Dustin & Lydia
Dustin & Lydia
Each Friday the 13th is cause for celebration. We were married in October on Friday the 13th. We thought it would be fun and lucky to always get micro-anniversaries throughout the year on each Friday the 13th.
Sometimes we celebrate with a special dinner, sometimes we celebrate with a living room fort, pizza, and a movie night. Since life gets hectic, sometimes we miss a micro-versary but when we do remember we love doing something small and special to celebrate.
Eloping on a Friday the 13th sums up our relationship. We are spontaneous and go with the flow. We like to keep things light and casual. We don’t take things too seriously and we focus on what’s right for us and our little family.
Our Story
We met in mid-2013 when Lydia took a job that landed her in the same building where Dustin worked. While we always joked around at work, we started hanging out socially in early 2014 by going to breweries & watching March Madness. By the end of March, things turned romantic. Just as we began talking about moving in together, we were surprised to find out that we were expecting. When our daughter was about 6 months old, she helped Dustin propose.
We were engaged almost 18 months before we eloped. We went to a quiet local park & were married by Lydia’s childhood best friend in front of a waterfall. Our closest ‘couple friends’ were our witnesses and Harper was the only other attendant. It was perfect.
Our marriage is filled with laughter, encouragement, respect, & not taking ourselves too seriously. We strive to be the best partner that we can for the other. We give each other grace while holding one another accountable. Our goal is to have the strongest relationship possible, so we can be the best team for Harper & our next child.
We’ve spent a lot of time working on communication skills & figuring out the best way to nurture ourselves & our marriage. One way we have found to nurture both, is by having 3-day weekend ‘date nights’. A few years ago, we realized that we easily forget to make time to ‘date’ each other. We started planning at least one 3-day weekend each year for us to get away & focus on having fun as a couple & exploring whatever city we pick. We’ve always had a strong relationship & these short trips really help refuel the fun in our relationship.
Our Relaxation & Fun
We love family time and spending time together. We know that as our daughter and next child get older, they won’t always want to hang out with us, but for now, we are savoring it. We tend to be “homebodies”, so a lot of our free evenings are spent with movie nights, puzzles, and board games. When the weather is nice, we try to do as much of that outdoors as possible, usually while smoking some type of meat and sometimes a ballgame on in the background.
Once the snow is gone, we try to take advantage with outdoor activities. We love attending different types of festivals including food, music, and cultural. In recent years, we’ve started visiting fruit farms to pick our own peaches, apples, & berries. We love to garden, both flower and vegetables. We enjoy finding local parks & nature preserves to go on family hikes with our two dogs.
On rainy or cold days that we want to get out of the house, we will take a trip to a local record store, museum, antique store, or art gallery to spend a few hours. Music plays a huge role in our daily household, and we enjoy exploring a lot of different kinds.
October has always been one of our favorite times of the year. We love fall and everything that comes with it. We love pumpkin patches, apple picking, wagon rides, roasting marshmallows, Lions football, chili, and everything Halloween.
Individually, Dustin enjoys Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, board games & horror movies. Lydia enjoys baking, guilty pleasure reality tv, making travel plans, & trying a variety of different hobbies, while mastering none.
our adoption hopes
Gender: Any Gender, including an Ambiguous or Transitioning Gender Child
Ethnicities: Any Race and Ethnicity
Age: Newborn to 18 months
Total of: 1 to 2 Children or 2 Siblings
a snapshot
of us
We Live In: Kalamazoo
Our Faith: Nonreligious
Pets: Dog(s)
Kids Already: One Child Now
Child Care Plan: Family Member Child Care Licensed Child Care Center Stay-at-Home Parent
Our Family & Friends
Our immediate family includes our daughter, Harper, who we welcomed in 2015 & our two dogs, Mylo & Beesly. Harper is thoughtful, funny, tough, & a bit sassy. Harper joined us a bit earlier than we expected, and she works twice as hard as her peers to keep up. She is so excited to be a big sister and we can’t wait to see her in that role!
Mylo is a lab mix & Beesly is a newfoundland-poodle mix; both are great with children. Mylo is more of the protective watch dog that comes running when he hears Harper cry, while Beesly loves following our daughter around & being involved with her play. Dogs will always be a part of our family, as we think they bring an extra level of companionship & comfort to any space.
