I am a very energetic, vibrant, happy, positive, accessorized J and fit stay-at-home Mother.  I am seldom low because of my faith in Jesus and God’s sovereignty.  I enjoy encouraging and complimenting those around me, as well as being very outgoing and gregarious, making everyone feel welcome and comfortable.  For decades, I’ve loved to exercise and workout daily outside or using one of my many workout DVDs.  My favorite activities are hiking (first!), camping, skating in all forms, hula hooping, mountain biking, Photography, studying nature especially Geology, Herpetology and Astronomy, fishing, target shooting, reading jokes & comics with the girls and all sorts of games, especially dice like Rockin’ Dice!  My education is some college, majoring in Math and then focusing on Administration, subsequently having a few Administrative Assistant jobs, including to the Director of ADP EasyPay.  When I was 19 and still in college, I had my first daughter Emily, who is now grown and has a family of her own!  I am a Leader in our church’s Kid’s Klub every Wednesday night, serving and ministering to over 50 kids from PreK to 8^th grade. 

My youngest daughter Violet says my strength is being fun!  My second daughter Daisy says my strength is taking them out to see and do many different activities.  My oldest daughter Emily says my strength is being supportive and terrific motivational skills.  Even though I am passionate about life and fun times, my greatest joy and true strength is my Savior and Friend Jesus.  He paid for all my sins and loves me more than I could ever imagine!  I have the freedom to enjoy life to its fullest, with peace and contentment, trusting that God has everything in his perfect hands!

I am a Christian, laid-back, very helpful, fairly serious and quiet around people outside the family.  I am fun, enjoying a good joke and time with Virginia and the girls.  I also very much enjoy Trivia books or Guessing games while we travel, usually to hikes.  My job is a Copier and Printer Technician, working with a very large geographical territory and putting 250-300 miles on the company car per day.  I spent 4 years in the Navy and 8 in Naval Reserves.   Since we heat with wood, I spend time outdoors hauling home, splitting and stacking wood.  I love Star Trek and History, reading related books, watching episodes, movies and even old black and white History channel documentaries.  I have a good eye and am very good at target shooting.  My favorite activities are fly-fishing, Astronomy - studying the night sky with binoculars or a telescope, reading Star Trek books, watching all Star Trek episodes, reading Smithsonian magazines, doing Sudoku puzzles and any hand held puzzles like Rubik’s Cube, hiking, quad roller skating, playing family games and watching movies on weekend nights.  My favorite family games are Sutakku and Japanese Age of War, but I also enjoy playing Backgammon with Daisy.  I am a good roller skater and helped Virginia teach the girls when they were only 4 and 6 years old.  I enjoy fishing with the girls, but end up spending most of my time untangling their lines and tying on lures.   I am great at fixing electronic things, doing auto maintenance and some automotive problems. 

Daisy is beautiful with penny red hair and green/brown eyes.  She is in 9^th grade and is an incredibly smart, dedicated student with a 4.0 GPA, doing outstanding in her 2 Math courses this year.  She is Class Secretary, on Yearbook Committee and Student Council and volunteers her time at the local library.  She is sweet, kind, protective, concerned about others, sticks up for any belittled kids at her school, helpful and responsible.  She absolutely loves crafting and taught herself to knit.  She is occasionally heading up the Craft Station at our church’s Kid’s Klub every Wednesday night.  She enjoys making her own presents, producing beautiful jewelry and pouches.  She is good at art and sketching.  She loves to read, quickly devouring books.  She loves ice skating, drawing fashion, nail art and creating hair styles for her and Violet.  She loves watching old TV episodes like Bewitched.  Her favorite game is Banana Split Card Game.  She is an expert at finding amphibians when we hike!  One of Daisy’s favorite times is our annual June trip to Ocean City, NJ and then spending time with her nieces and grandparents, while visiting the Phila. Zoo, Museums and Gardens.  She makes an effort to pray and is terrific at Scripture memorization.  She is a true joy to have in our lives, and we are very proud of her! 

