We both love to visit family, travel and hike with our two dogs.

We have two pups who love walks and love to say high to other dogs and the neighbors. They hike and travel with us and they really like to go to dog daycare where they can have a blast with their doggy friends.

We often like to take our RV camping during weekends and holidays off. Every year we try to take at least one two weeks' vacation and go somewhere new we haven't travelled to before. Last year was a trip through Idaho, Utah and Colorado with a stop to one of Larissa's bucket list spots to the Narrows in Zion National Park and Mesa Verde National Park. This year we hope to go to Banff National Park or travel through Idaho and upper Washington.

Our story began 11 years ago when we met online through a meet up group that scheduled outdoor group activities. We eventually became close while joining various hikes. Through these adventures, Cory taught Larissa how to mountain bike and Larissa taught Cory about backpacking.

Since then, we have backpacked most of Glacier National Park together, going on 4–5-day trips over the years. Family, honesty and quality time (especially outdoors) have been important to us.

We have similar interests together such as hiking, camping and biking and separate ones as well. Our friends would describe us as friendly, caring and reliable. Cory likes to tell dad jokes and that is one of the things that Larissa fell in love with.

We want to foster open and honest communication with our child and be able to celebrate our differences. Having this openess will help our child find their own identity. We hope to expose our child to diverse experiences and also help them find their own cultural relevance through engagement and education. This may mean we move to a more diverse area. We want our child to have a sense of belonging and if we do not know enough about their background, we will learn and adapt. This is how we can address cultural diversity in our family. We understand that we may have differences, but that only makes our family more connected in unique ways.

Montana - We live in a wonderful, family friendly community that is a great place to raise a child.

Our town is small enough that it takes five minutes to get to various parks and pools. We have small fairs, farmers markets and parades regularly in our town.

We live in a small subdivision outside of town with hiking trails close by. Most of our neighbors have young children who play in the yard and ride bikes in the street. Our neighborhood is a safe place to raise a family and that is one reason why we chose our home. We are close to schools and hospitals.

Our home includes three bedrooms with an activity room and two bathrooms. We have a large backyard that is fully fenced with a small garden that we envision a child playing in. We hope to put up a play area or swing set in the back. Our favorite room is the kitchen. We both enjoy cooking, and we also like to freeze dry different foods.

We love our home and our community and we cannot wait to share it with a child!

Cory comes from a larger family from Nebraska, where most of his relatives still live. His sister, Rachael, and her fiancé, Austin, come to visit often as well as both of our parents.

Cooking and barbecues are big when Cory's family gets together. We often go to sushi with Rachael and Austin. Cory likes to go golfing with his father and brothers.

Larissa is an only child and her parents are looking to move closer to us soon. Larissa's father likes to gold pan and garden - which he looks forward to sharing with a future grandchild!

We enjoy vacations with our families and look forward to making memories with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins as we become parents ourselves. We'd love to plan trips to go skiing, biking and hiking with our son or daughter.

We like having game nights with family and friends when they visit. Cards are a big part of our game nights with Cory's family and Larissa's parents love board games, specifically, Trivial Pursuit.

Our family, especially our parents have been excited and very supportive throughout our adoption journey.

We are Cory and Larissa. We want to let you know that we admire your strength and courage in considering adoption. We want to support you through this journey and are here to listen. We would love to answer any questions you might have for us.

We would like to share a little more about us: We have been together for eleven years and we always knew that adoption would be our path to growing our family. Due to medical reasons, Larissa is unable to have children. It would be a gift to love and care for a child of our own and as we build our family, we want to be able to share our life with a child, show love, guidance and be supportive as they grow into young adults. We promise to cherish him or her and create a caring, loving environment to grow up in. We will provide a good education to explore his or hers interests and strengths.

We both have been blessed by having stable and strong careers. We both love our jobs and if we have the opportunity to adopt, our jobs both allow us the flexibility to have one of us stay at home. Larissa is a Registered Nurse who works in the Intensive Care Unit. She has been a nurse for 16 years that includes experience in the ICU, ER and urgent care. She is currently working towards her master's degree in nursing. She was born in Germany and has moved all over the United States when she was younger while her father was in the military. She went into the National Guard once she graduated high school and later went into nursing school.

Cory is an electromechanical service engineer by day and does freelance design engineering on the side. He is currently working on his Bachelors in Business Administration. Cory was born and raised in Lincoln, Nebraska and fell in love with Montana while on a business trip.

As parents, we look forward to sharing our love of the outdoors, our love for animals and our love of watching things grow in our garden. We have enjoyed adventures with each other, our families and friends, and we cannot wait to share future adventures with a child! We want them to be able to explore the world, be confident and compassionate. We know that life will bring happy times and sad times, but we will always be here for your child to give them a safe, secure and loving home. That is what we can promise.

If you're comfortable, we would love to keep an open connection with you. We want your child to know how special you are to us and how we became a family through adoption. We want you to know that we will build a safe space for them; to ask any questions and we hope to foster a relationship with you at your comfort level. Your child will know that there are that many more people who love them. We feel that maintaining this connection is important and would like to have a photo exchange where we can regularly post photos and updates just for you, especially any milestones they have. We want to be open with you and your child as much as you are comfortable with and have a relationship that will allow for phone calls and visits.

Thank you for taking the time to learn what life in our family is like.

Sincerely,

Cory & Larissa