Hi! We are Andrea and Joe along with our bonus daughter, Zen from San Francisco, CA. We’re so excited to meet you, and appreciate you taking time to look at our profile.

We’re both educators who absolutely love what we do because it gives us the opportunity to change children’s lives! Three years ago, one of Joe’s students was in danger of homelessness, so we invited her into our family. Now, our bonus daughter Zen is a sophomore in college! Presently, we share our home in the SF Bay Area with our three rescue dogs: Cordell, Sutter and Timmy. We travel frequently and love to make art when we do. Just last summer we made mosaics in Rome, and marbleized paper in Istanbul! We are inspired by your courage, and can’t wait to learn more about you!

We have always dreamt of expanding our family through adoption. When Andrea was eight years old, she imagined herself adopting. Her plan was to be the “best mom ever” and provide a $10 a day candy allowance. LOL! Her parenting goals may have changed a bit since then…still try to be an awesome mom, but…maybe a slighter lower daily candy budget, right? Once she and Joe started talking, it turned out he had always dreamt of adopting too! What are the chances? Joe’s mom and aunt are adopted, just like Andrea’s cousin Scot. Adoption is already a part of our family’s story.

We met on eHarmony in 2016, and had our first date in San Francisco. Coffee turned into dinner. Dinner turned into looking for the Mrs. Doubtfire House and the Full House House, which we found – along with some tiramisu in Little Italy. We ended up talking until 2:00 am. We got engaged about a year later as we were walking across the Ponte Vecchio in Rome at sunset. I had started tearing up because for some reason I felt my mom’s presence surrounding me right at that moment. (She had passed away in 2013.) When I turned around, Joe was on one knee. We got married nine months later at this cool ranch place with games and mini golf and panning for gold. It was important to us that our wedding be kid friendly and inclusive. And…that’s that. We love each other more today than we did yesterday, and so on, and so on as they say.

Hi, my name is Joe. I’m a fun-loving guy, who enjoys traveling, making art and learning about history. I’m also a die hard 49ers fan who grew up watching games with my dad. He instilled a sense of fan loyalty that is still with me today. I can’t wait to take our future child to Niners games!

Other than the Niners, my other major passion is teaching. Originally, I struggled in school because I had an undiagnosed learning disability. Even still, I loved learning, and went back to college at 35 to become a teacher. My own experience with learning differences makes me that much more aware of my students’ potential challenges. I’m also uniquely positioned to be understanding whenever my future child struggles. I don’t pretend to know all the answers, but I love learning something new because I can turn around and teach that to my students. In a way, I see fatherhood like I do teaching. As a father, I will teach my son or daughter to trust themselves and try new things, and then watch them take on the world with a new found sense of understanding and knowledge.

Joe really is that stand-up guy who treats not only me, but everyone around him with care and respect. I remember once when Zen was having a really rough day and was on the brink of tears, he said to her, “Let’s take a drive.” The two of them drove to the top of our local mountain – Mt. Diablo – looked at the view and got some perspective on life. He’s that kind of guy who will genuinely be there for people. In many ways, I feel like Joe taught me the true meaning of love. He’s great with little kids too! When we were in Switzerland visiting my friend Karen, her three-year-old daughter Winona fell in love with Joe and always wanted to play with him. He’s so gentle with little kids and really gets down on their level. I believe that comes from working at his mom’s daycare for several years. Also, he’s so that dad-dad, ya know? Like the one you see on TV, having the talk that always concludes with the moral of the story. I feel lucky to have found him, and confident that he’ll make such a great dad for our future child!

Hi! I’m Andrea. I’m a quirky, artistic, fun-loving weirdo! I jump in every puddle and would rescue every stray dog if I could. I’m...I don’t know...resilient, able to see the good in any person or any situation, no matter how bleak.

I love languages, and can speak Spanish, some Italian, French, American Sign Language, can count in Hebrew, and swear like a sailor in Polish.

What else? I absolutely love to travel! I’ve been to 49 states, and 40 different countries on six different continents. I’m fascinated by diverse cultures, and love learning about them - actually, that was my major at UC Davis...International Relations. Oh! And I’m an educator too! I run a tutoring company called Learning: Empowered! I love working one-on-one with students because that’s how I am able to make an impact. As a mother, I’ll teach our future child how to be confident, love themselves, laugh at themselves, and find joy in life, even when it’s hard to.

Andrea has a heart of gold. On our first date, I was shocked when she gave a homeless man $20 and amazed at other times when she was ready to give the jacket off of her back to homeless people who looked cold. Andrea thinks of others before herself and is always there to give a helping hand to anyone in need. When I first met her, I was working a job I didn’t like and the dream of being a teacher seemed out of reach. She was right there, ready to support me on my journey back to school. I tell people I would not be who I am today without her and I mean every word of it. She was the one who gave me words of encouragement and brought me energy drinks every time I had to stay up late and cram for a test. She was the one who let me know that I could do it. Seriously, when I say Andrea is the kindest, most loving person I have ever met, I mean every word. Andrea is also extremely intelligent and creative. Her way with children around arts and crafts is so inspiring. She brings the love of creating and art out in those around her. I am in awe of my wife Andrea.

