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If you would like to learn more about us, please call 1-800-ADOPTION (2367846), fill out the form at the bottom of our on-line profile page, or email us at bp_information@americanadoptions.com.

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Jacob & Gina

We are grateful that you have read our profile and considered us as a potential family for your child. We have known since we first started dating that we might become adoptive parents someday, and we have always believed that family extends far beyond DNA. We have cultivated a lifestyle for ourselves that we believe is an ideal place for a child to thrive.

About Us

Jacob
Gina
Job
Research Scientist
Homesteader
Education
Ph.D. in Meteorology
Master's Degree in Food Science
Children
None
Relationship
Legally Married
State
Delaware

Our Lifestyle

Gina With Her Hydroponic Basil Plants

We enjoy continually improving on our house, which we renovated together in 2015, and the land surrounding the house. We raise chickens and quail (for the eggs only), Gina grows vegetables and herbs, and Jacob is starting beekeeping this year. We like to build things with wood, usually out of necessity for all of the homesteading projects, such as the chicken coops and garden beds, but Gina has also built her own office furniture. We attend monthly meetings of the Delaware Beekeepers Association, and every year we go to the Delaware State Fair. There are also several local events such as local music events and "Railroad Days" which celebrates our town's history.

Our Flock of Chickens

Our homesteading lifestyle is focused around building healthy relationships, having a healthy body and mind, working hard, thinking well, and feeling positive about life. We are grateful to have the stability and resources to live the homesteading life and have also worked hard to maintain it. We take pride in doing as much for ourselves as we can, and relying on the local community for things we cannot do. Of course, we still shop at Walmart sometimes, like most people, and try to achieve balance with what is realistic to do for ourselves and what we have to admit can be done better by a corporation. We keep ourselves happy and healthy by always communicating openly and honestly and not being afraid to tackle problems head-on when it is needed.

Our Leisure Time

Setting Up for a Gig With the Band

We have a lot of hobbies, and creativity is very important to both of us. Between the two of us, there isn't much we won't try at least once.

Together, we play and record music in our home studio. We still play a few live gigs per year with our band-mates that we've been with for the last 15 years, and we have our own recording project as a duo.

We both love to read and are regular patrons of the public library. We often read non-fiction, usually about science, philosophy, history, religion, psychology, or politics, and discuss what we read together throughout the day. We love our library, which also has excellent children's programs that we look forward to being able to participate in someday.

Gina Sewing a Shirt

We exercise together every day – exercise videos when its cold outside, and bike riding when it's warm. We love to cook all kinds of things, and have been on a mission to learn to make everything that we like from restaurants from sushi rolls to gourmet tacos. Teaching a child to love food and cooking is a great joy! Gina taught two kids' science camps (2nd grade and 7th grade) using all food activities as a teaching tool.

Gina loves to sew! She sews almost every day. Gina's mom and Jacob's stepmom Judy also love sewing. Between the three of them, they will probably sew a lot of baby clothes, bags, toys, and bedding. Gina looks forward to someday teaching a child her many creative hobbies.

Addressing Cultural Diversity

Jacob's ethnic background is from India, where both of his parents were born, and he was exposed to a range of Indian, Pakistani, and Middle Eastern cultures and religious beliefs growing up. We enjoy cooking Indian food and including other connections to India into our home. Family gatherings with Jacob's multi-racial extended family always provide us with new and fun ways to celebrate our connection to his Indian heritage.

We have both traveled to explore other parts of the world, including Argentina, Australia, Tanzania, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and more. We enjoy finding ways to learn from other cultures and bring new traditions into our home.

Our extended network of friends and family is multi-racial and welcoming to people from all backgrounds. Our professional network of scientists is also incredibly diverse, hailing from many different countries. Our scientist friends are passionate about connecting children of different backgrounds through common interests in science.

As an inter-racial couple, we always find ways to celebrate our differences and value everybody equally. We are excited to bring a child into our family and our communities.

