Names: Thomas, Erin and Jacob

We have been married since November 2005, and we welcomed Jacob into our family in September 2009. We are committed to one another and we look forward to expanding our family. We work hard to have a family relationship founded on unconditional love, respect, communication, and concern for one another.

Before Jacob showed up, Erin worked with lots of people (college students, actually) as an academic advisor at a nearby university. Now, she is a full-time mom for a happy, active 11-month old (Jacob, of course). Thomas works with few people but many robots (unmanned vehicles) as a communications and marketing manager with a start-up technology company. Jacob is happy, active and discovering life. As Annie Dillard said: “An infant [Jacob] who has just learned to hold his head up has a frank and forthright way of gazing about him in bewilderment. He hasn’t the faintest clue where he is, and he aims to learn. … [His] intent … is to explore the neighborhood, view the landscape, to discover … where it is that [he] has been so startlingly set down.”

We love fun family traditions, especially ones connected to holidays. For example, every Halloween our family gets together for a spooky dinner. Everyone brings something creepy to share. We also go with our family every year to look at Christmas lights, go to a local 4th of July parade and have birthday and themed parties. There is always a reason to celebrate and enjoy time with family. We want our children to enjoy fun traditions and have the opportunity to know their extended family.

We both love music. Thomas is the family D.J. He is always looking for great songs to add to our collection and can recognize even the most random songs and groups from all genres and eras. Erin plays the piano and Thomas plays the guitar.

Education is important to us. We both have bachelor degrees and Erin has a graduate degree. We want to share a love of learning with our children and give them every opportunity for education and to become life-long learners. We also love to travel and enjoy seeing new places together. A business trip is always a good reason to take a few days off for fun.

We love the outdoors. Erin grew up in Texas (= heat!) swimming every day of the summer both in pools and on the lake waterskiing. As a teenager, Thomas worked every summer at a Boy Scout camp where he taught merit badges and took groups of scouts backpacking, hiking, and rappelling. We take any chance we can get to go hiking, camping, backpacking or anything else outdoors. Erin had actually never been backpacking before we got married, but she quickly picked it up and now is a seasoned backpacker. Although our lives are both really busy we like to sneak away together for some outdoor time when we get a chance. Other things we love to do together include playing games, exercising, hanging out with friends, and going to plays and exhibits. Do you see a trend? We really love to do anything together.