Welcome! Meet:
Hexar + Natalie
Engineering Manager, Software Development / Hospital Social Worker
Washington
Caucasian
All About Hexar & Natalie
Hello! We are Natalie and Hexar - and are joined by our son Griffin. Thank you for taking some time to learn about our family. We are excited to be here! We live in northeast Seattle along with our dogs Hazel and Ernie. We started dating in 2014, have been married since 2017, and started growing our family in 2020. Hexar and Natalie found that they both were active, enjoying things like running, hiking, backpacking, camping, and joining friends in things like concerts, and other local activities.
Natalie is originally from Longview, a town in Southwest Washington, but also spent about six years living in Denver in her twenties. Natalie ultimately moved back to Washington to be closer to family, and currently works as a social worker at a hospital covering shifts in the ER and other units in the hospital. Natalie enjoys being able to support people through some of life’s more difficult moments, and believes strongly in the strength and resilience of people. Natalie is open-minded, tries to enjoy the small things in life, and likes spending time finding new or fun activities for the family. She can often be found cooking at home, meeting up with girlfriends, taking solo walks with her earbuds, or accompanying Griffin and the dogs on an outdoor adventure.
Hexar is originally from Fort Collins, Colorado and moved to Seattle after spending his twenties living in Austin, Texas. He is a software engineer and has transitioned to managing a team of software developers in the last couple of years. He enjoys gaming, running, skiing, snowboarding, reading, Spikeball, and other physical activities. He is social, cares about his friends, loves dad life, and enjoys learning Spanish in his spare time.
In 2020, we were blessed with the birth of our son Griffin. He is an active and friendly boy who is full of joy. He loves counting, books, matching pajamas with family, soccer, riding his bike, playing in the sand, and weekends with cousins. He often asks us when he gets to be a big brother, and we know he’ll be so thrilled when this time comes. One of our family traditions is to keep a journal of all the funny things Griffin says, and we plan to continue this tradition with a second child. It’s so fun to look back on the hilarious things kids say!
We enjoy spending many of our summer weekends with extended family at our family lake cabin, where we often drink coffee while taking in the stillness of the morning water, swim, take nature walks, make s’mores, look at the stars, and relax in the sun. We also enjoy sporting events like Seattle Kraken hockey games, meet-ups with friends, and finding fun new activities for the family. Most years we go on a family trip with Natalie’s family to places that have included Tulum, The Hawaiian Islands, Palm Springs, and Arizona.
Why Adoption?
After experiencing a series of losses, we are choosing adoption as a way for us to expand our family. Hexar and Natalie both grew up with siblings and appreciate the significance of having these lifelong bonds. We hope to continue building our own family and for our children to have lives full of opportunities for adventure, joy, love, traditions, and memory making. We hope to form a relationship with a birth family that is welcoming, embraces our differences, and supports connection. We look forward to the new relationships and experiences that can be formed through adoption and believe this will enrich our lives. We want to learn about what is important to a birth family, an adopted child, and how we can best support that.
Family & Home
We currently live in Northeast Seattle in the first home of our own that we purchased in 2021. We have both a front yard and a decent sized back yard for us, kids, and the dogs to play in. We love that our neighborhood is full of friendly neighbors, has quiet streets with ample parking, highly rated schools, and easy access to local parks, playgrounds, good restaurants and business, and nearby friends. Being in the Pacific Northwest, we have great access to the coast, the San Juan Islands, numerous lakes, and mountains to explore in the outdoors.
Hexar and Natalie have a great group of friends in Seattle, some with kids of their own, and enjoy meeting up with them for family friendly activities around the area.
Natalie and Hexar are close with both sides of their family, and enjoy opportunities to get out of Seattle to meet up with family, including grandparents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. Hexar’s family is based out of Colorado, so we try to set aside time to fly there and visit at least once a year or have them visit us up here. We love getting lots of hugs and Colorado sunshine on our trips there and getting time to reconnect. Hexar’s mom Janice is an expert quilter and makes the best blankets and quilted books! Hexar’s dad Doug loves fishing, hunting, and table tennis.