Photos

A Day at the Beach
A Day at the Beach
Jacob Being Filmed for a Documentary
Jacob Being Filmed for a Documentary
In Central Park, NYC
In Central Park, NYC
Dancing Around the Kitchen
Dancing Around the Kitchen
At a Music Festival
At a Music Festival
Chess With a Friend's Son
Chess With a Friend's Son
Our Wedding Day
Our Wedding Day
Gina in the Recording Studio With the Band
Gina in the Recording Studio With the Band
Jacob Giving a Science Talk
Jacob Giving a Science Talk
Jacob With One of Our Baby Chicks
Jacob With One of Our Baby Chicks
At a Paint Night Event
At a Paint Night Event
Walking on the Boardwalk
Walking on the Boardwalk
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A Day at the Beach
A Day at the Beach
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Jacob Being Filmed for a Documentary
Jacob Being Filmed for a Documentary
3 / 12
In Central Park, NYC
In Central Park, NYC
4 / 12
Dancing Around the Kitchen
Dancing Around the Kitchen
5 / 12
At a Music Festival
At a Music Festival
6 / 12
Chess With a Friend's Son
Chess With a Friend's Son
7 / 12
Our Wedding Day
Our Wedding Day
8 / 12
Gina in the Recording Studio With the Band
Gina in the Recording Studio With the Band
9 / 12
Jacob Giving a Science Talk
Jacob Giving a Science Talk
10 / 12
Jacob With One of Our Baby Chicks
Jacob With One of Our Baby Chicks
11 / 12
At a Paint Night Event
At a Paint Night Event
12 / 12
Walking on the Boardwalk
Walking on the Boardwalk

Our House and Neighborhood

Our Home

Our community in Kent County, Delaware is a family-oriented county with plenty of activities for children and adults. The Delaware Art League holds community art classes. The agricultural community is very active with beekeeping, livestock, 4H, scouts, gardening, crafting, environmental and ecology activities, and more that all culminate each year at the Delaware State Fair.

The community also has the typical suburban amenities like grocery stores, shopping centers, and restaurants between 10-30 minutes away. There are parks, museums, lakes, beaches, and campgrounds all nearby or within an hour drive.

We live on a 6-acre rural property – our "neighbors" to each side and to the back are the Delaware State Wildlife Area. Our neighbors across the street have a farm with young children and most of the surrounding neighborhoods have families with children.

Our house is a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom brick rancher with one finished level and a full, but unfinished, basement. We use the basement for indoor plant growing, food storage, and projects. The living room is wide open and perfect for a playroom, exercise room, and entertainment room. The child will have their choice of two different bedrooms as they grow up. Our property offers ~5 acres of woods for them to play in, along with 5 garden beds, two chicken coops, a quail pen, a stream, and a front and backyard.

Our Extended Families

With Jacob's Dad, Stepmom & Brother

Our core extended family members who we see the most often are Jacob's dad, stepmother Judy, his aunt "Anju Kaki" and his uncle "Ninu Kaka." When we get together, we love to cook! Cooking is a huge part of our extended family traditions. Anju is an excellent cook and makes mostly Indian food but also a mix of foods from around the world. Jacob's dad is a part-time personal chef, and Judy is enthusiastic about healthy and gluten-free cooking. When we get together we always share recipes and try new things. Anju and Ninu have two daughters, Richa and Reshma. Both of them live out of the country, so we don't see them as much, but we do keep up a connection with them online.

The other part of our extended network is on Gina's side. Her aunt Bonnie and uncle Jim and their three kids (Gina's cousins) and seven grandchildren all live within one to a few hours driving distance and we see them yearly at the family gathering at the beach. Gina and her aunt Bonnie talk fairly regularly on the phone and by text.

From Us to You

Some of our favorite people have what we call a Big Story - those things in life that didn't go as planned and end up changing you forever. We each have our own Big Stories, and we have been fortunate that our paths have crossed with others working their way through their own stories. Out of these people, we have built our family of choice.

We met fifteen years ago in Port Matilda, Pennsylvania at band practice. All of the band members were strangers who met through musician-wanted ads. We had no idea at the time that this band would become a second family to us. We married in 2012, and three families came to celebrate: our biological families and our music family. We've known for years that family is more than DNA. Back when we were dating, we revealed that we had each seen ourselves as someday becoming adoptive parents. We moved to Delaware in 2015 to branch out into a more diverse community and start our hobby farm, where we live today.

If you're reading this, you are probably working through your own Big Story, and your child is about to begin theirs. Parts of the story may hurt - even a lot - but they don't mean the person experiencing them is broken or bad. They mean you have lived life. They make you a complex and interesting person, capable of receiving the gift of making deep emotional connections with others. These experiences, painful as they may have been, can become superpowers.

There are a lot of times when we've looked back at our own lives and thought we could have done without some of the more difficult lessons. Maybe we could have learned them in less painful ways? But none of us will ever know these alternate futures. What matters is what's happening now.

If you choose us as your child's family, we understand the gravity of this decision. Your child (and you!) will be welcomed into a huge network of both biological and chosen family who are just about the most empathetic, accepting, and open-minded people we've ever known. Our community has been with us through some really difficult times and we only came out stronger in the end.

