Raimund & Monja In California

My wife and I were both born and raised in Germany. I lived there for 30 years before I moved to California. Six months before moving to the states we met on Tinder. To be honest, because I was leaving my home country, I was not really looking for a long term relationship. No matter what and against all advice from family and friends, we tried it, and we fell in love right away. We maintained a long distance relationship for 3 years visiting each other every 3-4 months. The distance was not easy, but we fought and believed in our love. To this day, we still love each other like in the beginning. My wife is not just my wife, she is my best friend.

Shortly after moving to California I received a phone call from my stepdad back in Germany about my mother's sudden declining health. I was extremely close to my mother and owe everything to her, so I booked a flight back to Germany the same day to be by her side. She passed away 3 days later. During that difficult time, Monja was there to support me at a moment’s call. She lived about 60-70 miles away from my mother’s place. She would travel every day to work and back to me to be by my side, even though we had only known each other for about 6-7 months. This time brought us extremely close.

For the past seven years, I have worked in a machine shop as a programmer and supervisor. We make parts for the automotive industry, aerospace, electrical connectors, etc. On top of that, I am a share holder of the company. My wife works in quality control and assures the requirements from the customer to a product. Before that she worked in an elderly home.

We live in Huntington Beach, California which is about five minutes away from the beach. We live in a small to mid-size community with about 300 people. We have two pools, a little dog park and a nice courtyard where kids can play safely away from the street. Big parks are in the near neighborhood as well as future nurseries and elementary schools. Since California is very multicultural, there are so many different things to do and experience. Our apartment is very cozy and also has a little front porch, and a little bigger one in the back near our bedroom.

Our family is very unique because my (Raimund) little brother connected my older brother and I. Just to give you a little back history, my parents got divorced before I was born. I was raised by my 2nd dad. I don’t like to call him stepdad because he raised me, and I love him like my real dad. My parents did a good job not fighting over me, so I was able to keep contact with my real dad who moved from Germany to the US in the 80’s. Now we are always getting together on holidays, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. Another great thing about our family is that everybody helps each other and everybody has each other’s back. We love our family so much!

We try to plan a family trip with all of us together every year around New Years. It’s always a blast and a lot of fun when our family gets together. These trips allow us to grow closer together every time.

In our free time, we love to hike and meet friends and family. We also enjoy bike rides along the Pacific ocean when the sun goes down, and from time to time, challenging bike rides. We love to camp by ourselves and sometimes with our friends. A big thing for us is also traveling to see different places and experience different cultures.

We’ve been trying to get pregnant for 4-5 years without any luck. After going to a IVF clinic and after several tests, they only gave us a 10% chance of getting pregnant. Adoption is something we've always discussed, but now we are certain adopting is the way we will grow our family.