Adrienne and Jeff
Our Family
 |
Adrienne with brother, mom, grandmother |
We have weekly family dinners where we visit and share the events of the week. One night is with Jeff’s family at his parent’s home with siblings, spouse, children, aunts, and on occasion cousins stop by. The other night is with Adrienne’s family either at our home or her mother’s. No matter which home we are at for family night there is communication and laughter.
Jeff is the youngest of four, all of whom live in Maine, and his parents just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Adrienne has a younger brother. They were raised by their mom and both live in Maine and are very close. There is one remaining grandmother on Adrienne’s side who just celebrated her 86th birthday, we see her at least once a week.
Our families are excited of the idea of us adopting. Jeff’s cousin has two adoptive children and they are both loved. Adrienne’s family is looking forward to sharing this experience with us. We have extended family made up of aunts, uncles, and cousins, some that live in the state and some that live outside including West Virginia, Ohio, and Washington State and all look forward to us growing our family.
We are members of an extended church family, where we are both active in the faith community. By attending and supporting the church we think this make us a stronger couple, which will makes us stronger parents and a stronger family unit.. There is a strong children’s program for all ages at the church where there are several active adoptive families.
Traditions
Traditions big and small are important to us and we want to share them and create new one with a growing family.
Christmas: Open stockings (always with an orange in the toe), share a meal, open other gifts, and then it is off to visit other family members in the area. We also have the “Anderson Family Christmas” where Adrienne’s mom and sisters and all the kids get together for lunch and exchange gifts, we usually meet in Camden, as we are spread around the state.
Birthdays: We have a set of red dishes the birthday person gets to use for their birthday meal, and they get to choose the meal and kind of cake. There is always one person who sings “Happy Birthday” in a funny voice.
Sundays: We spend with family.