Janice & Matthew

We live in a bright, modern home with tons of natural light. Our house is filled with plants, books, and cozy spaces. We've lived in this neighborhood for almost eight years and have the best neighbors! Our house is located in a charming, historic, and diverse area and is also walkable to wonderful parks, local shops, coffeehouses, and restaurants. We are also within 2 miles of world class museums, a major university, and many art galleries. Our backyard includes a pool - Matt used to teach swim lessons to kids, so he is well prepared to teach our future child how to swim at an early age. Mostly, we love our community here. It's not uncommon for us to be on a walk and run into many neighbors either on their porches or out walking their pets. We're lucky to be about a 1/2 mile from some of our best friends and we often walk to each other's houses.

We spent the first 13 years of our marriage deep in the entrepreneurial world - Jan ran her own coffee house and Matt worked tirelessly on his product design company. In 2017, we built a commercial building together to house the second location of Jan's coffeeshop. In 2022, feeling fulfilled in what we'd created and also ready for a new chapter, we sold the coffee shops and the building we made together. Since then, we've had a lot less hectic life - slower mornings and more time together. We're each pursuing new, less all-consuming careers, but we're so grateful for what our time owning businesses taught us about perseverance, grit, and kindness. We know we'll carry that into whatever is next. This feels like the perfect time to welcome a new member of the family. When we're not working, we absolutely love spending time with friends, traveling, cooking together, going to our neighborhood haunts, and listening to records together. We're lucky to live in a neighborhood with lots of local spots and we feel deeply rooted here. Jan loves anything music as well as books, writing, baking, and yoga. Matt enjoys rock climbing, flying, and making things.

Traveling is a huge part of our life! Nearly every summer, we take a month long road-trip to see friends and family across the country (luckily, we have unconventional jobs that allow us to work from the road). Matt is currently working on building an earth roamer for us to live and travel in during the summers. We also love getting out of the country each year, to take in new cultures, people, and food. Some of our favorite places include: northern Italy, Big Sur, CA, Washington State, and Sedona, AZ. We're so excited to bring our future child along with us on our travels and introduce them to new places as well as some of our favorites.

We have a wonderful extended family! Jan has one sister and Matt has two brothers, all married to wonderful people. Both Matt's parents and Jan's parents live close by and are excited to be grandparents (again). We also have 2 nieces and 3 nephews who can't wait to meet their new cousin. Our family knows adoption well - we have several extended family members and close friends who were adopted.

How to describe Matt? He's funny, kind, thoughtful, tender-hearted, smart, and imaginative. Matt is an inventor, making a career out of his creative problem solving and design-minded brain. He's an adventurer at heart - always most alive when he's outside, near the ocean, flying in the sky, immersed in the forest, or swimming in cold water. He shows up for people - a true friend that demonstrates his love by acts of service. He can talk to anyone and often is the first in the group to ask unconventional questions that really help people open up. He's often the life of the party and loves having people over to the house. Some fun facts: Matt enjoys his coffee black, but also loves the occasional mocha, he cooks the best salmon ever, he designed and built a house from scratch, he can't stand it when there are TVs in restaurants, he abbreviates everything, he loves rock climbing, and he can fix just about anything! He is a wonderful, supportive partner in life and I know he will be an amazing dad. -Janice

For years before we started dating, I (Matthew) had the biggest crush on her. Janice is the best friend you could hope to have. She is strong and soft, steadfast and flexible, brave and vulnerable. The forest calls to her and she loves being in nature. After selling her coffeehouses she became a yoga teacher and is now getting her masters in sustainability. She's no stranger to hard work. She's also wicked smart but doesn't need to be the loudest voice in the room. Janice loves her friends deeply and has cultivated a deep community of people from all walks of life. She is equally comfortable hosting a house full of people or staying in with a book. A few of Janice's favorite things: she loves smoked veggies and fish but can't touch any raw meat. She loves dark chocolate and sour candy, but couldn't care less about milk chocolate. She loves used book stores and tends to be more of a cat person. She remembers everyone's birthday and gives the best gifts. Janice celebrates all of life's moments, big and small. She is an amazing partner and will be an amazing mom. -Matthew