Welcome! Meet:
Craig + Bill
Art Director / Site Data Reliability Engineer
Colorado
Caucasian
Spiritual / Buddhist
All About Craig & Bill
Bill-
I am an eclectic guy who enjoys many different activities. I am a big gamer and enjoy everything from table top, console, & PC content. Additionally, I like to enjoy the outdoors with my husband. We both enjoy long hikes and spending time in nature. I am also “one of those people” who enjoys the snow. My husband and I enjoy snuggling together with a slice of pumpkin cake and a hot cup of tea with cream to watch the snow fall.
In general, I would consider myself to be an introvert and I enjoy having a close knit group of friends. I enjoy spending one-on-one quality time with people just going to have coffee or going to the zoo. As we have aged; this now also includes their children. I truly hope that our children can become friends.
I also consider myself to be a creative personality. I enjoy many hobbies, including but not limited to: Writing, Photography, Film Production, Video Enhancement, Gardening, and other geeky technology things. Something that I share with my Husband is a published comic book series that we both write and otherwise maintain.
Craig-
I am a person that likes planning and scheduling things out in a way that makes sense for a day to day flow. I work freelance and in a flexible role of art director, so I plan things I am working on. I am artistic and creative and I love to share that with people in my life. I try to be funny but most of the time it’s like bad dad jokes for most people.
When children have been in my life, I naturally focus on their needs and spending time with them. So, I know the dad jokes will get old and then I have to move to bad dad puns. I care about the people in my life and I plan to carry that forward to a child of our own. I give the benefit of the doubt more often than I should at times, but I think I have better judgement now.
I am a bit more open when I meet people in a smaller group or one-on-one setting, something I’ve done since childhood. I think this allows me to have the patience to learn what a person or child is like as I bond with them.
Why Adoption?
We had many paths that we looked into before making the decision to go with adoption of a child. It seemed the most logical route for us to go with.
Craig comes from a family that had many members who were not blood related but rather adopted/found. His mother’s parents raised their six children and took care of twelve other teens/children. He learned from an early age that some families are not only found but come into a family for a purpose. When he was a teen, he saw his uncle and aunt adopt his cousin. The two of them helped him understand some parts of the journey with the birth parents and the process. Adoption has been a part of his life in some form all his life.
Family & Home
We live in a well populated area full of shops, theaters and restaurants. We are surrounded by family-friendly parks and fun historical areas. Within our community, we have lakes and gathering places to barbecue and meet our neighbors. We love the hiking trails in our community and also enjoy exploring the other trails near us.
We live in a very safe neighborhood. The area is very diverse and neighborly relationships are important, especially among the young families.
Additionally, our neighborhood schools are quite good. We have also recently learned of many great tutors in the area and are friends with many education professionals.
We both have extended family all over the US and make it a priority to visit often. Bill loves Christmas and Craig is a huge fan of Halloween. We love to make our favorite holidays a big deal and always bring out all the fanfare. For Bill’s family, Christmas has always been a big deal where gifts and greetings are exchanged, although we try to focus on giving new hope and happiness over the importance of presents.
In Craig’s family, Halloween is honored as a time to reflect on family and connect with ancestors. Our future child’s background will be a part of the celebration of ancestry.
Craig’s family has a tradition of big 6 celebrations that we plan to continue with our child. On the 6th birthday, there’s a trip to Disney World, at 12 a stay with the grandparents and at 18 a gift of jewelry. We love this tradition as a way of celebrating milestones.
One other important thing to both sides of the family is travel. Growing up, Bill and Craig traveled a lot and got to see new places and experience new things. Now as adults, we both still enjoy traveling, most often to visit family and friends, but also to explore National Parks and Conventions for our comic together.
In the greater Denver & Northern Colorado area we have many friends and many of those have children themselves. Our friends have been incredibly supportive during this process and most of them look forward to sharing common experiences in raising children. Many of our closer friends are more like family than friends. We are grateful to have these friendships as part of our support system here in Colorado.
Our extended families live in many other states and we visit as many of them as we can quite often. We look forward to having both our mothers separately visit us during the first year to help us in the early days of our becoming parents. Our parents and siblings have supported us since we started this process and they are excited for us to be parents. Our whole support group is so excited to see what the future holds for us and our child.
