Patrick and Kimberly

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From Us to You

Hello,

We know you’re making a difficult decision and we have no way of knowing what kind of turmoil you’re going through. We do want you to know that we will always take good care of your baby.

While we are so excited by the chance to raise a baby and have a family, we can’t express our excitement at the amazing gift you’re considering us for. We haven’t been able to have a family of our own and adopting gives us that chance to be parents. We think of the future taking your child to Disneyland, getting them ready for school, sharing our hobbies and things we like. We can’t wait to see what kind of personality they will have.

We will be honest with your child about their adoption and share as much as we can with them. We would like to encourage a relationship that you can be comfortable with and we look forward to working with you on that. We will encourage your child to try out sports, theater, and/or music. They will love seeing their house decorated at the holidays with things that move and make noise.

With us, your child will have a wonderful family around them and in their lives for years to come. They will have cousins and many aunts and uncles. They will have two sets of grandparents that can’t wait to meet and spoil them. Their Aunt Sarah will teach them about traditions from Germany, while Aunt Neika will teach them gardening tips. Uncle David will show them the ropes of meat or hunting, and Uncle Michael will keep them in line with the law and playing sports. Cousin Bryson will show them cool toys and how to play. Uncle Thomas and Auntie Shilo will share about Hawaiian/Asian culture, and we will go visit them in Southern California. Aunt Sara will make sure they know their way around a horse and Uncle Will can show them all about cars. Cousin Bentley will show them to be cute and play in the pool. Your child will enjoy spending time each summer with their grandparents, playing in their pool, and each summer we will also spend time at our favorite beach.

We’re so grateful to you for getting to know us!

With love, Kimberly and Patrick

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Why We're Choosing to Adopt

When Kimberly was approaching her 30th birthday, we decided to start our family. However that didn’t work out and after fertility treatments and failed IUI’s we took a break to reset. Then the pandemic hit and nothing was happening. A few months ago we decided it was time to get moving again with our family, so we discussed our options and thought we wanted to try surrogacy, but something just wasn’t sitting right. After talking over the options with friends at work, Kimberly realized she really wanted to adopt. She came home that day and shared her feelings with Patrick and he said that for a couple weeks he had wanted to talk about adopting, too. Since that discussion we’ve been so happy and excited to start our family. It seems like this is the path we are supposed to be on, and we are both thrilled. We both know that blood or biology doesn’t make a family, love does. We can’t wait to give all of our love to your son or daughter.

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Racial and Cultural Diversity

We understand that there may be challenges to having an ethnically diverse family, but that has not swayed our decision to have a family who may not look like us. We welcome the challenge and will teach your child about their race and culture from articles, history, social events, and people from their culture. We will look for support in families of adoption and within our own extended family to support the questions and knowledge we may need. We will encourage your child to show pride for their race/culture and embrace what makes them unique in our family and explore it with others too.

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About Kimberly, by Patrick

Kimberly is an amazing person first and foremost, full of love and positivity. I would describe her as the classic girl next door. Almost every day she wears a dress and always looks ready for anything the day will throw at her. I have a mood disorder and when I met Kimberly I was on medication, but with her love, support, and a better doctor, I got off all meds. I journal, exercise and discuss my feelings. I’m lucky to have found her; we truly are partners, best friends and can’t wait to be parents. Which is funny since when we met she didn’t want to date someone who was still in college or who had pets. Guess what? I was still in college and had three dogs! Kimberly spends most of her time putting others first, I know this first hand as she always puts my feelings ahead of her own. (The only exception to this is her side of the bed, it’s always on the left, no matter where the heating or A/C vent is in a hotel room.) She’s the planner and organizer of our life; I just show up and ask where we are going and what we are doing. Kimberly’s always cheerful and full of life. She has a smile that will light up a room. One of Kimberly’s favorite things is decorating the house for the fall and winter holidays. It starts with Halloween and goes through Christmas. I believe she will make an amazing mother to your child.

