God’s Plan

Hello!  We're Sam and Robyn, and we're excited to give you a peek into the happy craziness that is our family.  We were married in 2016 and God has taken us through a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of adventures so far, and we're excited to see what lies ahead.

We love bright colors, interesting foods, books (more than we have shelves for), and being with friends and family.  We are passionate about theatre, histroy, and theology, and board games.  We're both extroverts and have hobbies that involve lots of people!  We're excited to open our hearts to you and we invite you to learn what our family is all about!

We were both home schooled and met in 2007 at a Speech and Debate Tournament.  We became good friends and were both involved in choir and drama, so we would see each other frequently.

After Robyn graduated high school, she spent some time doing volunteer work in Israel alongside people from all over the world.  During that time, because of the distance, we started writing letters.  The hand-written letter continued for years to be our favorite method of communication, in addition to facebook, email, and when things got serious, phone calls.  We talked about life, our faith and spiritual growth, our dreams for the future.  We talked about our views on family building and parenting, including our hope to adopt a child someday, as many people we knew had adopted (including Sam's parents).

Although we were both raised in faithful Christian families, our churches were very different from each other, which was a major point of contention, particularly with Robyn's dad.  It took many hears to work through things, but God changes hearts.  So, in July of 2016 we were officially engaged, and were married that October.

Our son Ambrose was born 10 months later, the first grandkid to his dad's parents, the 13th grandkid to his mom's.  Then 18 months after Ambrose, Dulicinea came along.  Do to complications with the placenta, Dulcinea had to be delivered 5 weeks early by C-section, followed by a hysterechtomy.

Dulcinea was so tiny and beautiful and strong, and we are so thankful that God preserved her life.  But it was a hard blow to not be able to have any more biological kids.  Adoption has always been on our hearts, but we had thought it would come later in our lives.  It appears that God's plan is for us to pursue this path now.

Ambrose and Dulcinea are very excited about the idea of growing our family through adoption.  They pray for the child, and ask others to pray.  We have a huge extended family and a great community  of church friends, drama friends, reenacting friends, and friends we knew from home school activities.  They are all excited to welcome another little friend into their lives.

We met in 2012 while living in Tempe, Arizona when Kelli started working with Cory at Dutch Bros Coffee. From there, we became best friends, bonding over our love for people, working out, and for making each other laugh. Exactly one year from the day we met, we began dating and quickly knew our relationship was meant for more. Cory bought an engagement ring after 6 months and carried it around with him everywhere waiting for the right opportunity.

During a vacation to Sedona, Arizona, our relationship evolved into an engagement! We both love being outdoors and have always preferred intimate settings, so in 2015, exactly 3 years from the day that we met, and started dating, we decided to hike back up to a secluded trail in Sedona with a handful of our best friends and tied the knot there. Afterwards, we had a more traditional ceremony with our extended family and friends but love having had that intimate moment to truly celebrate our love together.

We both still work for the company that gave us the opportunity to find each other, and that has led us from owning a franchise in Nevada for 6 years to giving us the opportunity to move to Texas as we helped our brand expand further east. While it’s been just over three years, Texas is our forever home and we love everything about raising our family here together. We are both proud of our careers but are more thankful for the flexibility they give to make space for our family and the things that are important to us.

We first met at a Salsa Dancing Social. After months of dancing and getting to know each other, we had our first date. As we learned more about each other, we realized how we felt at home with one another. It was the Halloween season, so we enjoyed getting dressed up and attending Halloween salsa socials and family friend Halloween parties. We were falling in Love.

At Thanksgiving time, Reena began talking about Joel with her other family members with so much excitement. Reena introduced Joel to her brother, and they hit it off immediately. When Reena invited Joel to meet her parents, Mom gave Reena the Thumbs up. It was Christmas time and there is a cute little ornament with Reena’s picture that Reena had made at school in the first grade. We were decorating our Christmas tree, and Joel took that ornament and placed it at the very top of the tree. Reena’s heart melted and her family invited Joel to our larger family Christmas party where he was immediately welcomed with open arms.

That same Christmas, Joel had invited Reena to his family’s church for their annual Simbang Gabi Mass. This is a Christmas tradition within the Filipino community where Joel’s whole family was present. It was so wonderful to meet Joel’s family in such a beautiful setting. Shortly after, Joel and Reena would attend Joel’s family church on Sunday’s after Dance class, and then meet at his parent’s home for Sunday Dinners.

The following Easter, Joel took Reena to the Easter Vigil, which is the Saturday before Easter Sunday. She learned about the RCIA process where she could learn about the Catholic Faith and be confirmed as a Catholic. That fall, she enrolled in the program and Joel sponsored her. As they went through this beautiful journey together, Joel proposed that following Fall. The following Easter, Reena was confirmed as a Catholic, and Reena and Joel were married that Summer.

Please be patient as we work on building this profile a little everyday.

Darrin and Rachel first met in 2006 and started dating in 2009. They dated long-distance while Rachel was away at college, finding a mutual love of comics, card games, adventure, and music. After getting married, they also enjoyed playing volleyball together and watching Seahawks games. They both grew up in the greater Seattle area and after their daughter Ellie was born in 2016, they were thrilled to be able to buy a house there, near family and friends. Darrin is a former truck driver, who now works in a school district. Rachel is an ASL interpreter. Their daughter loves making friends and playing with every kid she meets, and her second grade year is off to a great start. We have a tetra fish and 6 chickens, and our daughter would love a cat someday.