Education is very important to us, but what is even more important is thriving. As scientists, we have both spent much of our adult lives in universities, but we've been fortunate to also spent at least half of our time on music. These two worlds have blessed us with a balanced perspective. A good education can certainly be a path to thriving, and we plan to give any child who grows up in our home the ability to receive an excellent education. But what we feel is most important for children is a safe, loving, and supportive home, with strong family traditions and opportunities for creative self-expression. We hope to offer them the right balance of structure and freedom to nurture them into a happy, healthy human.

Neither of us can claim to fully understand the difficult choice you are facing. We are so grateful that you are considering us as your child's family. We want you know that by placing your child into our family, you become family as well. We will be sure to send photos, videos, and updates as they grow. We are also open to arranging phone or video calls, and if geographically possible, in-person visits at a pace that we agree works for both of us.

Your child will never have to feel out of place with us, with multiple adopted cousins and blended families in our diverse social circle. We have found that as we tell even random strangers about our decision to adopt, people will exclaim, "So cool! I'm adopted!" or "My child is adopted!" giving us even more confidence that your child will be welcomed into our community and will find people who understand them.

Thank you again for allowing us the chance to share our heart with you.

Sincerely,

Jacob & Gina

Favorites

Jacob
Gina
Actor
Kevin Spacey
Adam Sandler
Actress
Nichelle Nichols
Tiffany Haddish
Animal
Owl
Cat
Author
Carl Sagan
Steven Pinker
Book
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper
Candy Bar
Twix
Reeses TakeFive
Cartoon
South Park
South Park
Childhood Memory
My trip to Disneyworld in first grade
Riding bikes with my mom and brother
Childhood Toy
Legos
Rollerblades
Children's Book
Harold and the Purple Crayon
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
City
Chicago
New York
Classic Movie
The Ten Commandments
Citizen Kane
Color
Blue
Teal
Day of Week
Saturday
Friday
Dessert
Blueberry pie
Cheesecake
Disney Movie
Sword in the Stone
The Lion King
Dream Car
Tesla Model S
Dream Job
What I do now!
Homestead Mom
Dream Vacation
Japan
Camping in Argentina or Chile
Family Activity
Evening storytime
Playing music together
Flower / Plant
Cactus
Basil
Food
Pizza
Neapolitan-style Pizza
Form of Exercise
Yoga
Biking
Fruit
Raspberries
Golden Delicious Apples
Game
Chess
Pandemic
Hobby
Playing music
Music
Holiday
Christmas
Halloween
Holiday Song
We Three Kings
Please Come Home for Christmas
Holiday Tradition
Making our own tree ornaments
Making our own compostable ornaments
Ice Cream
Cookie dough
Chocolate
Junk Food
Chocolate chip cookies
Potato Chips
Leisure Activity
Gourmet cooking
Reading magazines
Magazine
Backyard Poultry
Threads Magazine
Memory with a Child
Family camping with our friends
Teaching my friend's twins how to use my sewing machine
Memory with Spouse
The first time we met at band practice
Around the campfire in our backyard at a party realizing how lucky we are to be here
Movie
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Super Troopers
Movie Munchie
Milk Duds
Popcorn
Movie Quote
"All we are is dust in the wind, dude." --Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
"Am I saying meow? Don't think boy, meow do you know how fast you were going?"
Movie Type
Comedy
Comedy
Musical
The Lion King
The Book of Mormon
Musical Group
Pink Floyd
Counting Crows
Nursery Rhyme
Little Jack Horner
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
Olympic Event
Bobsled
Swimming
Play
The Odd Couple
12 Angry Men
Poet
Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein
Quality about my Spouse
Her deep care and concern for others
Kindness
Quote
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." --Carl Sagan
"How can one be serious with the world, when the world itself is so ridiculous!" Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea
Restaurant
Taco Bell
Any authentic Italian pizzeria
Sandwich
Reuben
Turkey and Swiss
Scripture
Matthew 13:44-46
Luke 17:20-21
Shopping Store
Tractor Supply Company
Hobby Lobby
Song
It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)
Anna Begins by Counting Crows
Sport to Play
Bowling
Roller Derby
Sport to Watch
Baseball
Roller Derby
Sports Team
Minnesota Twins
Subject in School
Science
Chemistry
Superhero
Iron Man
Rogue (X-Men)
Thing to Cook
Bagels
Tacos
Time of Day
Early morning
Sunrise
Tradition
Morning tea time
Van road trips
TV Show
Big Bang Theory
Parks and Recreation
TV Show Character
Sheldon
Ron Swanson
Type of Music
Jazz
Indie Rock
Vacation Spot
New York City
My backyard
Video Game
Civilization IV
Donkey Kong Country

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