Travis and I grew up in the same area and met in middle school at the church both our families attended. We became friends and spent a lot of time together in high school. After we graduated high school, we went on a mission trip together to Belle Glade, FL. It was there that we both had distinct moments in which we believe The Lord revealed to us that we would be married some day. We had these revelations separately and privately and did not share them with anyone. It wasn't until long after we were dating we figured out that we both had these experiences and that they had happened within 24 hours of one another. It's a very cool story, maybe I will blog about it someday. :)

Anyway, despite our revelations, we remained just friends. That fall, I went away to college while Travis attended college in our home town. We remained close friends throughout the year, and we {FINALLY} started dating the end of our freshman year of college. We dated for about a year and half {some of that time was long distance}.

In August of 2007, Travis proposed to me. It was an elaborate and beautiful proposal. I remember it like it was yesterday. Maybe I will blog about that someday too. We were engaged for about 9 months and were married the end of our junior year, May 31st, 2008.

We spent the first two years of our marriage living, working and finishing our college degrees in our beautiful hometown, La Crosse, WI. After Travis graduated with his Masters in May 2010, he landed a job with a tech company in Los Angeles. We decided to move because we felt like God had opened the door for us and put this opportunity in our laps. Travis felt like Los Angeles would have better opportunities for him to learn and grow his career. I had always wanted to live in a big city, and California sounded great to me. 

3 months after we moved, we found out we were pregnant with our firstborn {yes it was planned}. Kingston made his very dramatic {and traumatic} entrance into this world on April 12th, 2011. I will have to blog about that someday as well. :) 14 months later we got pregnant with our daughter, Raena. She was born January 30th, 2013. We love being parents to these two babes.

After we had our daughter, Raena, we started to think about if/when/how we would add a third child to our family. Adoption was something we both always knew we would pursue eventually. As we thought and prayed about our third child, we became more and more convicted that it was time to look into adoption. You can read more about why we felt called to adoption, how we decided it was the right time, and why we chose domestic adoption. Our first adoption ended with the addition of our beautiful daughter, Esme Yvette Elizabeth. That journey is what led me to start this blog. You can find much of our process in the archives of this site. I hope to write more in the coming months/years about our story, but life with three kids is crazy! 

We love living in Southern California. When we decided to move here, many people we know in midwest could not understand why we would want to live in LA, and predicted we would return within a couple of years. While we understand LA isn't for everyone, we are still here seven years later and enjoying our life very much {plus who could complain about the weather?}. Although, we definitely miss our family in the midwest everyday, we have been blessed with a wonderful church and a community of amazing friends who feel like family. God has given us far beyond what we could ever deserve, and we are so grateful for His faithfulness and provision in our lives.

We are now on the journey to add a fourth child to our family through adoption. We know that once again God has led us to this path at this time in our lives, and we could not be more excited about it. We believe adoption is a beautiful and miraculous thing. We feel honored to be on this journey. We cannot wait to know who our baby will be or how God will bring him/her into our family.

Our lives are not always easy or fun. We've experienced hardships and pain, and we know we will experience more in the future. We do not wish for this blog to sugarcoat our lives or present us as having it all together all the time. We are humans. We are sinners. We are imperfect. We are broken.

But...

We are redeemed by God's grace. We are learning daily how to love, serve + know Him better, how to love, serve + know others better, how to honor Him more, and how to live more righteous + holy lives. We are committed to fighting for our faith, for our marriage + for our family, and to finishing the race HE has called us to.