Violet is beautiful with auburn hair and dark brown eyes.  She is in 7^th grade and also is at the top of her grade with a 4.0 GPA, excelling in all her classes, including Guitar.  She was elected Class President, which is her 2^nd term.  She is fun, extremely energetic and incredibly athletic with perfect balance!  During most Gym tests, she scores as the fastest runner and highest jumper.  She is an amazingly advanced skater (ice & wheels) and great on her pogo stick.  She is a funny little comedian, loves to laugh, make jokes and loves comics (Garfield, Far Side, Peanuts).  She also is an excellent artist, hand drawing and sketching often.  She makes many presents, producing adorable hand-sewn items, especially for her nieces.  She loves old TV episodes like The Lucy Show, Get Smart and Beverly HillBillies.  She loves Botany, especially her 4 house plants.  Her favorite game is Dinosaur Tea Party.  We like to call her our “Toadologist”, as she’s an expert toad and frog catcher!  Violet’s loves the shore too, but her favorite vacation, by far, is camping, especially when her nieces and the rest of Virginia’s entire family joins us in the mountains.  She loves the Lord, reads the Scriptures and keeps encouraging verses near her at all times, even in bed!  We are so very proud of her and enjoy all of her!

We met at a huge church twenty-something social group in King of Prussia, PA.  We discovered that we loved a lot of the same things!  We were both Christians and our common favorites were camping, hiking and fishing.  So we hooked each other in by eloping on a backpacking and fly-fishing trip near Glacier National Park in Montana.  Emily was 7 years old, and Chris accepted her as his daughter!  Virginia camped in the central PA mountains her whole life and would literally cry when leaving for her childhood home in the Philadelphia area.  Chris had her same values of living in the mountains and outside the city suburb rat race.  Thankfully the Lord gave us our heart’s desire of moving to a beautiful mountain home and providing a job for Chris by the time Emily started 7^th grade.  We are a walking testimony of God’s great goodness!

Our entire family still lives about 5 hours away in the counties surrounding Philadelphia, which is terrific, as we have the best of both worlds!  Our daughters appreciate the wilderness and forests of PA, as well as receiving hefty doses of culture and experiences in southeast PA.  It’s not far for weekend trips.  Each year, we stay with Emily or Virginia’s parents for a week at Christmas and 2-3 weeks every summer.  Since we live in “vacation land”, Virginia’s family still comes up here to camp for 1-2 weeks every July, as they did when she was a little girl.  

Virginia’s family is large, ever growing and very close.  Her parents, originally from west of Pittsburgh, are strong Christians, living to love and serve Jesus.  Her Dad Tom has been an elder, church planter and teacher for many years.  He loves Photography with his own dark room, fly-fishing, hiking, museums and studying God’s Word.  Virginia’s Mother Janice is extremely energetic, exercising at her spa, teaching Sunday School and VBS and working part time.  She loves her daily Starbucks, her many hundreds of plants and gardens, visiting arboretums & gardens like Meadowbrook, museums and is an avid reader (NY Times bestsellers!).  They have family memberships to many Phila. area attractions, such as the Zoo, Art Museum, Franklin Institute, Morris Arboretum, Longwood Gardens, etc. 

Our daughter Emily lives with her husband Mike only about 1 hour from her grandparents, Tom and Janice.  They have 2 daughters, Olive 5 years and Fern 2 years.  We thoroughly LOVE squeezing, hugging and playing with our granddaughters!   As you can imagine, Daisy and Violet LOVE their little nieces and are very eager to be with them as much as possible.  Emily is tall and beautiful with auburn hair and an outgoing, witty, funny and relaxed personality.  She loves photography and has her own business. 

Virginia has 3 siblings.  Her brother Tom is 8 years older.  His first wife sadly died of cancer.  Their 2 kids are married, and he has a 2 year old granddaughter.  He remarried and gained 4 more grown kids.  Second older brother by 7 years is Jeffrey, whose Mongolian wife divorced him after getting citizenship.  They have 2 kids close to Daisy and Violet’s ages.  Virginia’s 2 year younger sister Grace is married with 2 kids close to Daisy and Violet’s age.   

