Hello! We are Gillian & Michael from Thousand Oaks, California. We want to first thank you for taking time to consider us as your child’s adoptive parents. We cannot imagine how challenging and difficult this decision is, but we want you to know how truly brave and selfless you are. We are elated to become parents and are excited to get to know you!
Our greatest journey will be on our path to parenthood through adoption! We have experienced infertility but creating a family is what is actually important to us. Many of our family members are not biologically related to us but are our true family nevertheless. We first met in college on an international trip. While we both attended different universities (Michael at University of California -Davis and Gillian at University of California - Santa Barbara) we stayed in touch and re-connected two years later at the same law school in Orange County, California. We began dating then and became engaged six years later. We married in 2019 in Santa Barbara, California and moved to Thousand Oaks, California in 2021 when we purchased our home. We joke that we have known each other through so many numerous hair colors and fashion choices! We consider our relationship’s strong foundation to be built on communication and there is nothing that we cannot discuss with each other. We also have each other’s backs in everything we do, we welcome trust falls (and dad jokes) daily!
I am an attorney and also licensed in real estate. I work for a national law firm from my home office and have been practicing law for ten years. The highlight of my career thus far was acting as the lead attorney in a civil jury trial where I gained a favorable verdict for my client. I consider myself very goal-oriented and love challenging myself either with a new baking recipe, a new workout, or even just getting a difficult knot out of one of my necklaces to wear! I do not take myself very seriously and enjoy connecting with friends and family over funny memes regularly. I have been called a compassionate change-maker by close friends and even given a trophy with this namesake at a weekend getaway! Given what I do for a living, I pride myself on being quite organized. I like rearranging and re-organizing various areas of our house, especially my ever-growing craft zone! I am so excited to be a parent and share my love of creativity and exploration with our future child.
Gillian is a true inspiration to everyone she encounters. Whether they are a stranger, a close family member, or anyone in between, she will uplift your spirit with her nurturing and caring nature. Her work ethic is unmatched both in her career and family life, always making the time to do anything she can to better our world. Gillian will be the best mother that anyone could ask for, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. She finds joy in both the big things in life as well as minutiae of everyday life, all with a beautiful smile on her face. I couldn’t be luckier to have this incredible person in my life and I’m grateful everyday that we have this incredible opportunity to be parents together.
My biggest goal in life is to be a great father. I can truly say that it will be my life’s work and I couldn’t be more excited to start this journey. I’m a para-educator, and working in a local public school district. I work in a high school primarily with special education students. I find my work fulfilling because I love working with students and learning from them. I also serve as the mock trial advisor for our school’s mock trial team. I truly love working in education. I enjoy spending time with my close-knit group of friends, Gillian, and my extended family. I love taking in a baseball game, barbecuing in the backyard, and watching our dog frolic in the sun. I pride myself on being a good husband, friend, and son. My friends call me one of the funniest people they know, and perhaps more importantly, one of the kindest as well. I’m excited to show our future child how amazing this world can be, and even more excited for the joy they will bring into our lives.
Michael can best be described as “everyone’s best friend.” He has an infectious personality that draws people toward him. He also has a knack for trivia and current events that enables him to connect with anyone from close friends’ toddlers to our great aunt in her 90s. I have watched him make connections with friends of friends or strangers that seem as through he has known the person for years versus 5 minutes. It is an impressive skill and one envied by most as he is always a top requested guest at family and friend gatherings. Whenever Michael is around, it is a given that there will be multiple laughs coming from his direction. I know he will make an incredible father, and it is a dream he has always had as long as I have known him. He loves making all those around him feel included and displays incredible patience with our friends’ children, in finding joy in teaching them how to play golf or playing with Disney princess dolls. I am so happy to share my life with him and cannot wait to become a parent with him.
Gillian is an attorney and works from home. Her law firm is family friendly and is excited for her journey to parenthood. Gillian loves taking her lunch breaks in the backyard, usually enjoying a delicious creation by Michael. Michael is a para-educator and works in a local public school district. He loves the proximity to home of his work and the fulfillment of working with students. He loves the freedom of being able to do his favorite hobby in the evenings and weekends which is cooking tasty meals to share.
