Josh & Brooke
– Arizona –
Ethnic Background
White/Caucasian
Our relationship was a whirlwind from the day we met. It all started on a blind date that was set up by Brooke's older sister. As cliche as it sounds it really was "love at first sight" and we we have been inseparable ever since. We were together almost every day for several months at which point we got engaged. We were married 3 months later. 6 years later, Olivia joined our family, and she is just as excited as we are for us to find her sibling.
After graduating high school Josh spent a year at MCC and then received a call to serve in the Dominican Republic for 2 years as a full-time missionary for the LDS church. It was there that he learned Spanish and fell in love with the culture. After returning from his mission he went back to school to pursue a degree in business with an emphasis in accounting. He now owns his own company and works as a commercial loan broker. The most important thing in the world to Josh is family. He loves to spend as much time with them as possible and would do anything for them.
Brooke was born and raised in Gilbert AZ. She was born the youngest of 5 children. Her favorite memories growing up were taking car trips with her family to visit family in different states. It was on these trips that she learned to love history and nature. Her dad would stop at every historical point along the way, while her mom would have her dad pull the car over and take pictures of the family in beautiful fields of wild flowers. Brooke loves to take pictures of one of her favorite things, nature. After adopting Olivia, Brooke was able to stop working fullt-time to stay home and play with her best little buddy, Olivia. Everyone that meets Brooke instantly loves her, and she is able to brighten up anyone's day.
Our home is a place of refuge from the world. One of our family sayings is "take a deep breath, you are home". We LOVE spending time as a family reading, playing games in the backyard, dance parties and having family movie nights. We live close to our extended family, so our weekends are busy visiting grandparents and cousins. When we have time, we try to have family weekend get a ways and escape to the beach or mountains.
Our nursery is right in between our room and Olivia's room. We have a beautiful crib, decorations, and baby toys ready for our next child.
Kiara (cat) has been with us from the beginning. Brooke has Kiara before marrying Josh. She loves attention from everyone and is a very kind cat.
Milly (dog) has been with us for about 5 years. We got Milly when she was about 10 weeks old. She is shy around new people, but once we gets to know you, she wont leave your side.
We love family, and the more the merrier. Both of us come from combined families with several siblings. Our family is full of different faiths and races. We have siblings that have been adopted, full siblings, half siblings and step siblings and we love each member of our family for who they are. Josh's mom was also adopted, which is what first gave him a love for adoption. We have one daughter, Olivia, who we were able to adopt at birth. We met Olivia's birth parents about 2 months before her birth and have an open adoption with both birth mom and birth dad. Our belief is that we allow Olivia's birth parents to each have their own personal choice of openness until Olivia is able to choose for herself, what level of openness she is comparable with.
We love to make new little traditions as a family. Some of them we have been doing for years, and some are just fun little things that we do together. An example of a simple but fun tradition we have is "Flapjacks, ladders back." When Josh is done putting up the Christmas lights at Christmas time he comes in the house and yells, "Flapjaaaaacks, ladders back!" and then puts the ladder back and we go as a family to get a pancake breakfast. We have may other "traditions" like this that we love doing as a family, and look forward to continuing to add more as our family grows.