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About Patrick, by Kimberly

Patrick is a man who loves animals. When I met him in 2010 he had three dogs. All three were mutts that had come to him in different ways. Kailey, Greta, and Izzy were his life. Since that time we’ve lost Kailey and Greta, but Izzy is still enjoying life and is now 15years old. Patrick would do anything for an animal, which makes me know he’s going to be a wonderful father. He’s stopped many times when dogs are running in the road and found their owners. When Izzy seems under the weather, his first instinct is to run her to the vet. He’s concerned when we leave her for anything and we only leave her overnight with his parents, as they have dogs, too. Patrick also has a lighthearted personality which reminds me of my father; he’s like a big kid who loves Star Wars, video games, Legos, and paintball. I recently got to enjoy watching him play with our 4-year-old nephew at a park. There was a maze and our nephew wanted Uncle Patrick (6’1″) to hide in the 3 foot tall shrub maze. Patrick was running around giggling and ducking so Bryson couldn’t see him. Patrick had a great time and enjoyed helping him put a Lego set together that night.

Patrick is also someone who will help anyone out. He recently got ordained so he could marry a former coworker and his fiancée. Patrick found a passion for cooking in the last couple of years. When I met him, he was a frozen meal guy, but now no recipe scares him. He has become known in our family for his completely homemade pizza, including the sauce, cooked in a pizza oven on our back patio. When I met Patrick in 2010 it didn’t take long to realize he was the love of my life and would be an amazing father to our future children.

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Our Sweet Pup

We love our dog Izzy. She has many names that Patrick has gifted to her and Kimberly has added a few herself including Lady Isabel of the Sniffers. Izzy is fifteen years old and Patrick got her from Craig’s List when she was 6 months old so she could join his other two dogs at that time. While she is older now, she has an energetic personality and loves a routine. She expects the moment she is done eating to be taken to the park for her morning walk with Patrick. They have 2 routes: a forest route or the dirt trail. She enjoys all the smells and checking things out. At night as soon as we set the alarm she runs upstairs and wants her collar taken off and her go-to-bed cookie. If it doesn’t happen in that order she gives us dirty looks. Izzy enjoys squeaky balls, and doesn’t like to swim, but wants to drink from Patrick’s parents’ pool in the summer. We have a pond on the side of our home where we have gold feeder fish which we’ve had for three years. They are now six inches in length or more. We have ten of them and enjoy watching them swim around. Izzy likes to acknowledge them and act like she’s hunting them, running around the pond looking at each of them.

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Our Home

We were very lucky to stumble upon our home in 2013, while going to look at a home around the corner, which was out of our price range. It happened to be the same model, but wasn’t listed on any realtor website; but we could afford it! We were very lucky to find a home that we thought was perfect for a family, even though it’s bigger than we planned on. Our home is a two-story, five bedroom, three bathroom home, with an open floor plan with center stairs. It has a nice size backyard where we can play on the grass and enjoy the sounds from the small pond and stream. We can’t wait to take kids into the cool/hot tub and plant fruits and vegetables in our raised garden beds. We never thought of ourselves as rural people, but we both fell in love with the open pasture views behind the house. A couple of years ago we redid the front yard with kid and pet friendly fake grass and fenced it in. It’s a perfect place to play when the warm sun is setting in the backyard. One of our favorite things is decorating our house for Halloween and Christmas. The interior is transformed with tons of fun, interactive items that bring smiles to our faces. There’s a spinning Christmas tree in our family room where we watch TV and a smaller tree in the living room that we can enjoy from the dining room. It’s sad when we had to take down the decorations, especially the lights out front. We have a snowflake theme and inflated items too. Every December the local fire department does a Santa patrol around town and it’s a magical time in the neighborhood. Ours is a quieter neighborhood with some families and older couples. We see kids riding bikes, playing basketball, and exercising. One of the local businesses does fireworks in May and we can see them from our front yard. Whenever the weather permits, a wonderful evening is spent out on the back patio with the fire pit and twinkling lights above as the sun sets.

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Our Families

Both of our parents have been married for almost 50 years, and we each have four siblings with marriages. Our parents have modeled how to have strong, loving long-term marriages for us. They expressed to us the work, sanctity of marriage, and how to communicate with each other. Not only are we close with our siblings, but their spouses are more than just in-laws to us, they are some of our closest friends!

