Hello and Kia ora! We are Lizzi and Lee. Our greeting comes from our home countries of the United States and New Zealand. We live in Costa Mesa, California now, but our life together started in Lee's home country of New Zealand. We've been married since 2012, and together since 2006. We are both engineers who put our problem- solving mind-sets towards caring for the environment. We take pride in everything we do, and always give our best. We are ready to dedicate our hearts and these core values to raising a child. Having a family has always been a dream for the future, and we sincerely hope that your courage will help this dream come true today. Thank you for listening to our story.

We are ready to open our hearts and our lives to a child. We’ve always considered adoption as a potential pathway for us to start a family and are excited that we are finally in a position to embark on this process. We are settled in a lovely house in a beautiful neighborhood by the sea, after restarting our life together a few times from moves across the world and across the country for Lizzi’s job. She’s now in her dream job, and we are happily putting down roots. Together, we’ve renovated our home and garden into a happy and comfortable sanctuary where we believe a child will thrive with our love and care.

Our love of the ocean is what brought us together. It was no surprise to anyone that we would meet our forever person and fall in love while on a boat. Crewing on a racing sailboat was an exciting way to get to know each other, if at times pretty intense! It turned out we only lived a few blocks away from each other. Our first off-the-water dates were to a Halloween Party, to the circus, and taking walks along the waterfront. Our initial spark, love of exploring new places, and respect for each other grew as we sailed together and adventured around New Zealand, where Lee grew up and Lizzi lived for 10 years before we moved to the USA together. We can't remember a traditional dinner-and-a-movie date, but we've been to 13 countries together. We've lived in New Zealand, New Jersey, and California and we are not done exploring the USA, near and far!

We were lucky to grow up similarly, with small families whose activities were primarily around the water. Sailing, fishing, swimming, and just enjoying all that the sea offers brought us together initially and continues to be a core part of our life together. We are excited to carry on family traditions with our child, like digging for clams, building sand castles, and making delicious seafood feasts! When we’re not on the water, land-based adventures often find us on day-trips to explore nearby towns so we can find out about where we live, or to a different state when longer getaways are possible. We are hoping to explore the California coast on our boat and national parks in our RV as our future child grows up.

Lizzi enjoys gardening at home, a trait she inherited from her mother. Lee does the hard parts like digging holes and building garden beds. We are trying to cultivate fruit trees and plants that attract butterflies and native birds. You’ll also find Lizzi with her nose in a book or doing yoga. Lizzi likes to watch college basketball to cheer for her college and grad school teams, and Lee is a good sport about it. Lee learned to tinker with cars and boats from his father, activities he definitely still loves! He loves to BBQ, and is a master with an Instapot. We have recently become expert pizza makers, but Saturday mornings are all about Lee’s Eggs Benedict with homemade smoked salmon. Being together while making good food and sharing meals has been a feature of us since we first started dating.

My mind and my heart are always open to new possibilities. I make it a priority to pursue things that will make me happy at home with Lee and our cats, or intrigue me in my career. I’ve lived (in order with life) in Connecticut, Japan (high school), North Carolina (college), Virginia (graduate school), Colorado, New Zealand, New Jersey, and now California. Living overseas as a teenager made me curious about other cultures and taught me to respect lifestyles different from my own. It led me to move to New Zealand for a job as a university professor and to find Lee! I’m so lucky to have a partner like Lee, who didn’t hesitate to say yes when my dream job was offered in California, even though it meant another big move. This is where we are meant to be in life. My job is all about creating meaningful solutions for cleaning up water pollution, which is one way I get to show my respect and awe for nature and the environment. I’m grateful for loyal friends from many different parts of life who provide a loving support network beyond our traditional families.

Lizzi will make a great mom. She is very caring and affectionate. I know how much she will cherish a child and nurture their growth. I can picture her reading stories while cuddling a little person and making up games with her crazy imagination. I see her looking after others with compassion and patience, from our extended family to those she mentors in her job. She makes others feel at ease, even in stressful situations. She is quick to laugh and smile, and is generally just a happy person. She’s the ringleader in planning little adventures for us, seeking out new places to see or activities to try. From finding things we can reuse or restore for our DIY projects to finding an obscure herb plant for a recipe we want to try, Lizzi comes up with resourceful solutions. I admire that she’s been willing to go outside of her comfort zone to move across the world and pursue opportunities to be closer to both of our extended families. I respect that she makes up her own mind, while I am completely confident that we are a great team.