We regularly get together with both sides of our families. We love the idea of our next child being able to grow up close in age & building relationships to our current and future great-nieces and nephews.
We tend to have a close circle of friends that we regularly visit with. Dustin’s core group of friends are a group of guys that he gets together with, usually monthly, to play Dungeons & Dragons and board games. Lydia’s close friends live in various parts of the state and will get together at least once each year for a girls’ weekend.
Our Home & Neighborhood
We live in a rural subdivision located outside of a small town in Southwest Michigan. Our home is two stories, with a semi-open floor plan on the main level and 3 bedrooms upstairs. The nursery will be located right next to Harper’s room, both of which are only a few steps away from the primary bedroom. Our basement is mostly finished with a mancave, guest room, & large play/rec room. We moved into our home in 2020.
Our backyard backs up to farmland and we have a wooded lot on one side of our house, so even though we are surrounded by houses we have no shortage of privacy. Our backyard has a playground area and has more than enough space to practice t-ball or soccer. Across the street, there is a large hill that the neighborhood kids all use for sledding in the winter & a make-shift slip n’ slide in the summer.
We are fortunate that while our community is quaint and our school district is premier, we are only 20 minutes away from larger cities that offer endless cultural opportunities with museums, theatres, festivals, and numerous social clubs.
Education
Education is very important in becoming a productive member of society. Elementary and high school are important for learning foundational knowledge and social skills. We also believe that education doesn’t just come from school alone and that each person learns differently.
Having a child that that benefits from alternative resources in the school system has shown us the value of not using a “one size fits all” approach to education. We try to focus and instill the value of working hard and trying your best when it comes to school.
As we raise our children, we will encourage a college education or an alternative specialized trade. Dustin has his bachelor’s degree, but it took Lydia five tries before realizing college wasn’t a good fit and we both have professional certifications in our fields. While, college isn’t for everyone, we feel it is important to find a career field in which you are interested in and become as proficient as possible, so you can have opportunities in the future.
Correction & Discipline
We often avoid using discipline by focusing on positive reinforcement to encourage appropriate behaviors. We feel it is more important to recognize the good things someone does rather than focus on the bad. We often talk directly with our child about specific actions we notice and praise her for them. Not just with big things, but with little ‘insignificant’ things also. For example;
“I noticed you fed the dogs. I know it is one of your chores, but I really appreciate that you saw their dish was empty and you filled it up without me having to ask. I bet the dogs love it also!”
“I heard you tell that girl that you liked her shirt. That was a really nice thing to say, I’m sure you made her feel happy when you said that”
We typically reserve discipline for behaviors that we feel need boundaries. Our most common form of discipline is discussing, without punishment, to our child the problem, why it is a problem, and potential alternatives. Typically, our punishment is a timeout, an extra chore, or taking away tablet/tv time. We don’t often punish our child but when we do it is for behaviors that have already been discussed numerous times like intentional lying, jeopardizing safety, or intentionally ignoring a known rule.
Our Faith Views
Even though we both grew up in Christian households, religion does not play an active role in our lives. Prior to having our first child, we decided that we would support our children in exploring any age-appropriate religious journey they wanted to take.
We feel that it isn’t fair to push our beliefs onto our child and that we would always encourage them to learn as much as possible to find what feels right for them.
Dustin's Career
I am an IT Department head for local government. I enjoy leading a team of people in a common goal, creating policy, and implementing and managing cyber security solutions to protect confidential data. Through my career I work closely with a variety of government agencies and have developed an appreciation for the work that they do.
I have worked at the same place since I graduated college and have moved up over the years to the director position. My position allows me the flexibility to work from home when needed and I have a great work-life balance so I am able to spend a lot of time with my family and never miss a t-ball game.
After the child is placed, I will take the initial first few weeks off from work and then work from home, as needed, for the first few months. I plan on working from home on days that my wife is required to be in the office. I also have one sister that is a stay-at-home parent to older children and lives less than 10 minutes away and a mother that are both more than willing and eager to help as daycare on odd days that are needed. Once the child gets a bit older, we will seek part-time care at a licensed daycare facility.
Lydia's Career
I work for various local townships and cities as a property assessor. Basically, I determine how much all of the properties located in those townships and cities are worth & calculate how much of that property value they will pay property taxes on. I really enjoy all of the data analysis and problem solving that comes along with my job. My time is split up into contracted office hours and working from home.