Kimberly’s parents live just 15 minutes away from us and can’t wait to be really involved grandparents, in fact they will be our watching our little one while we are both at work. Kimberly’s brother married Sarah, who had a son from a previous marriage, Elijah. The entire family embraced Elijah and he’s an amazing addition to our family as nephew and grandson when he joined our family almost 10 years ago. Patrick’s sister just had a baby and we can’t wait for Bentley to have a cousin around the same age

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Our Lifestyle

We enjoy a quiet life with our dog Izzy, but we also enjoy traveling, and spending time with family and friends. We love to cook meals together, play video games, and thoroughly enjoy going to live theatre and musicals. Neither of us would normally choose to be out with a large group of people, well except Kimberly would choose Disneyland any day. Patrick enjoys taking Izzy to the park early in the morning for a walk, while Kimberly is on the treadmill. We generally keep to a routine to be rested and ready for the next day. We spend our typical evenings sharing the events of our day and cooking dinner. It used to be that Kimberly was the cook, but since Patrick got a new job and gets home first, he has become the chef. On weekends we often enjoy having high tea at home, which we have perfected with different sets of china from family and one from a garage sale. We’ve become readers again and listen to the same books so we can talk about them together and often take the time to check in with our families.

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Vacations

For our vacations and leisure time we have had the opportunity to travel and enjoy it. We spent our honeymoon on a cruise to Mexico and since then we have traveled to the Caribbean, Canada, New England, Alaska, and currently have our first Disney cruise to Mexico scheduled. We’ve had the pleasure of visiting Disneyworld, New York, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Hawaii (Aulani Disney’s Resort), and multiple trips to Disneyland. Disney is one of Kimberly’s favorite places. She will use any excuse to go. Patrick comes along and enjoys her excitement, but enjoys it more now that Batuu (Star Wars Land) is open. We can’t wait to take your child and experience their excitement. We travel often to the San Diego area to visit Grandma. One of our favorite places to go is a beach north of the Bay Area where we can go and enjoy the beach and escape the heat. We look forward to trips and traveling with your child.

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Family Traditions

When I think of traditions that we will share with our future children I think of the holidays first. Patrick and I have continued one of my family traditions on Halloween where we have pizza, doughnuts, apple cider, and watch fun Halloween movies. Those movies include Hocus Pocus, Nightmare Before Christmas and so on… obviously with children there would be some trick or treating as well. We have also done the tradition of having our own Thanksgiving dinner at home on a different day. We are always bouncing between families so that we don’t get our own leftovers, so it’s something we enjoy doing. At Christmas we enjoy going to mass on Christmas Eve either with my parents at the Catholic church or with his family at the Episcopalian church. When Patrick changed jobs a few year ago and it allowed us to more freedom as we share the summers. We hope to share the tradition of going to Patrick’s parents’ beach house in Dillon Beach and taking time together as a family. We look forward to creating new traditions with our future children

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Education

I, Kimberly, have known I wanted to be a teacher since high school. I was a teacher’s assistant at the elementary school next door and loved it. I did exactly what I needed to do in college with the support of my parents. I graduated with my BA and then the next year received my teaching credential. Unfortunately when I got my credential was the time of the recession and teachers were retiring. I spent five years as a substitute teacher in multiple districts, working at a learning center tutoring and specializing in SAT Math prep. I finally got a full time position as an intervention teacher, but it was only for a year. Then I found my home at my current school and I’ve worked here for almost 10 years. I enjoy seeing students I’ve taught get older and come back to see me. This year I’m lucky to have four siblings of former students. I love teaching and seeing my students grow and improve. I believe it’s the drama girl in me that loves to think of each day as a performance. I enjoy coming up with lessons that my students love and hear about from year to year. My classroom is Hollywood themed, a nod to my almost ten years working at Blockbuster video and my love of theatre. I have used a “Holidays Around the World” theme in December letting students explore other countries and their traditions for the holidays. At the end of the year I’ve evolved a Chinese Cinderella story as a way for us to have virtual field trips to Disneyland, with maps and magic bands. I was able to incorporate my passion for Disneyland and holidays into the classroom.

