Carly's parents have a lake house on Lake Huron that is our favorite vacation spot. We spend many weekends there during the summer, but also enjoy fall, winter and spring seasons there. The beach and water provide endless fun paddle boarding, floating on tubes in the waves, wind surfing and swimming. We have hosted our friends and their kids many times and had a blast playing in the sand and splashing around. It offers a safe and accessible destination that cannot be beat in the summer. In addition to the activities listed above, watching fireworks, preparing and eating barbecue or local fish, hiking in the woods, exploring the small nearby town and time spent with family are highlights of a trip to the lake. All of this makes for a lot of great memories and an awesome place for a kid to have fun.

In the fall we transition into more hiking, picking out pumpkins in a field, and visiting the cider mill. The winters are cold but beautiful and the views are enjoyed through every season. Local trails offer a great opportunity for hiking in every season with the winter and spring often being when the woods are quietest and most beautiful.

Mostly "the lake" provides a great place to refresh, laugh and make wonderful memories all of which we look forward to sharing with our child.

We are fortunate to have lives balanced with work and leisure time. We spend our weekends in the summer on Lake Huron, where we swim in the lake, relax on the beach, and barbecue with friends and family. Sean likes to sail board when the wind is good! We also paddle board and soak up the sun. In the winter we love to try out new recipes and have friends over. We are known for throwing parties and dressing up for Halloween. We’ve always imagined having children would make the holidays even more special and exciting.

We volunteer at a charity that serves people with their basic needs - everything from food and clothing to a bus ticket to get to an appointment or job interview. We always volunteer serving Thanksgiving dinner there, and this year we collected 50 turkeys for the event! 

Our day to day lives are spend prioritizing quality time with each other. We get up early and enjoy our coffee and exercise together most mornings. In the evenings we have dinner and go for a walk to unwind. We like to go for bike rides and bring picnics to the park. We would love to share these activities with a child! 

We are open to an adoption of any race or ethnicity because we believe we are capable of making the experience a wonderful one for the child and the adoptive parents. We are fortunate to live in a metropolitan area that offers exposure to cultural, racial, religious, thought and economic diversity. As parents, we will emphasize open mindedness about new experiences in food, art, music and people to instill that in any new member of our family.

We plan to address cultural diversity through experiences for our children. Growing up, we were exposed through our schools, sports teams and friend groups to diversity and we will offer a similar experience to our child. No matter what background our child comes from, this will be a priority.

We will address diversity for a child by educating ourselves, offering a loving home and keeping our child in touch with their own story.

We live in the perfect community for families! We have a neighborhood filled with children and friends that live close. There are several parks within walking and bike riding distance that we go to often. One is on the water and has a pool and splash pad for kids to enjoy! The community also has holiday traditions that are wonderful for children - a trick or treating event at the shops and a Santa parade at Thanksgiving. We have a trolley that travels down the main road in the summer months that kids love. We both grew up here playing sports with friends from the neighborhood.

We put a lot of love into fixing up our home when we moved in. We repainted the whole house, refinished the floors, built a deck in the back yard, and fixed up the basement. We have 3 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms. We spend most of our time in our family room because we have large windows where we can look out at our back yard. We have a vegetable garden and a pizza oven in the yard - we love to host parties, especially in the summer!

We both grew up in the same neighborhood and are fortunate that much of our family lives close by. Sean's mom and one brother live about a mile away, and we see them regularly for dinners, watching sports, and family get togethers. Sean has four brothers all together, and many nieces and nephews. Everyone is together at least twice a year. At Christmas time, we always have a tamale night, make a prime rib, have a big breakfast, and spend time playing cards, catching up, and cooking. The summer visits are usually at a beach where time is spent outside together.

Carly's parents and brother and his wife also live close, and we meet for dinner every Sunday night. We regularly eat some of our all-time favorite foods; spaghetti, burritos, pork chops, and Polish food. We also go to a cottage on Lake Huron in the summer and enjoy the beach and water together.

We have aunts, uncles, and cousins that all live in the area as well. We have summer barbecues and celebrate birthdays and holidays with a bigger group!

Our families have been equally as excited as we are to have a child join our family.

We are writing this letter knowing what a big decision adoption is for you. We are incredibly grateful that you are considering us to be the parents. We decided to adopt when we found out getting pregnant on our own was not an option. That decision, although a major one, was clear to us - we feel that we are called to adopt a child, knowing how much we have to give. We have a loving marriage, resources for the child to be supported, and an energetic and joyful life that is perfect for a child.

We have been married almost seven years and have been together for thirteen years. We met in graduate school where we started studying together as friends and then fell in love. We went through dental and medical school together where we learned to appreciate the quality time we had with each other, even while studying hard! We are fortunate to have grown up in the same community with the same values, faith, and goals. We are devoted to each other, happily married, and we always imagined that we would have children with whom to share our love.

We are both lucky to have jobs that we love that allow us to be home in the evenings and on weekends, take vacations, and have time off with a new baby. We also have grandparents near by, aunts and uncles, and would have the only grandchild/niece or nephew in the state (on Sean's side) and the only one (on Carly's side). We have three nieces and two nephews so far on Sean's side. Although they live out of state, the cousins have so much fun getting together - they would be thrilled to add another one to the family! We have so much support from both sides of our families - our child will be so loved!

We prioritize living a joyful life by spending time together as a couple and with our families and friends, but we also enjoy our work and concentrate on enjoying the little things in daily life, like having coffee together or going for a walk on a beautiful evening. We love to celebrate anything good that happens, take small and big vacations, be outside to soak in nature, and also enjoy exploring new cities and places. We would like to share our happiness with a child, teaching him or her to enjoy daily life and also sharing in big and exciting experiences, like traveling or accomplishing something huge! All of our favorite activities would be better and more fulfilling with a child.

We are very much open to sending pictures and information about how your child is doing. We look forward to sharing updates on what they are interested in, accomplishments, and photos along the journey. We know that choosing adoption is a big decision for you, and we would like to make you as comfortable as possible by sharing with you celebrations of milestones and successes of your child. We would be honored to be chosen as the parents of your baby. Please consider us - we have so much love and joy to give and would feel incredibly blessed to be parents.

Sincerely,

Sean & Carly