Having scheduled office hours each week allows me a ton of freedom and flexibility during my non-office hours, as long as I complete my work and meet deadlines. I enjoy traveling to different offices and the variety that my job offers.
Since I work part-time & am partly a stay-at-home parent, I’m able to drop our daughter off & pick her up from school daily & spend most days with her during the summer. During my non-office hours, I’ve been able to take care of our daughter while working from home. I also usually try to take care of the bulk of the regular cleaning and cooking while I’m not at the office.
I plan on taking the first three weeks off from office hours and working from home minimally. Once I return to office hours, which is roughly 16 hours each week, I will rely on Dustin to stay at home during those hours. Once we feel the child is old enough to benefit from the structure and socialization that daycare provides, we plan on using a licensed daycare facility part-time.
When our daughter was about 15 months, we decided to begin using daycare. Once we decided on the proper facility, we saw leaps and bounds in her social development after a month or so. It was also nice that she started kindergarten with existing relationships with some of her classmates.
Dustin
My family comes from rural Southwest Michigan and everyone still lives within the area. My family heritage is English, French, and Native American.
Growing up, Christmas and Halloween were significant holidays for my family and we spent a lot of time decorating our home for the holidays. This tradition has carried into my adult life, as we love spending days turning the inside & outside of our home into a spooky-fun Halloween house during October and sometimes hosting a Halloween party.
After Thanksgiving, we start getting ready for Christmas by picking out a real tree from the same place each year, putting up lights, and listening to Christmas music and movies while we decorate the inside. The anticipation & celebration of these holidays was very special to me growing up and I hope I can pass that down to the next generation.
My family still gets together for most major holidays and birthdays. Family get togethers are large, including young adult nieces and nephews, some of which now have children. Even though our daughter is a lot younger than her cousins, she loves spending time with their babies and toddlers.
Lydia
My father’s side, which is predominantly French with some Native American background, comes from a large Catholic family that was raised near Detroit. My mother’s side, which is primarily German and English with some Scottish, comes from a German settlement in rural Ohio.
My family has always been very casual about family traditions. We enjoy celebrating holidays and birthdays together but mostly we enjoy spending time sitting around a large dinner table and talking while playing games.
Lydia is the middle child between an older sister and younger brother. Her brother, his wife & their two children recently moved into her parent’s house to help take care of her father, before he recently passed. Since her mom enjoys the company, they decided to make it permanent.
They live on 30 acres and there is never a shortage of outdoor adventures. We enjoy visiting with Harper and the dogs and seeing those same adventurous opportunities for her with her cousins. Lydia’s sister lives out of state with her fiancé, but the entire family tries to visit monthly.
Thank you so much for considering us as you navigate this difficult decision. We hope that your journey is filled with respect and love.
- Child Separation, Attachment, and Bonding
- Child Development, Including Safe Sleep Practices for Children
- Behavioral and Emotional Needs of Adoptive Children
- Impact of Adoption on the Family
An ideal relationship, to us, would be creating a bond similar to that of a niece. We’d love to send you regular texts and picture updates, video calls a couple of times each month, and have laid back/casual get togethers a handful of times each year. We’d love to celebrate the good times and be a support for the not so good times.
At the very minimum, we would like full medical records with future updates as new diagnoses are made & a sealed letter written to the child that might provide answer/closure for them when they are older, preferably with a picture.
OUR COMFORT LEVEL WITH DIFFERENT ADOPTION OPTIONS
- Very Comfortable
- Mostly Comfortable
- Unsure
- A Bit Uneasy
- Not Comfortable
An ideal relationship, to us, would be creating a bond similar to that of a niece. We’d love to send you regular texts and picture updates, video calls a couple of times each month, and have laid back/casual get togethers a handful of times each year. We’d love to celebrate the good times and be a support for the not so good times.
At the very minimum, we would like full medical records with future updates as new diagnoses are made & a sealed letter written to the child that might provide answer/closure for them when they are older, preferably with a picture.
Just one more thing...An ideal relationship, to us, would be creating a bond similar to that of a niece. We’d love to send you regular texts and picture updates, video calls a couple of times each month, and have laid back/casual get togethers a handful of times each year. We’d love to celebrate the good times and be a support for the not so good times.
At the very minimum, we would like full medical records with future updates as new diagnoses are made & a sealed letter written to the child that might provide answer/closure for them when they are older, preferably with a picture.