Stacie + Charlie
Dear Expectant Parent,
We both have reflected on our experiences with adoption as we were writing to you and thinking about your family. While reflecting, Stacie and I spoke about one of her childhood friends who was adopted. She always wondered why her friend's birth parents had placed her for adoption. We talked about how she quickly learned the bravery and strength that the birth parents had to have made such a loving choice to place their daughter for adoption. Even though it was a closed adoption, Stacie's friend found her birth parents when she was 18 and has a great relationship with them to this day. We both believe that family is created in all kinds of ways and at different points in life. We both have seen the way that adoption has created families into our adult life through experiences with other friends and co-workers. We are both so grateful for your courage and whatever decision your make, and we have so much respect for you and your family and support system. We can't wait to get to know you and to create whatever our version of family our journey together will look like.
Our Why
We are hoping to start our family through adoption. We always knew that there might not be a possibility for us to have our own biological children. Even before we were married, we talked about our plans to build a family through adoption. After not being able to conceive naturally we spent some time to heal and are now ready to adopt with open hearts. We have a lot of love, laughter and life to share with a child. Our cat and dog (who are also both adopted from shelters) are also ready to be big sisters!
Our Story
Our story starts with Stacie moving to Texas in December of 2020. Without that move we may not have this story to tell! We met the traditional way these days on an online dating app called Match.com. When we met, we both had fun but didn't know what to think of each other. Charlie won't tell you this, but he was in the friend zone for quite some time! He'll also tell you Stacie couldn't keep his hands off him, but that is not true either! The more and more we hung out the more we realized we had a lot in common and we complement each other with our differences. We were fortunate that we also got to travel together early on in our relationship (Hawaii, California, Idaho, and Oregon to name a few places) and spend time with each other's friends and family which means a lot to both of us. Everyone says that when you meet "the one" you know, and that person makes you change willingly for the better. We can definitely say that something brought Stacie to Texas for a reason, and we believe it's because it was time for us to find our soul mate in each other. We got married in August of 2022 in, Montana. Our wedding venue was a very beautiful authentic barn built about 100 years ago and refurbished into an event venue. It was absolutely amazing. It even had a working grain silo door that opened up on the upper floor. Even though we have been together a relatively short period of time we have realized the power of faith and communication in our relationship. We make time for each other every day no matter how hectic our days become. We often use a dry erase board in our home to set our schedule for the week including who cooks and feeds the animals and to put date nights on the schedule!! Being able to "date" each other is very important to both of us and making time for each other in addition to time spent with friends and family. Our dog Kaiden was adopted in October of 2014. Kaiden is 9 years old. We adopted our cat Kenzy in December of 2022. Kenzy is a little over a year old.
Meet Stacie
Charlie describes Stacie as having a good heart, caring and strong willed. She knows what she wants! He loves the way she shows up for him and Kenzy and Kaiden every day! - Meet my wife Stacie!
Hi there...so nice to meet you again. Almost everyone in my life describes me as calm, patient and focused. I attribute a large part of that to the practice of yoga almost daily. Through yoga I have found my ability to shut out everything around me for that 1 hour a day to practice so that when I am done, I feel like I can give my full attention to the day ahead and the people in it. Yoga has taught me a lot about myself and my inner strength.
I am originally from Idaho and have lived in California, Arizona and now Texas. I love to travel every chance I can. For work, I am in a professional services industry and in my role I serve nonprofit organizations as clients. I did not grow up knowing what nonprofits were about other than the church my family went to, but I learned so much about them when they became clients. I have been working with nonprofit organizations since my early 20's and have become deeply connected with the mission focus. In addition to several organizations, we give to financially, we often volunteer our time to several. A couple of names you might recognize are food banks and Easter Seals. At our wedding we also requested that guests not bring gifts, instead they donate to a charity we support. I have also done mission trips and Charlie and I both would love to do all of these things with our future children as well.
I love the peaceful things in life like watching the sun rise iin the morning, a lazy Saturday morning coffee or a walk with Kaiden. Those are the moments when time stands still for me.
I am grateful for time spent with Charlie, family and friends and our dog and cat. Honesty, transparency, faith and communication are important to me. I remember my mom instilling a lot of trust in me when I was younger as I earned it and that taught me a lot as an adult about not only my actions but how to build healthy relationships with others and we will teach our children the same principles.
