About Us

We met 11 years ago as freshmen in college. We both graduated from Northwest Missouri State University in the spring of 2003. Erika graduated with a double degree in Management and Marketing. Bryan graduated with a degree in Management Information Systems. We were married in 2004 shortly after graduation. Life hasn’t always been easy, but we feel fortunate to be where we are today. We had twin daughters Mallory & Peyton that were born in 2007 prematurely at 24 weeks. Due to the complications at birth, we were never able to bring them home from the hospital. We also have one wonderful son, Parker, and we would very much like to grow our family. We had a very difficult time when we found out that Erika would not be able to carry any more children herself, but after a lot of time and a lot of reflection we both realized what is important to us. That is having more children to love and cherish, and having siblings for Parker to grow up with. How that child joins our family is not the important part.

We both like to travel a lot. Neither one of us had the experience as a child to travel very much, so the two of us have taken full advantage of that together. Our first vacation as a family was to Hawaii when Parker was six months old. It was an amazing trip. We can’t wait for our next family trip to Colorado that is planned for this October. Traveling is something that the two of us look forward to doing as a family in the years to come.

About Bryan

I grew up as the oldest of 4 siblings in our house. It was me, my two younger sisters, and my younger brother. I also have an older step-brother and step-sister that didn’t live with us as kids, but we’ve all become close as we’ve grown up. There was plenty of sibling rivalry growing up and we had our share of fights, like all siblings do, but I feel extremely lucky to have grown up in a large family. Our family was always very active. Some of my favorite memories are of camping, canoeing, fishing, and going to the creek. Dad would take us to a creek and we’d hike for miles right down the middle of the creek. It was always an adventure!

I was very active in sports growing up. I played a lot of different sports as a kid, and played football and ran track in high school. My parents were always supportive of everything I did. I can’t wait to watch and support my own children as they grow and follow their passion, whether that is sports, art, music, or anything else. Training for and playing football was definitely my favorite thing to do in high school. More recently my hobbies include competing in triathlons, mountain biking, working on renovating our house, spending time with Parker, and playing with our dogs.

About Erika

About Erika I grew up in a very small town along the Mississippi River in northeast Missouri. I was raised on a farm where we had cattle, sheep, goats, horses, chickens, cats and dogs. I have one older sister and two younger brothers. As a kid I was very active in softball, basketball, 4-H, showing horses, swimming, and dance classes.

My true love growing up was playing basketball. I was involved in tournaments since I was in middle school. Each summer you could count on me being on the basketball court every day either practicing or participating in a tournament. This definitely was my passion.

In my spare time I love to read, shop, play tennis, run, and spend time with my family. I have three nephews and one niece that we spend a lot of time with. I love the fact that Parker and any new children added to our family will be close to their cousins and that they all can grow up together. Two of my nephews and my niece joined our family through adoption, so if we get the opportunity to raise your child, they will all have something in common to share with each other as they get older.

About Parker

Parker was born on June 10th, 2008. Some of his favorite things to do are riding on Dad's bike to the park, cuddling in bed with Mom on weekend mornings, wrestling with Dad, playing with his toys outside, playing with his cousins, and watching cartoons. Some of his least favorite things are picking up his toys, eating his vegetables, brushing his teeth, and getting told no. He has become very independent over the last few months and wants to do everything himself, and wants to help Mom and Dad with everything they are doing. He does get frustrated sometimes when he's not able to do something, but it's great to watch him try so many new things.

Our Pets

Tucker is a pure-bred boxer that joined our family last November. He is Parker's dog and it's fun to watch them grow up together. Parker loves both our dogs, but you can tell he misses Tucker if they are apart very long.

Shyla is a lab / boxer mix. We're not sure how old she is because a co-worker picked her up as a stray. We've had her about 4 years and she is the absolute sweetest dog ever.

Our Home

We currently live in a small suburb of Kansas City. We are both from small towns so we enjoy having the small town feeling while still being close to the city. We live in an older house that we bought about a year ago in a nice, quiet neighborhood. It is definitely a fixer-upper, but we both enjoy working on the house in our spare time and “making it our own”. We have a large yard that Parker shares with our two dogs, Tucker and Shyla. Parker loves his dogs very much, and loves to play with them. Tucker is a 1 year old boxer and Shyla is a 7 year old lab/boxer mix. Both of us always had dogs growing up, and we can’t imagine not always having one or two around. We live in a great school district, and we’re surrounded by parks and walking trails that we use frequently. Spending time with our family is very important to us, and we are lucky enough to have most of our family within a 3 to 4 hour radius of Kansas City.

In Conclusion

We’ve always talked about having a large family like the ones we both grew up in. For a while we didn’t know if that would be possible because of the troubles we’ve had. Erika’s older sister has three children that joined their family through adoption. Their family is really what got us thinking about the idea of adoption initially. The love they share and the relationships they have with the birth parents was all the proof we needed to know that adoption was right for us.

If you do choose us to raise your child, you would be giving us the greatest gift one person could ever give another. The most important thing is for you to make the best decisions for your child and yourself. We look forward to meeting you and learning more about each other. Thank you for taking this opportunity to learn about our family.

Erika, Bryan & Parker Hunt