Amanda & Dylan In Washington

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As a couple, we have been together for 4 years and married for 3 years. We met while we were both working at a hospital in Salem, Oregon and immediately realized we had a lot of common interests. We quickly became more than just friends and got engaged in August of 2018. We were married in June of 2019 at a beautiful golf course surrounded by a small group of family and friends.

Amanda is a nurse and has been in the field for 5 years. She currently works at a hospital in Portland. Dylan is currently in nursing school where she is earning her RN degree, but is also working as a certified nursing assistant in a hospital here in Vancouver. As a family, we enjoy several outdoor activities, like our annual camping trip with Amanda's parents and day hiking and kayaking on our favorite lake, Lacamas. We also enjoy quiet days at home, watching movies and taking our foster kids to the local park in our neighborhood. On some of our more adventurous days, we go antiquing, looking for items to get family members or add to our Disney collection for our foster kids.

We have been licensed foster parents since October of 2021. The maximum number of children we are licensed for in our home is 2 kids age 0-5 years old. We have had multiple newborn placements and have also had a child up to 15 months old. It has been very rewarding for us to watch these kids grow in a healthy, loving home, but we still want a child that we can call our own and watch grow through all the stages of childhood.

We bought our first home in March of 2021, after spending several months searching and saving up. We live in an older neighborhood that is very family-friendly with a park that is within walking distance from our house. Or home is on a ¼ acre lot with a large, fenced backyard. Our neighbors are very friendly and we often have cookouts together during the summer. There is also an elementary school and middle school within 2 miles of our house.

Our house was built in the 1970's. It is roughly 2,000 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. We have a large living room and kitchen. We have 2 wood burning fireplaces and a large deck that looks out over our backyard. We have a nursery set up that is gender neutral that we currently use for our foster children, but we also have a guest bedroom that will transition into a kid's room down the road. Our home has many windows that let in a lot of natural light, as well as several skylights that make our house very warm and inviting.

Dylan was born and raised in California and moved to Oregon when she was 12 years old. Her parents were divorced when she was 8 years old. Dylan has one younger brother named Derek who she was very close to in childhood. When her parents divorced and her mom moved them to Oregon, she lost connection with her father and went without communication with him until she was 23. Currently, Dylan is very close with her dad. Both of Dylan’s parents are dating new partners and we have spent the last couple years getting to know them.

Amanda was born and raised in the pacific northwest. She was born in Bremerton, WA and lived there the first 4 years of life. At 5 years old Amanda, her parents, and younger sister all moved to Puyallup, WA. Amanda’s parents divorced when she was 16 and both of her parents have been remarried for several years. After finishing high school in 2012, she moved to Newberg, OR for college and did 4 years of nursing school. After graduating from nursing school in 2016, Amanda then stayed in the Salem area for a few years where she got her first nursing job and met Dylan. We lived in Salem for a few years then decided to move closer to Amanda’s family and settled and bought a house in Vancouver, WA. Amanda also has a younger sister who has 3 kids of her own and lives in Wyoming.

Holiday and family traditions in our home are very similar to the traditional American culture. We celebrate Christmas every year by hosting a family dinner in our home with family members from both our families. Dylan does all the cooking for Christmas dinner and loves to spend time in the kitchen with whichever family members are willing to help out. Dylan’s favorite holiday is Halloween and we have been going to our favorite pumpkin patch to celebrate fall and Halloween. We have made it a family tradition to dress up and pass out candy to all the neighborhood kids with Halloween music playing in the background.

As a family, we enjoy many different outdoor activities. Every summer we go on a week camping trip with Amanda’s dad. Every year we go to a new place in the Pacific Northwest. Last year we were in the Olympic Peninsula camping at different national parks. We also enjoy going for day hikes. We have explored many areas close to our home and have even gone hiking as far south as Corvallis, Oregon. We purchased kayak’s a few summers ago and have made many trips to our favorite lake, Lacamas Lake, only a short drive from our house. Sometimes we even take our small dogs out on the kayaks with us.

We decided to grow our family through adoption after several failed rounds of fertility treatments. We both have a strong passion for helping a child grow in a healthy and loving home and believe we have a lot of love and support to offer. We decided to become foster parents while waiting for a domestic infant adoption because we wanted to give vulnerable children a stable, long-term and loving home.