We have big celebrations every year on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Easter, and The Fourth of July. We take a family vacation with Jeff's dad's family every year. This helps to create memories we can all share. We also have family gatherings with Jeff's mom's family. All the kids enjoy getting together because they are mostly the same age, and love playing together. All of Jeff's family supports our decision to adopt. They are looking forward to spending time with their new family member and creating memories that he or she can carry on in their lifetime.

Jenny is the middle of three children. She has an older sister, and younger brother, both with families of their own. They are very close and try to get together as much as possible. Jenny's mom has several brothers and sisters that also have children. Jenny, her brother, and sister, were the youngest of the cousins, so they thought it was great to hangout with their older cousins. Jenny's father was an only child. He always told Jenny's mom that he did not want to do that to his child. He always wanted siblings and loved spending time with Jenny's mom's family. Jenny's dad was a compassionate man and loved children. He knew that children were his future, and loved spending time with his grandchildren. He died in 2004. His death was hard on the entire family. Jenny's mom is always there for us. She is eager to spread her love to another grandchild.

All of our families support our decision to adopt. A family can never be too big or have too much love to give. We hope to instill the value of family to our children as well. Our families taught us to always do our best and enjoy what we were doing. We were surrounded by love and support. We can only hope that we give Jake and your baby the same value for family that we share.

Our Home

We bought our house in Kentucky in 2000 with the idea of having plenty of room for expanding our family. We live at the end of the street which provides plenty of land to play outside. The street is very private with not a lot of thru traffic. We are surrounded by trees that help make our home unique. There is an old Civil War bunker at the foot of our driveway that was used in one of the battles for soldiers to hide in. We use it now for a flower bed. We have a long driveway great for walking & riding bicycles. Our neighbors have horses in the field next to ours. We love to feed and pet them as we walk to get the mail. There are several children that live on our street. All the neighbors watch out for them. It is a pleasant place to live.

Around Our Driveway in Autumn

The inside of our house is a truly unique two-story with 3 separate staircases and hidden entrances to some of the rooms. Our son's friends love to come and play because there is plenty of room for inside activities, hide and seek, and outside activities. We liked the house because it was unique and it allowed us to have the type of home where our family would feel comfortable. We want our children to have the type of home that they and their friends see as the hangout spot when they get older. We are located just five minutes from town, but feel, when at our home, that we are on a vacation in the mountains.

There is a community park close to our home and next door to Jeff's dad's home. We have spent countless hours at the park playground and participating in the children's sport programs. This is where the community holds its Relay for Life Event and its July 4th Celebration. We can spend the day at Jeff's dad's house and walk to the park for the celebrations.

We are members of First Baptist Church in our town. We are active in Sunday School, Royal Ambassador's for Christ, the Children's Church Program, the Recreation Program, and the Upward Basketball Program. One of the main focuses of our church family is to reach out to all children. The children are our future and important for the survival of the church family.