Does Disneyland count as a hobby? Just kidding…sort of! Lately, we’ve been going to Disneyland a few times a year - ever since Andrea got a Magic Key Pass. We love it there and can’t wait to take our future child! This past Thanksgiving, Joe’s aunt paid for the whole family to stay at the Grand Californian Hotel and spend three days in the parks! It was incredible, and so awesome to spend that time with our two-year-old niece, Grace; and our (almost) five-year-old and (almost) seven-year-old nephews, Dante and Devin!

Holidays are huge for us! For Halloween every year, our house is decked out! We have separate areas of the yard, like: Hannibal Lecter’s Dinner Table, the sculpture garden with sculptures that move and howl, a zombie graveyard, and a cute little pumpkin patch with free pumpkins for the younger ones. Then for Christmas, we transform it into one of the best light displays in the neighborhood! Unless you accidentally scare yourself with your Halloween decorations or your home doesn’t look like a neon flamingo threw up on it for Christmas - your decorations are not done! Ha ha!

We’ve also started a garden in front. Pumpkins and corn for Halloween. Tulips and daffodils for springtime, wildflowers and veggies for the summertime!

We live in a two story, three-bedroom, three-bath house in Lafayette, California. We’re located about 20 minutes outside of Berkeley, and a 45-minute drive to San Francisco and the ocean, assuming there is no traffic. Andrea and I are both born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. We love that everything is so close! World class cities, beaches, mountains, even Disneyland is just a six-hour drive away! What’s cool about where we live is that it has that small town feel, even though it’s in the middle of everything. The first few times I drove to Andrea’s house when we were dating, I felt like I was going camping because there were so many trees around. There’s a ton of trees on our property. We live on a third of an acre, so we have a good-sized yard. There are also plenty of kid-friendly activities in the area – tons of children’s museums and activity centers, even one you can walk to from our house called the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. We live near some of the better public and private schools in the area, as well as the state. As educators ourselves, we’ll definitely find the right space for our future child.

We just purchased a small cottage on the Mendocino Coast. We’re planning to fix it up and use it as a vacation home for us since we love going up the coast and do so a few times a year. The cottage is right near the village of Mendocino, nestled back in the redwoods and just short drive from the beach. We can’t wait to spend long weekends there and summer vacations there with our future child as well as our dogs - Cordell, Sutter and Timmy.

Zen became an exciting and unexpected addition to our family in 2022 at the age of 19. Joe was Zen’s student teacher and one day she came in crying, because her family was moving back to Pakistan and she didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay here and attend college. Zen was looking into resources for homeless youth, so we offered for her to live at our house instead. What we thought was just helping a girl bridge the gap between high school and college turned into a new family.

We have dogs…three of them. We started out with Captain Cordell di Ferdinand von Sparkly Pants whom we adopted from Texas. He had been abandoned. After that we foster failed Sergeant Sutter Butter. Then Andrea casually suggested we pick up Trooper Timothy Chimichanga Buttercakes Jr. at the dog shelter on the drive back from Disneyland. We love our dogs! They’re a part of our family. We’re certain they’ll bring a lot of joy, laughter and fun to our future child.

We both grew up in families with loving parents who managed to stay together. Andrea’s parents were together for 50 years before they passed away in 2013 and 2021, and we have a family trip planned to celebrate Joe’s parents being together for 45 years! Family is super important to both of us since we grew up with large extended families. While Joe is close with his two sisters, as an only child Andrea views several cousins almost like siblings since they grew up spending so much time together. We’ve also learned that family isn’t created by blood, but through love. Joe’s mom and aunt are both adopted, as is Andrea’s cousin Scott.

We are lucky to be able to count many friends as family as well. Joe has always been close with his goddaughter, Margie, who just turned twelve. And we spend so much time with Andrea’s friends that their daughters, Marcie and Kaliyah, asked if we were their aunt and uncle, despite our different ethnicities and skin colors. And the answer to that is yes, yes we are! Our friend and family group is very diverse, and that’s definitely something we value and find important.

We are super excited to have the opportunity to be parents for our future child! As parents, we see it as our responsibility to unconditionally love our children first and foremost, nurture their dreams and ambitions, and provide enough structure so they’re ready for the next phase of their lives. As educators, we both understand the need to meet kids where they are, whether that’s an encouraging word to go for their goals, a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen to their problems. We can’t wait to share the world with them, from traveling to different states and countries, to learning about diverse cultures, to making art or playing sports or whatever it is that they most enjoy! While we can’t anticipate every moment of their childhood, we do know that there will be 49ers games and trips to Disneyland in their future. We will do our very best to ensure they always feel loved and develop the confidence to be their authentic selves in life.

Thank you so much for reading this far and considering us! We can never truly understand what you must be going through, and how difficult a decision this must be. We are in awe of your selflessness and bravery.

We promise to support you through this process. Please know that our future child will always know unconditional love. They’ll grow up surrounded by a large extended family with cousins ready to play with them and become best buds. They’ll receive an amazing education as well as opportunities to grow outside the classroom through art, music and sports. They will be taught about who you are, and what great courage and love it took to do what you’re doing. We wish you the best on this journey, and our hearts are with you.