We live close to Natalie’s family and are very close with them. Natalie’s parents, including her mom Maria, stepdad Brian, stepmom Sue, and Dad Bruce, along with stepsibling Joe and Mckenzie, and sister Katie and their partners and kids all live just a couple hours South of Seattle. We love making the short drive away to meet up with them.Natalie’s family has a cabin on Lake Merwin in SW Washington, and we spend a number of our summer weekends there with family, playing in the sun and the water, taking nature walks, and relaxing. Our son Griffin has a lot of young cousins that he gets to play with. We often meet up with Natalie’s family for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, or family birthdays. Both of Natalie’s parents live in the outskirts of town where there is plenty of outdoor space to run around and explore. Natalie’s mom and stepdad recently purchased a second home in Arizona, and we’ve had the opportunity to vacation there with them. In the summer months, they usually spend a couple months traveling around the Puget Sound or San Juan Islands in their boat, and we try to meet up with them there too. Natalie’s dad and stepmom have a condo in Palm Springs where they are able to catch some rays and get a lot of golfing in, and we enjoy visiting them there in the Fall or Spring months.
How others describe me
Hexar is a loving and supportive partner and great dad! He is patient, calm, and even-tempered in times of stress. He is smart and someone that enjoys taking the time to learn about new or interesting topics, and usually has one or two books that he is reading. He is always pursuing one or more ways of staying active or bettering himself, whether that is training for a half marathon, getting back into biking, taking weekly Spanish lessons, journaling, and more. Hexar’s personality and demeanor I know will be an asset to him when it comes time for helping the kiddos out with homework or supporting them in things like sporting activities! Hexar cares deeply about his friendships. While he isn’t the loudest person in the room, he isn’t the quietest either, is social, and likes spending quality time with the people he cares about. He has a great sense of humor and can often be heard sharing the latest dad joke or laughing at silly videos. Hexar is a caring partner and I appreciate that I can always count on him for support and encouragement when I need it, as well as an ability to come together with an open mind and open heart to find common ground when we have different perspectives about things. Hexar is an equal partner in parenting duties like morning routines, dinner time and house cleanup, bedtime routines and more.
Natalie is a kind and loving wife and an amazing mother to our son Griffin. Her work as a behavioral health focused social worker at a hospital is something that has always impressed me, both because of the passion she has for mental health issues, as well as the care and attention she puts into her work to make sure that her patients are provided with the best possible care for their particular situation. Natalie works long shifts, sometimes at odd hours, and I'm always surprised she is able to adapt so easily to her challenging schedule. At home she is always making sure we decorate for the holidays and new seasons, which really makes our house feel like a home and brings joy. She also cooks healthy and delicious meals for the whole family to enjoy quite often. As a mom, she makes sure to find fun things for us to do with Griffin on the weekends so that he has a childhood he can remember fondly. As a wife, she is caring and supportive and an equal partner in everything we decide to do together. She has a fun and adventurous spirit but balances it well with taking care of the real life priorities we've set. She also has a deep and abiding love for her family and we spend as much time with them as we reasonably can given they live about two hours' drive away. Natalie loves spending time with friends, especially her girlfriends, and they try to schedule nights out together to chat and reconnect over what's going on in their lives.
How We Met
We initially met in Whistler, Canada on a ski trip with mutual friends from a run club we were part of in Seattle. On this ski trip, everyone was supposed to bring animal-themed onesies to wear, but we were the only two on the trip that actually wore them! We started as friends, but this initial spark led to us dating a few months later. In the early days of our relationship, we spent our time camping and backpacking, going to concerts, relaxing with our dog Miles, travelling, discovering new restaurants, and more. While we never lived in Colorado at the same time as each other, we like that we have that Colorado connection. Hexar proposed to Natalie in Potrero Chico, Mexico, one of his favorite places for rock climbing. We got married in 2017 in Southwest Washington with many of our friends and family members there to celebrate with us.
