Our children are our priority and family is the most important aspect of our lives. We enjoy hanging out just the four of us and spending true quality time together as well as visiting with our extended families, including our 12 nieces and nephews. We eat dinner with our children every night, sharing stories about our days, our hopes and frustrations. Our Christian faith is also important to us. We attend a local Catholic church regularly and the children attend an independent Catholic school in town. We also expose them to the Episcopal religion as this is Nancy’s faith. We say grace at dinner and the children say their prayers at bedtime, praying for family members, pets, friends and our soldiers.

There are so many fun traditions that we have carried on into our lives and new ones we are creating with our own children.  We love the holidays.  Every year we visit a local pumpkin patch and farm, gorge ourselves on a homemade Thanksgiving feast and start listening to Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving.  We really get into the spirit of Christmas by going to Nancy’s family cabin to pick out and cut a Christmas tree. When we bring it into our home, we celebrate by eating It’s It ice cream sandwiches and make a gingerbread house from scratch not long after.  The last thing we do on Christmas Eve is read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” just as Nancy’s father did as she was growing up. Easter finds both adults and children hunting for Easter eggs.  We spend the 4th of July with John’s siblings, starting the day by running the Kenwood Footrace and ending it by watching the fireworks over the fields around Sonoma.  Jack and Jordan look forward to each holiday even more than we do!

Education is also important to us. We are the first of our siblings to get masters degrees, and we hope to provide a strong education for our children that will enable them to pursue their dreams. We strive to be involved in their education by helping in the classroom and helping at home with homework and reading to them, something we have done since they were both newborns.