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How We Met

The story of how we met is something like a romantic comedy. In October 2010 Patrick stumbled upon Kimberly’s profile on a dating website and we began messaging each other. That turned into Kimberly sharing her phone number. Our first phone call didn’t go well, as Patrick spent twenty minutes discussing the weather. By that time Kimberly was losing phone service and had to hang up. She remembers thinking, “Wow that was bad.” But Patrick was determined and tried calling again. This time she was at a casino with her mother and told him she’d call him back, again thinking, “I won’t be doing that.” But the third phone call was magical. Soon we realized we had met before at a local Community College and had a writing class together. Kimberly remembers flirting with Patrick; he didn’t realize that’s what she was doing, but was also taken at the time. We also found out we had a friend in common. We spent over four hours on the phone connecting. In November Patrick drove an hour for our first date. We went to dinner, then decided to see the movie Megamind. Holding hands in the movie, we concluded our date by stopping for a drink where Patrick opened Kimberly’s car door and kissed her. It was a wonderful first date which led to many others. Our relationship moved quickly and we were engaged the next May. We were married in January 2013.

Our Relationship with our Parents

Kimberly: I’m very blessed to have my wonderful parents, Mark and Coleen. They are exactly what a wonderful marriage should be after forty-five years of marriage. My mom and I are very close, and they’ve both always been very supportive of my education and career. I lived at home all throughout college so I could focus on my education. During that time my parents supported me financially and emotionally as I had to substitute teach for years and they never once suggested I give up. I speak to my mother every other day on my way home from work and we all enjoy having meals and celebrating together.

Patrick: My parents, Janice and Jim, are always there to help when we need, and they are the busiest retired people we know! We enjoy going over to their home for meals, swimming, and spending time with them, but it’s a bit harder to get quality time due to their commitment to taking care of Patrick’s handicapped aunt who lives with them, church involvement, and hobbies. For years we have gone to see shows in the city with them. They share our passion for musicals and theatre.

We are both very comfortable with our in-laws, and can easily spend time with them without each other. When Patrick was working at his previous job, Kimberly would go to family functions and meals with his family. She would also travel with his dad and brother to visit his grandma.

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Our Hobbies

Our hobbies include spending time with family and friends and we both enjoy going to see plays and musicals. Kimberly is a planner by nature so she enjoys planning vacations or cruises. She loves going shopping, getting a good deal and playing with makeup. Patrick’s hobbies are playing paintball, building Star Wars Legos, video games, and taking our dog on walks. We both enjoy cooking and baking, watching movies, and listening to audio books. Kimberly has a Disney collection of ears, and figures, and Patrick collects Star Wars items. Patrick is a gamer, and Kimberly will join him sometimes. Animal Crossing, Mario Party, and Mario Kart, are some of the games we play together. We have a cupboard with board games and Patrick has been teaching Kimberly chess with our new Harry Potter Wizard’s Chess board. Our county in California has a good amount of wineries and we enjoy checking them and seeing the beauty. We’ve learned a lot about wine from Patrick’s parents and utilize the dump bucket since we don’t want to drink too much of it.

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Faith

While we were raised in different denominations, we both recognize faith as an important element in our lives. Kimberly was raised in the Catholic Church and Patrick in the Episcopalian church. When we began planning our wedding, we knew that we wanted it to incorporate religion. We decided to have a Catholic wedding because it would be recognized in the Episcopalian church. We completed the Pre Cana course required in the Catholic Church and found it brought us closer together and gave us valuable tools for our marriage. In times of struggle we have found that attending church has helped us to clear our mind regardless which of the two churches we attend. We will raise our children in the rights of passage of the Catholic Church so they are accepted in both churches, but we will go to both churches on the different holidays with family. We don’t attend church on a regular basis but follow the teachings and values in our lives. We believe living our life the way we want to be treated and treating others with respect is a good value system.

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Our Promise to You

Your child will have parents that know what a precious gift we were given and can’t ever repay. As someone that has longed to be a mother and felt the sting of my body failing me, what you’re doing for us is something that goes far beyond a thank you. We’ve waited for so long and when we came to the decision that we wanted to adopt it’s like a light turned on. This is where we are supposed to be, this has been our path all along. It just took us this long to figure it out.

We will encourage them to have relationships with their extended families as we’ve had. They will have a bond with their grandparents and enjoy spending time with them. We will take trips and vacations with cousins and family. Your child will know that they are loved by all the people around them and especially by the person who carried them and personally chose us to be their parents.

No matter what path you choose, we wish you all the best in the road ahead.

-Kimberly and Patrick