Hi! We're Katie and Michael. Thank you for taking the time to read our profile.

We met on a cold winter night at a cozy restaurant bar in 2017. Michael was by himself for a quick dinner after skiing. Katie took the last seat at the bar, which happened to be next to Michael, and we exchanged a brief conversation. The more we spoke, the more we realized we had a lot in common. Katie's good friend arrived, and we all had a friendly conversation. Meanwhile, Michael was trying to figure out whether or not the friend was Katie's boyfriend. The friend kept elbowing Katie, encouraging her to talk to the handsome man sitting next to her. After a while, Michael asked Katie for her number, and they had their first date shortly after.

One year after they started dating, Michael proposed to Katie at the top of a hike in Estes Park, CO. He hid a bottle of champagne in his backpack, which was a great way to celebrate our engagement. We were married at a wonderful world heritage site church, St Catherine's Chapel on the Rock, near Estes Park, in August 2018. Our wedding was small and intimate with just our immediate family - and it was perfect for us.

After years of trying to conceive a baby without success, we started talking about adoption. We know friends and family members who have adopted, and although everyone's journey is different, each is heartwarming. We would very much like to have children and believe adoption is a beautiful answer to our dream of becoming parents.

Michael grew up in Brooklyn and spent most of his life in New York City. NYC culture was a significant part of Michael's upbringing and has shaped who he is today. He was exposed to a variety of cultures, foods, and curse words (which he tries not to use). He worked briefly in the film industry and loves movies, including some obscure foreign films. He looks forward to introducing a child to a variety of films.

Michael wanted a change of pace from his NYC lifestyle and accepted a job in Colorado in November 2016. He has a Master's in Historic Preservation and an appreciation for old building design and architecture. He currently works for a museum in Denver, so going to museums is in the child's future. Michael shops at our local farmer's markets on the weekend and does most of the cooking for us. His speciality is baking fruit pies, and he plans to spend a lot of time baking and cooking with a child.

Katie has a degree in chemical engineering and has worked in sales for an energy company since graduating from college. Her profession suits her as she's an ambitious people person and considers herself lucky to work from home. Her philosophy on life is "work to live," and she is so excited to take a one-year leave of absence from work to spend precious time focused on the baby.

Katie has a knack for organizing and decorating, and she's thrilled to create a nursery for the baby! She is very nurturing and loves cultivating the outdoor garden and watching our indoor plants flourish. Katie has combined her love of reading and socializing by leading a book club, which meets monthly for dinner and discussion. We believe reading to children is very important, and she looks forward to reading nightly with a child.

We are grateful to live in a vibrant downtown neighborhood. Our home was built in 1904 in the Denver Square style. Since Michael has a keen interest in historic homes and Katie leans toward modern, it took us a year to find the home we both love. It's a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom historic home with a lot of colorful, funky, modern interior elements, including Star Trek wallpaper in the half bathroom. We have a big backyard where we love to host outdoor summer parties.

We are city people and are conveniently located within walking distance of restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, church, a beautiful park, and the botanic gardens. We live on a quiet street with great neighbors. The honorary mayor of our block watches over the neighborhood, is incredibly friendly, and (with our permission) planted a peach tree in our yard - the tree is thriving! Our next-door neighbors have two little ones (five and two), and we've really enjoyed watching them grow up and hit milestones. We love our neighbors and neighborhood!

We are grateful to have close-knit families, and both sets of parents have been married for almost 50 years! Even though our families live in different states, we enjoy visiting each other and vacationing together.

Katie texts with her family every morning, and they duel in a mostly friendly - and a little competitive - Wordle contest. She has one brother, and while they did not get along growing up, mainly because they're so close in age, their relationship blossomed when they attended college together, and they have been very close ever since.

Michael's grandparents emigrated to the United States from Austria and Lebanon. His grandmother and great-aunt lived with the family, and they helped raise Michael and his two siblings while his parents worked. He even picked up their Austrian accent and was mistaken for a foreign exchange student in elementary school!

Michael's parents have one grandchild and love to spoil him with plenty of presents, especially at Christmas! The child we adopt will be the first grandchild of Katie's parents. Our parents plan to visit often to bond with the baby. We have a basement apartment that we'll use as a guest space for our parents, and I'm sure we will appreciate the additional help with the baby!

In addition to family, Katie has a strong group of girlfriends who support each other and are excited to welcome the baby.

We enjoy spending time together and have a lot of the same interests. That said, we also have our respective hobbies. Katie will often bike to yoga, and Michael plays in a recreational ice hockey league. Together, we hike almost every weekend to enjoy fresh air, to be challenged, and to see nature's beauty. We have no plans to leave the beautiful state of Colorado.

As a tradition, every year, we celebrate Christmas in two cities so that both our moms get a Christmas dinner with us. We travel to NYC first to see Michael's family for their Christmas Eve family party, which is usually dinner with 20 family members! Then, we fly on Christmas Day to Tulsa to spend Christmas dinner with Katie's parents.

For Thanksgiving, we host Katie's family in Denver and have the traditional turkey dinner down to a science. We always invite local friends who aren't traveling home for the holiday to join us.

And finally, we always visit Long Island for the Fourth of July to visit Michael's family and enjoy fireworks and the beach! We put a lot of effort into getting together regularly with family and do not take time spent with them for granted.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read our profile. We tried to provide information about ourselves and insight into our personalities, but also provide you with an idea of how we will raise a future child. We feel that Michael's exposure to a variety of cultures growing up in Brooklyn will be beneficial to his understanding and support of the child's culture and background. We are looking forward to doting on the child and encouraging them with words of love.

In this book, we discussed our love of cooking and reading books, and since we're pursuing an open adoption, we'd like to get to know you better. We look forward to building a solid relationship with you. Perhaps there's a special book you want us to read to the child or a favorite food you grew up with that we can learn to make?

We realize you have a lot of things to consider before making your decision. We're happy to provide more information about ourselves if that will help. Thank you so much for your time, and we wish you the best regardless of your decision.