We have been married for six years. Allison is Oklahoma born and raised. Nate was born in Missouri, but lived in Pennsylvannia, Arizona, Oregon, and California before finally settling down in Oklahoma. We have one wonderful little boy named Adrian, who is three years old. The pregnancy was very hard on Allison, and we were advised to not have any more children.

We are a fairly active family. We enjoy going fishing, hunting, or to the local park on a nice day. For the past couple of years, we have gotten zoo passes. Adrian really seems to enjoy getting to run around and see all the animals. We also really enjoy spending time with our friends. We have been greatly blessed by having several families that attend our church who also have young children. We have made it a habit to have lunch with them on Sundays, so we can enjoy each other's company while our kids run around and be kids.

We have also been blessed by two wonderful sets of grandparents that enjoy being involved in our and our son's lives. Nate's parents live about 30 minutes away. We attend church with them (Nate's father is a pastor), and hang-out with them at least a couple of times a month. Allison's parents live even closer. They are both retired and graciously volunteered to watch Adrian while Nate and Allison work. We see them fairly regularly including when we go on our annual family trip to Branson, Missiouri.

We are Brad and Jerica. We have been married for 11 years. We have three boys; Owen, Briggs and Benny. We are delighted to open our home up to adoption because we believe the Lord has invited us to love another child. These three boys are over the moon excited to welcome another sibling to our family. Brad works as an engineer. He gets to work part time remotely at home and part time in his local office. We homeschool our children and Jerica is a stay at home mom and the primary educator of the kids. We live on 5 acres in the country near our church, friends, and and family.  Our family enjoys spending outside and exploring the world God has made. We are deeply connected to our family and friends. We have more support than we could ask or imagine as we grow as a family. We hope to talk to you soon! 

We met 10 years ago and have been married for 7 years. We met online and found a few ways we could have met before! We went to the same college and frequently had classes at the same time in the same building and went to the same conferences in high school for our extra curricular activity. Once we met though we quickly bonded over our love of board games. Today you can still find us playing games together with friends and family. Our favorite to play with family is Letter Jam since it’s a good one for any play level. We already have a list of games we are ready to play with kids including our childhood favorites like Sorry, Life, Clue, and more. We have a large extended family that all live within 20 minutes of us and we get together with both side weekly! We recently got back from an extended family airbnb trip to Broken Bow with some good family fun including too many smores to count and a kids train ride in the forest.  We love spending time in the evenings together usually at our local park and exploring our city on the weekends from splash pads to zoos. We love holiday traditions like 4th of July kids bike parade, Christmas volunteering, and huge birthday celebrations! We are excited to add a little one to our family and for them to be able to bond together over being adopted.  Harper is so excited talking about how good of a big sister she is going to be.  We hope this helps you get to know us and if you have questions hope to hear from you soon!

We’re Andrea and Nelson! We’ve been together for twelve years and married for eight (this March), and about five years ago we were blessed to adopt our amazing son, Oliver. Andrea is fascinated by a lot of things, ranging from shark biology to crazy celebrity beef. Nelson enjoys working with his hands and BBQing on our smoker. As a family, we love going on adventures together, spending quality time, and exploring whatever is making us curious at that moment (like animals at the zoo, the jellyfish at low tide, or what we can build with Legos or cardboard boxes). Our family believes in open communication, unconditional love, and asking questions. No topic will ever be off limits in our home. Oliver is very excited about welcoming a sibling home and has been praying for it to happen “tomorrow.” We, too, are excited for another little one to join our family. Thank you for considering us!

One of the greatest things we can share as parents is access to our friends and family. We are unconditionally loved and supported by so many people whether they be biological or adopted relatives, or dear friends. We have strong relationships with some special people – some who have been in our lives for 30+ years. Several of our friends live minutes from us, and a few have recently started their own families so are itching for play dates. Both sets of our parents are still married and are wonderful grandparents. Andrea has an older brother and sister-in-law, and Nelson has 2 sisters, 3 brothers and 2 sets of in-laws. We are aunt and uncle to 13 nieces and nephews and combined, we have 10 aunts, 10 uncles and over 60 cousins. Simply put, we have a lot of family and friends! And everyone is beyond excited to welcome home a new member!

Along with our extended human family, we have two fuzzy members of our family - our adopted animals Indy and Obi. We rescued Indy as a 3 month old puppy. And 2 year old Obi chose Oliver. Really! He came right up and head nuzzled him. It's been love every since! These two pets are characters who love us, but most especially they love kids. 

Our love story started well before each of us were born. Our moms become fast and dear friends as young working professionals in a small town. Katie always remembered thinking how cute Koltin was, but we grew up in different schools and lived very different lives. There was no way our paths would ever cross “like that” until they did. Later in life, Koltin and Katie ran into one another at a mutual friends wedding where sparks flew, but we kept them a secret knowing it would cause chaos if things crumbled, so we took the time and ended up dating close to 5 years before we got engaged. In June, we will be married 4 years! It’s been a joy that our family and friends are now officially family and it doesn’t hurt that we’ve known our in-laws (on both sides!) our entire life. Together we love to go on road trips, gather with friends and family, go camping, explore new cities, and challenge ourselves with something new each year. At the same time, we also appreciate the little things in life like rainy days, coffee dates, riding our Polaris, movie nights with our son and trying ultimately to treat each other with love and respect. We are ready to give our unconditional love to child and expand of family through the miracle of adoption.