Chris’ family is his Mother Sandy, who also lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia but enjoys spending half her time in Hungary, the home of her belated boyfriend.  We see Sandy when we travel downstate, and she likes to stay in touch via texting pictures!  Chris’ Dad lives in Myrtle Beach, SC, and we stay in touch with an occasional phone call.  Besides a much older stepsister from Sandy’s second marriage, most of Chris’ family has passed.  Chris is close to Virginia’s family, enjoying the camaraderie and our many activities like the family camp week, where we all tube, play Bocce Ball, hike and bike in the PA Grand Canyon.  

Everyone lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, except Tom’s oldest son, wife and granddaughter in the Pittsburgh area. 

We live and spend all our time with our two youngest daughters Daisy and Violet!  We do loads of hiking, picnicking, camping, rock collecting, searching nature for amphibians & reptiles, roller skating, ice skating all winter, visiting many museums, playing all kinds of games (table & outdoor), watching movies & old 1960’s TV episodes, and doing devotions.  We also enjoy mountain biking, target shooting, planting pine trees on our property and all music, especially dance but not heavy metal.  This is easy, as we have no standard TV and no kid electronics, and we live in a beautiful cabin on top of a 2,500’ mountain with our “playground” of 45 acres.  These abundant blessings belong to God, along with our super high energy and consistent fun activities!  

During the school year, it’s school and work each weekday, while Virginia is at home, getting chores or projects done, as well as preparing for the upcoming fun weekend!  Monday late afternoons, Daisy volunteers at the local library.  Every Wednesday night, we are at church with Kid’s Klub, where Virginia has been a leader for the last 7 years.  Violet participates in Kid’s Klub in the 7^th and 8^th grade group.  Daisy is in the small High School Youth Group and occasionally helps as a Craft Leader for the Kid’s Klub. 

Every Saturday and part of Sunday after church is quality, FUN, family time!  We are always out doing fun activities.  Virginia was raised with each weekend as family time and no housework.  So that is how we operate!  About 2/3rds of the year, we hike, picnic, camp and/or visit a regional museum every Saturday with movies, even at camp!  Our area is mostly about 3 large state forests, 1 national forest and many state parks.  The other 1/3^rd of the year in the winter, we are ice skating and hitting a Taco Bell every Saturday.   Every Sunday, unless we are camping or downstate, we attend our church and then afterwards, we eat our sack lunch and roller skate in our church gym! 

Every June for 2-3 weeks, the girls and Virginia are downstate, visiting Virginia’s family, staying half the time with Emily and the other with Virginia’s parents, as well as taking our annual trip to Ocean City, NJ.  

Every July, we camp for 2+ weeks as a family in the PA Grand Canyon area with Virginia’s family traveling up and joining us for the second week.

Thank God, we live in the mountains!  Our “dream home” is literally a testimony to God’s great, undeserving goodness!  We prayed hard for this, and the Lord gave us all our prayer requests plus some.

We live in a beautiful European style cabin on top of a 2,500 foot mountain with many windows and long deck, overlooking a magnificent view of mountains over an hour drive away.  

We have 45 acres of pasture and woods, surrounded by camps and hundreds of acres of logging forest.  We love our large mowed lawn for at-home picnics, lawn games like badminton and croquet and smores at our fire pit.  We have miles of trails we created and maintain by hand.  Our land is beautiful with over 25 different wildflowers, many hardwoods, a woodland stream, where we placed a cement bench at its little waterfall and loads of wildlife from sticky spotted salamanders to an occasional black bear meandering down one of our trails.  Porcupines, foxes, raccoons and flocks of turkeys also like to stroll our paths!  Unlike campground bears that are usually fed by campers, our bears are rarely seen, mostly announcing their presence by leaving a piled up deposit.  :) 

We live in the PA Wilds, with access to thousands of acres of state forests and parks, as well as countless trails and nature waiting to be explored! 

The school district is very moral and small enough for all faculty and administration to be very involved, personally knowing each child.  

So it is our heart’s desire to share these gifts with another child, cherishing and loving that child as a precious new gift of God and equal family member.  

We are excited about the possibility of having your child join our family!