We both grew up in multicultural households. Brandon's dad is from the Midwest, and his mom is Mexican-American. They both met in El Paso, a city next to the border, where Brandon grew up. His grandparents were both born in Mexico. Brandon grew up speaking English at home and Spanish with his grandparents and extended family. Brandon is excited to share his Mexican and Latino culture with a child. He's looking forward to cooking Mexican food for the family and teaching a child how to dance different types of music.

Mario's dad is a Venezuelan immigrant, and his mom was born in the Midwest near Chicago, where they met and had Mario. Mario grew up in Texas since he was 5 and regularly visited with some of his Venezuelan family and his mom's side too. They'd have sancocho, a Venezuelan stew, for dinner one night, and be eating his mom's homemade stuffing the next night. Mario also developed an interest in Japanese culture, and speaks English, Spanish, and Japanese. He looks forward to sharing his cultural heritage and interests with his child through language and food. He also is excited about learning more about his child's background.

Brandon comes from a family of builders, so one of his main hobbies is woodworking. Brandon is very excited to teach our child how to work with their hands like he was taught. He also likes to do graphic design and is very musical. His favorite instruments are the piano and the trombone. He's looking forward to making decor for a child, birthday invitations, as well as teaching a child to dance and play various instruments.

Mario likes to run in nature, read, and learn languages. He's run multiple marathons and is looking forward to taking our kids to the park. He's also looking forward to sharing a love of reading and a love of language with them. He is looking forward to reading bedtime stories and seeing a child learn and explore the world. His favorite bedtime story growing up was Goodnight Moon.

Together, we like to watch movies, cook together, and host friends and our families at our home. We also love playing with our dog Ada and traveling, having visited Mexico, Japan, and Spain. We can't wait to show a child the world!

Cultural diversity and community have always been very important to us. Through our own backgrounds, our child will be exposed to Mexican, Venezuelan, Norwegian, and Midwestern culture. We plan on teaching our child to speak Spanish from a young age so they can bond with our extended family.

Our child will be exposed to a variety of cultures throughout their upbringing besides our own. We have close friends from a variety of backgrounds, such as people of African-American, Chinese, and Middle Eastern descent. Regardless of our child's race, they will be exposed to these cultures and more.

We also believe it's important for our child to have some role models who look like them and may be able to mentor them in ways we can't. We plan on learning more about our child's heritage and making sure they grow up with a healthy sense of their identity. We regularly attend community events from cultures that are not our own, like the city's Asian New Year Festival, and would make a point to attend community events with people from our child's background. San Antonio is a very diverse city.

We love our three-bedroom home, which sits on a quarter acre of land in a safe suburb. We have a large backyard shaded by a big tree with a swing. We enjoy sitting on the porch, and sometimes we snuggle up next to our fire pit making s'mores at night. The home has an intercom system that a kid would find fun to play with. We live around the corner from a middle school. We often chat with our friendly neighbors on our daily walks with our well-behaved dog, Ada. The community has all ages, with some retirees and some young families with children. Nearby, there are three large parks we visit often, all with playgrounds. Mario's parents live 10 minutes away, next to a nice library and their community pool. We also live near our friends with kids, who we're looking forward to having playdates with.

The surrounding city is family friendly, having children's museums and a yearly festival called Fiesta that involves flowers, music, dancing, food, and a celebration of the city's diverse culture. One unique thing that we love about the schools is that many support kids learning a second language at a young age. We hope to raise our child speaking both English and Spanish fluently, and any other languages they wish to learn. There is also a beach only a few hours away that we visit with friends a few times a year.

We both come from loving families. All of our extended family members are very excited to welcome a new child into their lives.

Brandon grew up surrounded by his mom's large Mexican family. "Small get-togethers" easily have 50 people and holiday parties have well over 100. Brandon has three younger sisters who are eager to become aunts. Brandon's sisters live near us in San Antonio, and we visit Brandon's family in El Paso several times a year.

Mario was born in the Midwest near his grandparents. Mario's dad moved to the U.S. from Venezuela and met Mario's mom in college. They settled in San Antonio, Texas, where we live now. Mario has two younger brothers who also live in San Antonio. Mario's parents can't wait to be grandparents and are looking forward to helping us care for a baby. We visit Mario's family once a week to play board games or make arepas, a traditional Venezuelan dish. We visit Mario's mom's family near Chicago once a year for holidays.

We also have a close group of friends who are all excited to meet our child. Two of our friends just had kids, and we are looking forward to our kids having friends to grow up with.

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn about our life and considering us as adoptive parents. We believe it takes a village to raise a child, and with each other, our families, and our friends, we know that we can provide a child with what they need to live a happy, fulfilling life. We hope to become friends with you if that is something you are open to and will ensure the child knows that their birth parents love them. We are more than open to sending letters and pictures as the child grows up and hope for them to be able to have visits, emails, and phone calls with you. We believe that an open adoption is key to the child having a healthy sense of self and understanding where they came from.

To tell you a little bit more about our story, we both met in San Antonio in 2015. Brandon was in his third year of college, and Mario had just moved back to Texas for work, having just graduated from Stanford. We knew we were each other's soulmates quickly and moved in together that summer. Brandon proposed to Mario in 2016 on the day he graduated, and we got married in 2017. We lived briefly in Denver and Boston together, but we missed our families being nearby and have been settled in San Antonio since 2017. We bought a home and plan to spend the rest of our lives here. We feel ready to start the next chapter of our lives as parents. We can't wait to raise a child here.

In addition to being able to provide a loving, stable home, we believe adoption is right for us because of what we have to offer a child. Our backgrounds in terms of both our families being immigrant families with mixed cultures, the diversity of our experiences growing up, and our large group of friends and family make us uniquely able to provide a kid with a fun and fulfilling childhood. We are settled down now, but having lived at various times in different parts of the country, we know we will be able to describe to them all the possibilities they have for their future. To give them a broader set of experiences in their upbringing, we've talked about spending some summers in El Paso with Brandon's parents and extended family, with the rest of the year in San Antonio near Mario's family. The possibility of not one but two loving home environments with us as the stable parents is something we think is unique that they would enjoy growing up with.

We are both extremely fortunate to have very flexible work-from-home job schedules that will let us spend a lot of quality time with the child as they grow up. Our parents are really excited to be grandparents and spend a lot of time with them, too. We have a lot of friends from all backgrounds, who will be able to show our child a number of perspectives on life.

With different hobbies that we have to share with a child as they grow, from Brandon's creative graphic design, music, and woodworking skills to Mario's interest in athletics and language, we know they will have a huge number of experiences to choose from. We will support them in whatever they choose to do and in whoever they become. We look forward to teaching them a ton of things and encouraging them to do well and live a long, happy life. We know how important it is to love a child unconditionally.

We promise you that any child we have the opportunity to raise will be loved, safe, and cared for. Us, our families, and our chosen community will always take care of them and bring joy to their life.

Thank you again for reading a bit about us. We hope that this letter helps you feel confident in your decision and look forward to raising a happy child.

Mario & Brandon