Martin and Lynn

We know you are making a very difficult decision, and thank you for considering us to care for your child. We hope that after reading this letter you will have some idea of who we are, the love we have, and the family that your child would be joining. Thank you for taking the time to learn more about us and our family.

Lynn as told by Marty
I would describe Lynn as a loving, energetic and fun person. She grew up outside of Chicago with her parents and two sisters (one older and one younger). She cares for our 5 year old son, working on homework with him, chasing him around the house or volunteering in his classroom. Lynn loves to spend time with family and friends. She is currently working as a store manager for Starbucks and works about 10 minutes from our house. She usually drops Evan at school every morning, and then picks him up. Her parents taught her to be a caring person, who wears her heart on her sleeve, and isn’t afraid to cry. Lynn’s family is Italian and Swedish, so she is an emotional person who has to talk with her hands, and wants to know everything that is going on. Basically, she is the perfect person for me. She rarely takes no for an answer (she ran the Chicago Marathon), and she is always challenging us to do more and be better people.

Marty as told by Lynn
Marty and I met the first day of culinary school and I liked him right away. He has a great sense of humor and everyone that meets Marty immediately likes him. Marty is incredible smart, warm, and caring. He is the fixer in the family. He loves to learn how things work and can fix just about anything once he reads about it or researches it. Marty has a deep sense of family and absolutely loves being a dad! We vacation with our families a lot and there is so much love and laughter on all sides! We have a great time cooking and having long conversations all during dinner and long into the night. Marty has become my best friend and biggest cheerleader. Marty does everything with passion. He is an excellent cook and loves to try new recipes. He can open a refrigerator and just start cooking, and the extended family loves being around when new recipes are tried! Marty has been with the same restaurant group for the last seven years. Two years ago he helped open their second East Coast location in Reston, VA. Marty works hard, rarely complains about anything and always has time for both me and Evan.

History
We meet at culinary school fourteen years ago, and quickly became friends. We started dating a year later, and have been together ever since. After school we moved to Atlanta to start our lives both working in kitchens. We married in June of 2001, and then moved to Chicago in 2002 to be closer to Lynn’s family after her father was diagnosed with lung cancer. The move to Chicago was a good experience for us, and Marty got to know Lynn’s family. Our son, Evan, was born August 2nd 2005, and shortly thereafter Marty was offered an Executive Chef position in Bethesda, Maryland. We moved to Columbia, MD where Marty grew up and his father still lives. We bought our current house three years ago with grandiose plans of remodeling and renovating it, which we have been doing slowly but steadily. Maryland has been a great move for us and we really like being on the East coast, it is easy to visit family in New York, Philadelphia, and North Carolina. Columbia is great community and was recently ranked the second best place to live by Money magazine, the school districts are good and it is nice town with lots to do especially being close to two major cities Baltimore and Washington, DC.

Family and Friends
We are lucky to have a loving, and supportive family. Marty’s parents are divorced, and both are remarried. Marty’s dad and step mom, Rachel, live very close to us and are always willing and able to help us with Evan, Evan loves his regular play dates with them. Marty’s mom and step dad Richard regularly come for visits and for long weekends. Lynn’s parents were married until Lynn’s father passed away shortly before Evan was born. All five grandparents are extremely loving and affectionate with Evan, and almost on a daily basis tell us how much they would love to have more grandchildren. Evan’s uncles and aunts are also very involved with Evan talking to him on the phone and spending time with him whenever we are together; Evan has six cousins, five boys and one girl. Marty’s step brother just had a boy, so everyone is so happy that there is a cousin especially one younger than Evan. Our families believe in the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. As for friends, some are old friends from high school and college. Other friends we have only meet through Evan‘s school. The friends we do have we are very close to. We spend as much time together as possible with our friends- meeting for vacations, holidays, and almost any excuse we can come up with. They are all devoted parents, with similar values and respect for family.

Evan
Where to begin? When Evan was born we called him Evan from Heaven. He is truly a gift! We love being parents and absolutely adore him. From the moment Evan was born, it has been such a wonderful journey. We loved when he was a baby, when he was an infant, and now Evan is five years old, and thinks he runs the house. Each stage has been a learning experience that keeps getting better and better. He is a delightful child who loves to laugh and is very caring and sensitive to others. Evan loves to talk especially when he is comfortable and knows people around him. He enjoys having play dates with his friends and loves going to see family. Evan does a lot of things with us and is well behaved. The joke with Marty’s side of the family is that Evan is king and tends to get his way with his grandparents. With all of Evan’s older cousins, Evan is often the one leading the pack on what to do and whose turn it is next! Evan just started kindergarten this year, he is a little small for his age, but he is very bright. He loves to read and is also very good with numbers. He loves Legos, games of any sort, reading, and driving his electric jeep around our yard. He is full of energy, and when we pick him up after school the teachers always tell us how he goes nonstop. He has been taking swimming lessons for the last year and can swim the length of the pool by himself, and loves to jump off the diving board. We have talked to Evan about being an older brother, and he is very excited. He often asks if it’s a boy can they share a room, so he doesn’t have to sleep by himself. And if it’s a girl can we name her Aubrey because that’s the name of his best friend’s sister. Either way Evan will make a great older brother, he is very caring and affectionate towards his younger cousin, often telling us to keep quiet because baby Sean is sleeping, or how/what to feed him, always knowing what’s best.

Us
We like to keep busy. We both went to culinary school, so we both love to cook. Evan is an adventurous eater and has been exposed to a lot of different foods (the rule in our house is you have to try two bites). We love to entertain and often have family and friends over-we believe the more the merrier. We have hosted Thanksgiving every year for the last twelve years. We usually have between 18 and 24 people over, we invite family, friends and anyone without a place to go. Everyone has fun from the children to the adults. Marty is such a good cook, and Lynn likes to set the table. Evan likes to get his toys and games out to play. We love to try new restaurants and have been fortune to try many great ones. We also love to travel; we took Evan to Italy for two weeks last year, and a week in St Barth three years ago. Also, we usually go to the Outer Banks in North Carolina where Marty’s dad has a house at least once a year, and go to New York and Chicago to visit family as much as possible. There is never a shortage of family vacation spots to go to. We enjoy working on our house-painting, planting in the garden, and small projects. We have been trying our hand at vegetable gardening with mixed results, every year we try and do a little bit more. We currently have a cat, and are contemplating a dog (Marty say yes, Lynn says no). We starting biking this past year, with Evan riding on a third wheel attached to the back of my bike, our community has about 80 miles of bike paths and 150 little playgrounds for kids. Each village has its own pool. Columbia has both indoor and outdoor pools and an indoor ice rink. Evan will probably start soccer with his friends in the spring.

Finally
We now know that one child just isn’t enough and we think adoption is the best way to grow our family. We are very close with our families, and both loved having siblings, and after examining our lives, we know that we have more than enough love for another child. We would like you to know, that we would teach your child about the values and importance of family. We would not let him or her forget were they came from, and their history.

Thank you again for taking the time to read about us. We want you to know that we would love and cherish everyday with any child we are blessed with.

Gratefully
Marty, Lynn and Evan

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