Growing up in New Zealand, I gained a huge respect for nature and consider it a privilege to be able to enjoy it. My favorite activities are catching fish, having adventures, trying new things and visiting new places. I am looking forward to sharing our lifestyle with a child. In New Zealand I worked as a marine electronics engineer, most of my time was around the water, I met many interesting people and traveled all over the world solving problems on boats, and providing technical training. Since moving to the USA with Lizzi, I have spent my time renovating houses. I do almost all the work myself, which gives me lots of engineering challenges and chances to be creative. Lizzi and I together come up with kitchen and bathroom designs, outdoor plantings and landscaping. I love spending time with Lizzi and our 3 cats. I am very keen expand our little family now that we are settled in our forever place, which we’ve made into a perfect home for a family.

Lee is a DIY-master dedicated to making our life happy, and creating everything we need or want with his own hands to make that happen. He constantly makes me laugh by making up songs about our cats and telling me ridiculous stories from his life before we met. Lee discovered an interest in cooking early in our relationship. Now, I chop and prep so that he can perfect our nightly dinners and weekend brunches. Underneath a light-hearted exterior, Lee is a deeply caring man, whose priority is our family. Lee recently built us a new kitchen island so that there is enough room for a future three of us to sit together. He made our dream boat a reality by buying and repairing a damaged boat that few others would have the skills to fix. He has given up his own time on many occasions to help me at work, especially when I need to build an experiment. I hear him give praises and words of love to our cats daily. I cannot wait to watch him teach our child to fish, sail, or build their first Lego creation.

We’ve been loving the Southern California lifestyle since we moved here at the end of 2019. We live minutes from the ocean in a neighborhood with lots of kids! The elementary school is at the end of our street, and is part of an award winning school district. There’s a parade of parents walking their kids through the neighborhood to school every day - an activity we are excited to be able to join. We have found lots of family friendly activities nearby, like weekly outdoor concerts all around the county in summer. We live minutes from the Newport Harbor Back Bay, an extensive waterfront nature preserve with lots of walking trails and amazing bird habitat. Our home is happy and peaceful. Colorful plants and fruit trees in the front yard welcome us home. We love to relax by our backyard pool, surrounded by tropical plants, and watch hummingbirds zip around the trees. We are fortunate to be able to go to the beach any day of the week to watch the sunset over the Pacific Ocean and look for dolphins. It's a challenge to see who can spot them first!

Kina, Pipi, and Kupe are our fur babies. We rescued each of these kitties when they were only a few weeks old. Each name is in honor of Lee’s home country of New Zealand. Kina (sea urchin) and Pipi (clam) are 8-yr old brother and sister. Kupe (a Polynesian explorer who discovered New Zealand according to legend) is 4 yrs old. We couldn’t resist adopting him during the pandemic quarantine. Pipi thinks she is queen of the house and purrs the loudest. Kina and Kupe are best friends who love to play together. We think Kina is likely to guard a baby, while Kupe will provide the entertainment.

We both grew up with one sibling, in families who liked to be together. Lizzi’s family is very affectionate and pretty goofy. Family get-togethers are full of laughing, lots of hugs, and good food! Lizzi’s mom and sister orchestrate us all in creating giant meals to share, following special family tradition recipes for the holidays. We are fortunate to be able to do our favorite water- based activities with them, too. We are reliving our childhoods while experiencing our nephew (15) and niece (12) learning to sail, and loving it. Lizzi’s parents still live in Connecticut in the house she grew up in, and her sister’s family live only a few minutes away. We see each other in person every few months and we talk by phone often. Spending time with Lee’s family supports our enthusiasm for international adventures. We love traveling to support Lee’s brother racing in Ironman triathalon championships around the world, and visiting his home base in Thailand where he lives with their mother. Sadly, Lee was only in his 20s when he lost his father, whom he considered his best friend. Our home is filled with pieces of art made by his father. We stay connected to his cousins in New Zealand and Australia through video calls. Through them, we have witnessed first hand the beauty of an open adoption, when his cousins adopted a toddler over 16 years ago.

We are lucky to share our day-to-day with friends, new and old. We are regulars to dinner with Lee’s long- time friend from New Zealand who lives nearby with his family. We’ve been teaching their kids American traditions, like Thanksgiving and 4th of July. We share in the journey of a newer friend becoming a single mom and loving on her baby. We celebrate every birthday and kid graduation with friends Lizzi has known since grad school but who live locally. We have an amazing chosen family, who we know will love our child, especially when our relatives are a bit further away.

We are so grateful to you for taking the time to get to know a little bit about us and our families. We respect that this is a difficult decision for you and want to offer support in your journey. We hope that we have shown you how much we care for each other and how much love we have to share with a child as we continue on the adventure of our life. We would like to get to know you! Thank you for considering us an adoptive family for your child.

~ Lizzi and Lee