How others describe me
Bill, according to Craig-
Bill is a very patient and caring person who seems to take on things a little before sharing his needs. He happens to like being silly and shares how he cares for people through that silliness. However, he does put a realistic side to things if they are possible for us to do. He grounds the plans we make to ensure we can achieve them.
When interacting with kids I can picture him making some very silly games that any child will giggle and laugh at. Since he is so patient, he will be able to calm a child down very easily or have a greater amount of mental dexterity until they do.
Craig, according to Bill-
My husband Craig, is a loving and caring person. He is the Extrovert between the two of us and makes friends very easily. Wherever we go, everyone enjoys his company and he can make everyone laugh.
Craig is also very caring. He is always the first one to think of others and make phone calls to see how people are doing. When it comes to the kiddos, Craig is very attentive and on multiple occasions, I have seen Craig caring for children and that was one of the things that clued me into the kind of person he was.
Like me, Craig is also a creative personality. However, he is far more talented when it comes to drawing and creating new and interesting things. He is the main illustrator of our comic and his work brings life to every page. Besides our comics, he is an accomplished artist and has his work shown in multiple galleries.
How We Met
We met through our mutual friend, Blue, who Craig has known since high school and Bill met through other mutual friends. After Craig moved back home, Blue invited Craig to a hangout, which turned out to be a party where Bill and many of their friends were. The party needed some additional supplies and so the group sent Bill and Craig to the store. As they were shopping, they enjoyed the time to get to know each other, and eventually Craig asked Bill to hang out one-on-one. We talked about shared interests in gaming, movies and various pop culture fandoms. For their first Valentine’s Day, Bill rearranged the downstairs of Craig’s house to create a unique day that can never be recreated.
Early on in our relationship, Bill shared with Craig a dream to move away from home. Craig went to visit the place Bill wanted to move to and realized that he was willing to move so as to not leave Bill’s side. We ended up moving across the country together. Since landing in Colorado, we’ve built a home and found a community.
A few years after the move we got married in front of all our friends and family once it was legal. We even made it into the news because the county licensing department contacted us to see if we were interested in changing our civil union paperwork to a marriage license!
Advice to Future Child
Advice from Bill-
Enjoy the beauty in the world. Many times in your life you will find that people will surround you with negativity. Always remember there is beauty to be found all around you if you are willing to see it.
Advice from Craig-
To our future child, you’re going to have a lot of family. My advice: it won’t be easy sometimes having so many people in your life, but I hope you have fun with it. I come from a large extended family that is going to want to make a connection with you. I will not force you to have or maintain them. I hope that you learn skills involving dealing with others. There is so much more but I don’t want to overwhelm you. I will advise as you grow.
Perspectives on Open Adoption
Open adoption seems to be the more standard route for adoption. We believe that this will have to build slowly over time with us and the birthparents. We don’t want to rush thinking that we will instantly hit it off. We want to do things slowly and age appropriately with the children in mind. Open adoption is a communication on how adoptive parents and birth parents can coexist for the child. This is knowing ground rules and communicating when there are changes as we watch a child grow.
Favorites
- Favorite Movie: Halloween movies
- Favorite Holiday/Tradition: Halloween - Traditionally, Halloween for Craig was not just trick or treating and parties. It was also respecting where he came from. We plan to continue this with our family with a present, age appropriate, every Halloween with input from the birth family to help bridge that gap.
- Hobbies/Interests: book binding, watercolor making and painting, drawing/sketching, or exploring crafting, D&D, comics
- Dream Vacation: Go on a 3 month long vacation that starts in Ireland and ends in Italy
- If I Could Choose a Superpower: flight or elemental control
- Favorite Movie: Action-adventure type movies
- Favorite Holiday/Tradition: Christmas - Family getting together and exchanging presents and being together in the holiday season.
- Hobbies/Interests: gaming, computers, writing, gardening, hiking, making, D&D
- Dream Vacation: A week at a spa resort for a relaxing getaway.
- If I Could Choose a Superpower: teleportation
We’re here to help.
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AdoptMatch is an initiative of Ethical Family Building, a nonprofit organization working to safeguard domestic adoptions through education, transparency, and accountability.
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