September was full of Andy performing in the musical, Little Women (based on the novel) with The Arlington Players.  We were so happy to be able to have his mom come visit and see the performance.  She said it was like when she used to attend his shows when he was a kid.  Both of our parents were so awesome at supporting us in our activities, attending performances and games, and volunteering when the need arose.  We are excited to be able to do the same for the child we adopt, and we hope it will be possible to share those experiences with the child's birth family!

We had such a nice time over Labor Day Weekend at a local park!  We were able to get together with the family who fostered our new puppy Cady.  They have three elementary age girls, and Cady was so excited to see them again!  They played, gave bellyrubs, and we all went on a nice long walk on one of the park trails.  (Faces in the photos are blurred to respect their privacy.)

We're taking advantage of the summer break to bring in a new member to our family!  This is Cady, and she loves both kids and other dogs.  (Perfect for us!)  We're spending our days training her and helping her adjust to her new home!

We are both teachers, and we take full advantage of the summer break that comes with that.  We have lots of things we like to do, but our favorite activities always seem to involve our back yard and deck.  Though it's not quite summer yet, we've gotten a jump on things during the weekend!  Here's a picture of Andy grilling a yummy flank steak (it was so good!) and Jess reading her current book (The RIde of Kyoski).

We had so much fun celebrating Memorial Day with our friends and their son.  We barbequed, swam, played games, and enjoyed the beautiful weather of the weekend!  Here's an adorable photo of Andy playing with our friend and his son in the turtle sandbox out back.  Andy had the same one when he was little!

With permission from Jess's sister and her husband, we share photos of our new niece!  We love spending time with our nieces and nephew on Andy's side of the family, and now we have a new little one on Jess's side!  We are so excited to meet her and we can't wait for the baby we adopt to get to play and go on vacations with their cousins just like we did growing up.

We thought it would be fun to take a family photo of us and our dogs on Christmas morning by the tree...  Our dogs thought it was time to play!  Oh well, it was a lot of fun anyway!

We love to cook!  We're always looking for new recipes and cuisines to check out, but we also love cooking old favorites and family recipes, especially around the holidays.  Cooking together, for each other, and for family and friends has got to be one of our favorite hobbies, one we look forward to sharing with a child!

October was full of fun celebrations for us!  Andy acted in another local production, this time with NOVA Nightsky Theater Company.  Meanwhile, Jess planned and hosted her sister's baby shower, often thinking about how much fun it will be to plan themed birthday parties for their future child!

We love going to the Maryland Renaissance Festival every year in the late summer and early fall.  We love people watching, playing the different games, and watching all of the different performances!  Jess also has a lot of fun dressing up in costume, and she looks forward to creating fun costumes for our future child!

On a recent trip to Mount Pocono, we went on a nice easy hike and got to take in some breathtaking views!  We read that you can see over 150 miles into the distance.  It was so much fun, and seeing so many families there, we know this will be a place we want to bring our future child to as well!

This summer, Andy was cast as Amos in the City of Fairfax Theatre Company's musical, Big Fish!  We love this community of artists.  They are so welcoming and inclusive, and their summer productions are so family-oriented!  They even shared publicity photos of families who were all participating in the show together.  We cannot wait to introduce the child we adopt to theatre and communities like this one! 

We are both big supporters of civic engagement.  Part of that includes voting in local, state, and national elections, and Andy often volunteers to work at the polls.  Jess remembers going with her parents as a child when they voted, and she looks forward to bringing a child of their own some day.  Hopefully they will still have those "future voter" stickers!

We spent this year's Father's Day at Jess's Uncle Mike's home up in Pennsylvania, getting to celebrate the day honoring her dad, her uncle, and her grandpa.  We wish more of the cousins could make it in person this year, but phone calls and Facetime let everyone catch up anyways.  It was such a nice time with family, and a great way to start our summer break from school!

Our spring break was this first week of April.  Andy's cousin was getting married up in Philadelphia, so we decided to pair that trip with a trip up to New York City to take in some Broadway shows.  We had such a fun time seeing the INCREDIBLE play Fat Ham and the fun new musical Some Like It Hot.  It was extra sweet getting to see so many families at these shows too.  Parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc. with children so excited to see the shows.  Andy's Aunt used to take him and his siblings to see Broadway shows when they were little - they always got to pick the shows they wanted to see - and he has such fond memories.  We can't wait to share trips like this with a child.

Final 2022 wrap-up post: At Christmas, we were able to celebrate Jess's sister and her husband's first time hosting as a married couple!

Continuing our 2022 wrap-up posts: In the fall, we were able to honor Andy's Babci at her 90th birthday by getting the whole family together! 

Continuing our 2022 wrap-up posts: We love going on trips to the mountains, both with friends and as a family with our dogs: hiking and other outdoor activities, campfires, various games, and lots of quality time together.  In August 2022, we went on our annual Poconos trip with friends.  It was so much fun and they surprised us with books and other gifts for the child we adopt!  Here's a photo of all of us on a hike.

This is our first blog post.  We meant to be posting since summer when we started our profile, but blogs aren't really our thing.  We (mostly Jess...) take photos all of the time and share with family and friends, so please don't be worried about or read anything into the lack of blog posts.  To get us started, Andy played Donkey in the City of Fairfax Theatre's summer 2022 production of Shrek The Musical and helped with the lighting, sometimes at the same time, haha!  Whether the child we adopt wants to perform on stage, help backstage on the crew, or just be a supportive audience member, CFTC is a fantastic and welcoming community of theatre artists who we can't wait to introduce to the child we will adopt.  

October has been full of fun!  We spent lots of quality time with each other and our dogs.  We can't believe Cady is 6 months old now!  Here's a silly photo Andy took of she and him.  Jess took a short trip to Richmond to present workshops on student-centered theatre classes at the Virginia Theatre Association (VTA) conference.  We also made our annual trip to the Maryland Renaissance Festival, this year spending the day with our friends and their son.  It was awesome getting to see him experience the festival for the first time!