About Us

Charlie and I met at church more than six years ago and became friends.  We hung out with our Youth Pastor Marc and his wife Crystal a lot, watching football games, eating quesadillas, and playing card games.  It didn't take long before we started dating.  It was a whirlwind courtship and we became engaged shortly after the new year in 2004.  We planned our wedding and were married on July 10, 2004 in a large ceremony at our church. 

Charlie has a huge family.  He is the oldest of four children.  After him are two brothers (Chad and Craig) and baby sister Jessica.  His brother Chad is married to Katie and they have a set of twins: Cheyenne and Payden.  His brother Craig is married to Christal and they have one son Harrison.  Such a large family makes for loud and crazy holidays that are filled with food and fun.

While we were dating we talked about adoption.  I had an idea that we might have trouble getting pregnant, and so I brought it up in order to make sure he was okay with becoming a father that way.  He was totally on board, and I felt that it was a confirmation of God's plan for us.  

 

We have been married about five and a half years, and those years haven't always been easy, but they have been filled with love.  Experiencing infertility has only made us stronger, when dealing with schedules and doctor's appointments and failure after failure each month. It was more emotional for me than for Charlie, but he took it hard as well.  We agreed that we would not try anything beyond medication in order to have a baby.

I grew up all over this country.  I was born in Iowa, lived in Alaska until I was eight, moved to Florida, and then came to North Carolina to go to college.  My dad was in the military before I was born and liked to move around a lot.  I like North Carolina because of the way you can experience all four seasons!

I work as a Librarian for a local charter school that serves children in grades K through 8th grade.  It is a high performing school, and has been honored with a School Of Excellence grading for years.  The school is bright and cheery and I enjoy sharing my love of literature with the children. I read to kids everyday and I love it! Hopefully, our child would be able to go to this school when the time comes. 

Charlie grew up in North Carolina and has only briefly lived in Missouri while he went to college.  His entire family lives near here and is always around and doing something interesting.  He majored in Bible in college and now works for our church as the Media Director and is the current Fantasy Football Champion!  He is also in love with his Mac and iPod, but might not want me to mention that!

I grew up in the kitchen and love to cook!  I also love to decorate and make our home beautiful.  While I enjoy my job, making our house a home is quite a joy for me.  I loved working on the nursery and making it unique.

Charlie loves holidays and really gets into the Fall Family Festival at our church.  He likes to decorate the car and hand out candy to the church kids!  In the picture below, he had our dog Lucy dress up as Wonder Woman.  The kids loved it!

Our faith is very important to us and we love our church.  It is a large fellowship and the people are so friendly and they have been so supportive of our adoption process.  We have several friends that have adopted from China and their daughters are so adorable.  

I also love the pumpkin carving part of the holiday.  We spent this year with our friends Phil and Bethany and carved pumpkins.  I made a glamorous face and they made a Dallas Cowboys pumpkin!

Our families are so important to us and we are so excited about adding to it.  Below is me with my mom, who moved from Florida to be with us in her retirement.  She is looking forward to babying a grandchild and being a Gramma.  My father died when I was in college and I have two brothers (Drew and Rich) that live in other states, but they are great big brothers!

I hope this has told you a little bit about our family and the kind of home we have.  We are so excited about bringing a child into our home and family!  It would be such a blessing to us.  Our family keeps growing and we want to be part of it.