We first met 12 years ago while living in Ecuador to study Spanish and Biology. While we became friends in Ecuador, we actually fell in love 3 years later in New York City. Believe it or not, two random kids from the Midwest, who met in Ecuador, were lucky enough to randomly run into each other on the street in a city of 7 million people.
We moved to Chicago in 2012 when Lara started work as a cancer genetic counselor and Sean as a high school science teacher. A few years later we got married and have been building our life together here in our favorite city, Chicago, ever since.
We were incredibly grateful when our family grew with the adoption of our energetic and curious daughter Maya Tyanna early in 2020. Being parents has been one of the most rewarding and meaningful parts of our lives and we are looking forward to continuing our parenting journey through adoption.
During our free time as a family, we love to bike the city, adventure to new restaurants looking for international food we've never tried, be outside as much as possible, and spend lots of quality time with Maya and our friends and family.
Sean
I grew up in a small town in Michigan, where my family and I spend most of our time outdoors hiking, biking, canoeing, and playing sports. These activities are still very important to me and I now get to bring along Lara and Maya to share in these outdoor adventures.
For the past 13 years, I have taught biology, chemistry and computer coding and have coached basketball, gardening and running club in NYC and Chicago. While every day as a teacher brings challenges, I love pushing my students to appreciate the learning process and achieve as much as they can in their education.
Lara
I was born in Dallas-Texas, grew up in small town MN, went to college in Madison,-Wisconsin/Ecuador and became an adult in NYC and Chicago. So I have been lucky enough to have had many homes, families, and communities over my lifetime. I believe that my experiences in each of these places filled my life with many diverse situations and different kinds of people allowing me to develop my core passions for travel, community, human and gender equality, and equal education for all children.
I currently work as a genetic counselor at a public hospital in Chicago, helping patients who have cancer in their family get extra checkups. In my free time I love to read, especially silly books like 'Dragons Love Tacos' with Maya and our nieces and nephews, run/hike/bike, travel with my sisters and Sean, and watch the sun set at our lake cabin with my family.
Maya Tyanna
Maya Tyanna came into our lives in February of 2020 and while Covid made it a tough year, she has been our shining star. She is adventurous, spunky, and giggles like its her job. She loves exploring and examining her surroundings, being outside, bike riding, and dogs. She taught herself to walk at 10 months and has been zooming around learning and playing with everything she can get her hands on ever since.
Maya Tyanna already loves spending as much time as she can with other kids, especially her cousins and friends at daycare. She shares toys with them and teaches them her favorite things like running, picking raspberries, and collection items from nature.
What we hope to share with our Children
We believe that children need a supportive and diverse community like our Chicago neighborhood in order to thrive and learn about the grand diversity in the world and their own cultural background. We recognize that Maya Tyanna and any future children of color that join our family will face challenges that we have not. However, we can ensure that Maya and her future siblings live a life of experiences that celebrates their identities while preparing them for the realities of the world we all live in. We commit to surrounding our children with as much diversity as possible to help give them the support and the resources they will need to understand and develop who they are.
We plan to share with our children our values of hard work, compassion, fighting for equality, and closeness of family.
We are invested in working to build an open relationship between families to help our child know who they are and where they came from. We are open to exchanging photos and updates, keeping in touch through phone, email, and visits.
Thank you
We appreciate you taking time to learn about us, our community, and our hopes and dreams for our future family. More than anything, we want you to know that we will love your child unconditionally and will devote our lives to providing him or her with all the love, security and joy we can offer. We want your child to always know where he or she came from. We plan to raise our children with an understanding and appreciation for you and the decisions you are making for him or her. This child will be loved beyond words by us, by our families, by our friends, and he or she will always know the great love you have for him or her as well. Thank you again for considering us.
