Amanda & Brian In California

We first met in 2004 at the gym where Amanda worked. We got to know each other, but only wanted to be friends at that time. We eventually went our separate ways. About six years later, we reconnected through social media. At the time, Amanda was finishing college in Fresno, CA while Brian still lived in Manteca but commuted to the Bay Area for work. We dated long distance for about a year then after Amanda graduated college, moved in together and got married in 2016.

Brian has worked in technology for 14 years and is currently a Vice President at a Fortune 50 company. The first six years of Brian's career, he commuted two hours each way to work. He then got a promotion and was able to work from home. While Brian is driven in his career, he prioritizes a good work/home life balance. He enjoys cooking for his family, taking our boys to the park or in the backyard on his lunch break and on the weekends we try to plan family outings like going to the aquarium.

Amanda is currently a stay-at-home mom, but before having children she was an Instructional Assistant in a Special Education classroom. The children she worked with were autistic kids ages 3-5 years old. It wasn't an easy job, but very rewarding. She went to Fresno State University and graduated with a degree in Sociology. Amanda is a huge Disney fan and has converted Brian into one too. We try to take the boys to Disneyland at least once a year, but if it was up to Amanda we would go way more. When Amanda has free time, she enjoys reading, crafting and shopping on Amazon.

We have 2 boys in our family. Owen (4) is the model big brother and Ashton (2) is the traditional little brother. These boys will make great big brothers, loving and protective. Our friends have a little girl who is between our boys age and when she comes over she is the princess. There is nothing they won't do. Let her take their favorite toys that they don't share even with each other. They bring her snacks, juice boxes and chocolate milk even if she doesn't ask. We can't wait to see how they are when the princess is their sister. We have a feeling spoiling will be the norm!

We live in a new development on the boarder of our town and the one next to us. We had our house built 5 years ago and moved in right before Thanksgiving. We created an amazing backyard for our boys. Over the years we have added a playset, (the playgrounds around us were closed during COVID so we had our own put in), a trampoline, a blowup waterslide for the summer and a fire pit. Brian has always wanted an outdoor kitchen so we had one built last summer, which includes a grill, drink trough and a pizza oven. We also have some fruit trees growing in the backyard.

We have some really nice neighbors and a handful of them have kids our boys' ages. We try to get together with them as often as we can. There is a park down the street from our house so sometimes we meet there for playdates or meet at someone's house.

Our community is very diverse and welcoming. It really is a small town feel with city amenities. We have a few sports complex, water park, local sports teams and any type of restaurant you could think of close by. We enjoy getting out in our town or ones close by many times per week. Our neighborhood has all types of races, religions and creeds and we all get along very well together.

Both Brian and Amanda have small families, but we get together often. Brian's family lives about 10 minutes away and comes over at least once a week for dinner. Amanda's family lives in Southern California, about a 7 hour drive. They come up to visit about every other month. Everyone comes together for Christmas at our house to watch the boys open presents. Amanda believes the holiday season starts October 1st, around the time Starbucks starts selling Pumpkin Spice drinks! She is relentless about decorating and has made a wreath for every holiday. Brian has started a war with Amanda's mom and every Christmas they try to out gag gift each other. It's pretty interesting and funny to see what they come up with!

We enjoy traveling a great deal, whether that is going down to Amanda’s mom’s beach house in Southern California, Disneyland or other countries. Before we had kids, we went on a couple of cruises, one to Alaska and another to the Greek Isles. Now we tend to travel to places that are more family friendly. Our newest location we have plans to go to is Disney’s Aulani resort in Hawaii. We do one big vacation a year but we enjoy little weekend trips too. Our weekend trips often include family and/or friends. We stick close to home by going to the mountains or the beach. Some days we just go for a “Sunday” drive. We load the family up in Amanda's school bus (she drives a Yukon XL), head out and drive until we are tired of driving, and stop and get something eat at a new place.

Our family also enjoys sports. Brian played soccer for 15 years and just last year, he got to start his coaching career passing on the skills he learned to our oldest son. We believe the discipline and life lessons that youth sports instill in kids is very beneficial to their future. Amanda played softball for many years and is looking forward to passing her skills on to our future daughter. Besides playing sports, we enjoy watching them as well. Whether that is a surprise trip to a Sharks Hockey game in a sky box (perk Brian gets from work occasionally) to going to MLB games. We also host watch parties at the house often with our friends and family. If there is a big game or a rival game amongst our team (Brian’s teams are better) you can bet Brian has fired up his woodier pizza oven and invited the neighborhood over to watch. These are great times for our family as the kids get all their friends over to the house and the parents get some adult time too. The kids are a bit young to watch the entire game so they all tend to rush to the backyard and play on the trampoline, play set with swings and slides, or if it is warm enough the water slide in the backyard.

Our friends are a big part of our lives. We travel together, get together for special events (any day ending in Y is special so it happens often) or swim parties. Our yard fills up quickly with all sorts of kids and adults young and old. Kids have one part of the yard with anything a kid could want, like 12 foot trampoline, 25 foot play set (2 slides 5 footer and a 8 foot tube slide, a bridge, 3 swings, picnic table & rock wall), and an 8 foot tall blow up water slide with pool. The adults have a much smaller part of the yard that oversees the kid area with an outdoor kitchen (wood fire pizza oven, BBQ and drinks galore) and a fire pit that gets used almost nightly in the warm parts of the year. The kids always tend to migrate to the fire pit when the Smores stuff comes out. It is safe to say that our house will have at least 1 visitor a day every day of the week. Brian will try and feed them if they are hungry or not (must be the Portuguese in him). Amanda will try and wrap them into our next day trip.

Adoption was something we have always wanted to do. We have two boys and now we are wanting to add a little girl to our family.