Meet Charlie
Stacie describes Charlie as caring, emotional, and sensitive. I never feel alone with him. Charlie is also loyal, patient and cares about his family very much! He is very accepting of everyone in my life and has gone out of his way to get to know my friends and family. - Meet my husband Charlie!!
Hello and it's so nice to meet you. A little about me, I grew up in a very small town in Texas and i am a die-hard Texas A&M Aggie fan. In my spare time, I try my best to stay active with items such as exercise, golf, billiards, and friends, this is of course when Stacie does not have my time reserved.
I work in the Insurance Industry, but I am glad that I do not have to sell insurance, only service clients after policies expire. I work a flexible schedule which both myself and Stacie are so thankful for as this is very conducive to our lifestyles. I have also worked a significant amount of time in the construction industry.
I try to see the best in people and always try to be understanding and enjoy life. I am slow to anger and very patient and understanding. I enjoy the life that we have build and we are looking forward to starting our family.
Our Pets
Kenzy, our cat, is a little over a year old and our dog Kaiden is 9. Kenzy loves to play fetch and Kaiden loves to play keep away. Kenzy is leash trained although she is not the best on the leash, but it is fun to take her outside for walks with Kaiden. Oddly enough they get along really well! They often wrestle with each other daily and they also snuggle up together and sleep together. They are both so sweet and love people and kids. Kaiden is so patient with little kids and she's always happy to see them. We know they will be great big sisters!!
Family Time
Charlie's entire family lives an hour away from us it is a bit easier to see them. They have a big ranch with lots of land, cows and adventures on Kabotas! They also have a tree house on their property that our nephew is fond of and a zipline! We have gone fishing and had picnics with Charlie's parents on their ranch.
Stacie's parents, sister, brother and two nephews live in the pacific northwest so we don't get to see them as often but when we do that time usually involves picnics, good food, games with the nephews and whenever they come to visit us we take them to see all the sights in the area that they don't normally get to see. We love going to museums, learning about history and sporting events on both sides of the family. The grandparents love seeing their grandkids and love the grand kids and grand pets equally! They are all excited to welcome a new addition to the families.
Our Adventures
In the past, Stacie has had to travel a considerable amount for work. For Charlie, he had barely made it out of the State of Texas prior to us meeting.
Since we have been together, we have been fortunate enough to travel a considerable amount. These trips include destinations of Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Montana, Idaho, Washington, California, and even Hawaii!!! We were lucky enough to travel internationally for our honeymoon in which we visited France and Portugal. This was Charlie's first time to Europe. Stacie has traveled previously to the countries of Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, and Canada.
Places on our bucket list include Spain, South America, Turkey, South Africa, Australia, Germany, Poland, and the Nordic Countries of Europe. We intend to take an international trip every 3 years approximately (maybe more) and would love that our adventures would include a child.
Besides travel, we try to stay active and try new things. Some fun activities we have done is a cooking class, a murder mystery dinner, yoga, a cold plunge, kayaking, ghost tours, wine tasting and country western dancing. We even played a round of golf together and visited an active volcano in Hawaii.
Our Promise
Just as we made a promise to each other on our wedding day, we make a similar promise to you, your family and your child. We will parent your child and understand from you what type of openness you would want with our families. Charlie believes his role as a father is to be a safety net for his children and provide them with a safe place to grow. Stacie sees her role as a mother to raise a child who is caring and good to others.
We both want to raise your child to have a family of their own someday, instilling family values and helping them to build healthy relationships and make healthy decisions in their lives. We hope to raise your child to be outgoing like Charlie and caring towards others like Stacie. It is also important for us to involve your child in our passions such as volunteer actives so they can develop an awareness of other's and even other cultures around the world. Your child is a blessing and a gift to our family and will be treated so each and every day.
We promise to give your child a loving, fun, stable home filled with encouragement for them to grow into whoever they are meant to be!!
Recent Travels!!
We recently traveled to Germany, Prague and Poland. All three places were beautiful and amazing with so much culture to experience! There is never enough time to explore! Some highlights!! In the Bavarian region of Germany, we visited the Neuschwanstein Castle which was the inspiration for the Disney Cinderella castle. Prague is famous for its underground as the city used to be much lower to sea level then it is now. We got to see an old house, a dungeon and one of the original roads in the underground! Poland was absolutely beautiful and peaceful. We took an amazing ride on the river and explored the town square. We've mentioned in other parts of our story that we would love to take our children on these kinds of trips when they are old enough to experience other cultures and learn about history.