We like to joke that we have an eclectic group of hobbies that we love.
• We love going to our local library and perusing the book sales. The book sale at the library is a way to also give back to our local library and we love building our ever growing personal library with finds of new releases, classics, how-to books and old or rare books.
• We love record hunting, we call this “crate digging” where we go to record stores and flip through crates of records looking for our favorite bands or interesting records.
• We love trying new activities or experiences. We have tried ramen tasting, ax-throwing, virtual golf, escape rooms, exploring new museums, and pop-up ice cream experiences.
• We enjoy gardening in our backyard and are always adding new herbs or vegetables.
• Michael is a bowler and we hit the lanes together as Gillian tries to match him strike for strike.
• We have been building up our chef skills over the past few years with Michael taking lead and Gillian finding her joy in baking.
• Gillian loves doing Pilates either in a group class or using her at-home machine where she enjoys teaching Michael new stretches and moves.
• Gillian is an avid crafter using her arsenal of materials to create Cricut gifts, sewing clothing items to creating birdhouses for the backyard or just painting.
We call Thousand Oaks, California home. It is in Ventura County, California which is between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara in sunny southern California. We love living here as we get to experience hills and mountain views while being only 25 minutes from the beach in Ventura or Malibu. We live in a one story, ranch-style home with a large backyard full of native plants and fruit trees. We enjoy lemons, mandarin tangerines, figs, and limes from our backyard as well as our homegrown thyme, mint, sage, tomatoes, zucchini and jalapeños! Our neighborhood is full of kids riding their bikes, scooters, or walking dogs. We also enjoy watching our neighbor’s chickens free range around our yard. We are walking distance to an elementary school and Gillian’s mother is a teacher at a preschool five minutes from our house. Our city hosts weekly, monthly and yearly events but our most favorite event is our city’s pride month which includes a chili cook-off and carnival. We have attended the chili cook-off as long as we have dated each other and even as children with our families. We have hopes to enter it as contestants ourselves one day!
Our dog Zeus, a handsome shepherd mix who we rescued as a puppy in January 2020, is a bundle of energy and joy. His favorite pastimes include zooming around the backyard with unbridled enthusiasm, relishing every moment of his walks with us, and basking in the warmth of the sun as he lounges around. His playful spirit, affectionate nature, and fondness of children make every day with him a delight.
We have a large family or community as we like to call them. We feel special to live in such close proximity to both our immediate and extended family members. Our sister and her fiancé live walking distance to our home, while our parents each live within 15 minutes of our home. As a family, we have taken up frisbee golf. We’re not very good, but the fun of flinging a frisbee with each other makes it fun. We enjoy weekly dinners with our family, which almost always includes tacos! We also spend a significant amount of time with our extended family members. Our grandmas are in their 90s and we see them frequently for meals where we enjoy quality conversation with them. We also spend time with our aunt and uncle who are self-proclaimed garden gurus. They live about 20 minutes from our home and we love exploring their garden, picking tomatoes and learning about California native plants. Our community of friends is ever-growing as our friend group grows with children, pets and partners. We love spending time around our city either at local restaurants or just hanging out at each other’s homes for barbeque’s, watching movies or a craft night.
We have a weekly Friday, “Fry-yay” tradition where we celebrate the end of the week with a basket of french fries. Sometimes this is from a fast food restaurant, a fancier restaurant, or at home with our air-fryer! Gillian is partial to curly fries while Michael enjoys skinny fries. We always have ketchup and barbecue sauce on hand for dipping too.
Our bucket list vacation is Tokyo, Japan We want to experience all the food, culture, and big city life it has to offer. We cannot wait to visit one day with our future child!
We truly wish to express our immense gratitude in your taking the time to get to know us! The strength and selflessness that you possess navigating this challenging decision makes you a force of nature. Your courageousness will never be lost on us nor your child. We promise to love your child with unconditional endless love. We are so excited to meet you and to hear what your wishes are for your child. We welcome open communication in a way that will allow your child to know how incredible you are.
