Welcome! Meet:

John + Jessie

Software Engineer / Housewife/Mother/homeschooling mom

Maryland

Caucasian

Catholic

All About John & Jessie
Why Adoption?
Gallery
Family and Home
How We Met
Advice to Future Child
Perspectives on Open Adoption
Favorites

All About John & Jessie

We are John and Jessie. We have been happily married for over 17 years and during that time we have welcomed 3 beautiful children into our family through adoption. We are blessed to have these three children, but we still feel our family is incomplete. We have plenty of room in our hearts to love more children.

Hannah (13) is a very responsible young lady who loves babies. She is well known as the neighborhood artist, and we find her teaching her younger brothers art tricks. She also loves to bake cookies and have good books to read.

Daniel (10) is a passionate young man. He loves being outside and riding his bike. He loves board games, Star Wars, Superheroes, and eating Hannah’s cookies. Daniel is a natural problem solver and always wants to know how things work. He likes to follow his dad and help with projects around the house. He is a great older brother to Gabriel and loves to wrestle with him.

Gabriel (3) is pure joy. He loves to 'help' around the house with sweeping and cleaning. He could throw a perfect spiral with a small football and know that BEEF is the best form for basketball by age two. Gabriel has a contagious smile and loves to charm others.

Our family loves adventure and travel. We go camping, to the beach, to national parks, and even overseas. Over a year ago we took a trip to Austria and Italy. Our family got to walk through historic European castles, see the Sistine Chapel, and eat a ton of pasta. We like to look at the stars and watch for meteor showers or lunar eclipses. We love to explore nature. Last summer, we went out west to the Black Hills, where we saw buffalo and Mount Rushmore, and went kayaking in a mountain lake.

Family dinners are important to our family. It is a time to reconnect and touch base. Often after dinner, we pull out a board game, go for a walk in the neighborhood, or watch a family movie. Though we have nights when we are rushing to basketball practice or a meeting at church, we do our best to have dinner together every night.

Since two of our kids are Korean and one Hispanic, we try to incorporate their heritage into our lives. We think it is very important for kids to learn about different cultures and customs.

John works from home as a software engineer. Jessie worked as a dental assistant until we brought Hannah home. Now Jessie is a stay-at-home mom with no plans to return to a "normal" job.

We're an active family that would enjoy having more children to love and raise.

Why Adoption?

When we got married we both agreed we wanted a large family. We planned to try to conceive, but we always considered adoption another great option. Over the years, we have been blessed to adopt three beautiful children, two from South Korea and one domestically. Hannah is almost 13, Daniel is 10, and Gabriel is three.

Family & Home

We live in the historic part of a small city between Baltimore and DC. Our house was built in 1889 and has a fenced-in backyard. Our yard has slowly acquired more and more playground equipment and currently has a swing set, seesaw, and trampoline. We love having dinners on the picnic table when the weather is nice and a small fire in the evenings to roast marshmallows. Jessie has been planting fruit trees in the yard. She got enough cherries last year to make a pie and is hoping for a few apples next year.

Our neighborhood is very walkable. Main Street is just a few blocks away, and our church is a 10-minute walk away from home. Our neighborhood is full of families, many of whom homeschool like us, and our kids love to get together, play with them, and go on field trips together.

We have a huge and supportive extended family. John has eight siblings, and Jessie has two brothers. We have over 45 nieces and nephews! We are very close to all of them. Three of John's brothers and father live nearby, and we often get together. Monday night dinners with Papa are a weekly event for our family. When John's side of the family gets together, there is always music and good food!

Jessie's mom comes down to visit at least for Thanksgiving and Easter. She lives with one of Jessie's brothers, and her other brother lives just 10 minutes away.

Everyone on both sides of the family has been so excited and supportive when we tell them we want to adopt another child. Seven of our nieces and nephews are adopted (from USA, Guatemala, China, and Ethiopia).

Our church family is also very important to us. Our parish is diverse, with large African, Hispanic, and Filipino communities. We have many close friends who live near us and go to church with us. We often get together with them for a BBQ or a pickup football game.

Our friends are all supportive and excited to hear about our next adoption. A few of the families formed a Homeschool co-op a few years ago, and it has been thriving. The moms and kids all get together one morning a week to learn and grow together.

How others describe me

John is such a wonderful husband and father. He is someone you can always count on to be there to support you. John has the ability to get along with pretty much everyone and is very easy going. He is very dedicated to his friends and family. He loves to be outside in nature and to play sports with his friends and kids.

Jessie is a devoted wife and mother. She loves to work with kids and has no problem being silly around them to make them laugh. Jessie is always trying to shine joy in others lives. You can often find her bringing a meal to a friend in need, or having coffee with someone who needs to chat, or watching someone’s kids while they go to the doctor. She loves to explore new places and to learn new things.

How We Met

We met in college and became fast friends. Our friendship grew into romance, and we started dating while studying abroad in 2004. John graduated in 2004, and we married right after Jessie graduated in 2006.

Advice to Future Child

Dear child,

Please remember that you are deeply loved and life is a gift! There have been many people who love you so much and have made tough choices to give you the best possible life. Life will not always be easy. There will be hard times, heartache, and scary moments. But, trust in God and know that your family is always there to help you.

Perspectives on Open Adoption

Each of our kids has had a different story about how they came into our family. We cherish their birth families and honor them for all they have done for these children. We are open to contacting birth families through letters, pictures, or visits.

Favorites

John

Favorite Movie: Lord of the Rings the Two Towers
Favorite Holiday/Tradition: Easter Morning I make donuts. The night before Jessie makes up the dough of my great grandmother's homemade donuts. In the morning we wake up and I fry them up with our daughter Hannah. We then invite our family and friends to stop by after church to grab a donut.
Hobbies/Interests: hiking, playing board games, sports
Dream Vacation: hiking in New Zealand
If I Could Choose a Superpower: the ability to answer this questions well

Jessie

Favorite Movie: The Princess Bride
Favorite Holiday/Tradition: Around Christmas we co-host a caroling party with our best friends who live in our neighborhood. We start at one house and carol all around the neighborhood ending with a party at the other house. We often have somewhere between 75-100 people caroling! To quote Elf “The best way to spread Christmas Cheer is singing loudly for all to hear.”
Hobbies/Interests: cooking, hiking, singing
Dream Vacation: I love the mountains and hiking, but also love experiencing new cultures. Iceland is high on my list.
If I Could Choose a Superpower: since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to talk to animals