Advice to Future Child
The dreams and hopes we have for our future child are abundant. We hope that he or she finds their passions and dreams, and that they know they are fully supported in following those dreams. We want our child to have a positive self-image and confidence in who they are. We hope our future believes in their own strength to face life’s challenges and adversities. We hope our child appreciates the importance of being respectful and kind towards other people, despite differences, and develops strong friendships with others. We encourage our future child to be curious about the world around them and never stop learning and experiencing new things. We hope our child knows that they can work hard on their goals, but are also able to slow down, have fun, and not take things too seriously. In the context of adoption, we hope our child knows that they are loved by all sides of their family, that we fully support a desire for connection with their birth family however that looks like, and that they are able to develop a healthy relationship with the idea of their adoption. We hope that our future child is able to find joy in all those small glimmers in life, and develop habits that support happiness, health, and resilience. We want our future child to know that we have their back for life, no matter what comes their way, and that they know they can always come to us for support and unconditional love.
Perspectives on Open Adoption
Pursuing adoption is something that we have put a lot of thought into and feel that open adoption is the right choice for us, and hope to create an environment for our future adopted child where they feel loved and fulfilled. We want this just as much for a birth family! We want to acknowledge the loss that is inherently part of adoption, and feel that open adoption is the healthiest path forward for all of us, especially the adopted child. Having openness in adoption is important for our adopted child in the development of their identity in relation to their family members, their history, where they came from, and for the development of positive self-image and self-worth. We want our future child to develop confidence in every aspect of their being and feel reassured through healthy relationships that they are loved, celebrated, and are appreciated for who they are. We want very much to be parents to a second child, to grow our family, and to experience all the joys and adventures that parenthood provides, but have no intention of taking the place of a child’s birth parent, and feel that there is room for all of us in our child’s life, however that looks in the future. We look forward to finding the right match with a birth family, being able to form new relationships, developing a sense of trust and mutual respect, and our life being enriched by these experiences and relationships. We consider ourselves just one piece of this puzzle, and want to learn about what is important to a birth family and how we can best support that.
Favorites
- Favorite Movie: Fight Club, The Matrix, The Big Lebowski
- Favorite Holiday/Tradition: One of my favorites is doing the Longview Turkey Trot with Natalie and/or other members of her family and then having Thanksgiving dinner afterward, especially when Natalie’s mom makes “Christmas Stuffing Anytime,” an Italian risotto style stuffing.
- Hobbies/Interests: skiing and snowboarding, running, hiking, rock climbing, mountaineering, video gaming, board games.
- Dream Vacation: A big tour of both Spain and Portugal. Would love to hit up Porto, Lisbon, Seville, Málaga, Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, Mallorca, and maybe even Ibiza!
- If I Could Choose a Superpower: I’ve always wanted to be able to fly.
- Favorite Movie: So many good ones! Philadelphia, The Pianist, Sideways
- Favorite Holiday/Tradition: I love spending Christmas time with my family, watching the kiddos with so much joy and excitement, making homemade eggnog with my mom, matching pajamas with my family on Christmas morning, and every once in a while getting blessed with a snowy Christmas!
- Hobbies/Interests: Memory making with the family, long walks on sunny days, Peloton hikes, exploring new local spots, travelling near and far, cabin weekends with family, being in nature, camping, hiking, skiing, watercolor workbooks, crime shows and documentaries. From a social work perspective, I enjoy working with people in crisis and advocating for people experiencing homelessness or behavioral health concerns.
- Dream Vacation: Croatia- equal parts sun, beaches, and beautiful old cities and architecture
- If I Could Choose a Superpower: Ability to travel back in time to different places, cultures, and time periods.
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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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