Ric & Kris

Hello! We are Kris & Ric from sunny Southern California. We know that you have a lot of choices when it comes to finding adoptive parents so we are honored and appreciate your consideration of us among them.

We are also excited to share our journey together with you – including the opportunity to get to know you on a personal level.

Having children has always been something we wanted. We understand that being a parent doesn’t only mean having a baby of your own DNA. To us, parenthood means having the opportunity to love, care for, and to raise a child with unconditional love – regardless of whether we gave birth to them or not. It is the depth of the relationship between all of us that matters most.

As Parents, We Promise That:
• Your child will be loved unconditionally – not only by us but also by our friends and family
• Your child will be given every exposure and opportunity to succeed in life
• Your child will always be safe – you will never have to worry about their well-being
• Your child will be taught about their background and heritage so that they will know where they came from

Our Story: We met online in 2009. We both love to eat and we both love sushi – so naturally our first date was at a Japanese restaurant. As our relationship blossomed over two years, Ric nervously proposed to Kris during a cold and wintery trip to Montreal, Canada. Luckily, Kris said yes and today we live in a lovely house in Playa Vista, California.

We love food and we are open-minded when it comes to cuisines. We guarantee that if you put any dish in front of us, it will most likely be gone in a matter of minutes. One of our favorite things is to invite friends and family over to our house for dinner. Some of our favorite cuisines include: Japanese, Peruvian, Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese. We are also pretty good at cooking meals – from seafood, to pasta, to authentic Vietnamese dishes. Admittedly, Kris is way better at cooking – but Ric is great at cleaning dishes.

We think it is important for us and our future child to travel and learn about different races, cultures, and religions. We make it a point to go on a couple of trips every year. We’ve been to: Rome, Venice, Naples, Florence, Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Madrid, San Sebastian, London, Dublin, Bora Bora, Hawaii, Vancouver, Whistler, Montreal, New York, Nashville, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Jackson Hole.

We Believe In A Balanced Life: We are both fortunate to have extremely flexible schedules. More importantly as future parents, this means that we are able to work from home whenever we want. Kris’s work is based from home so she doesn’t have an office to commute to, and Ric’s office is only 5 minutes from our house.

We are both serious when it comes to work but we believe it is equally important to have balance in our lives. Our friends and family always remark on how easy our relationship is. We complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses and the end result is seamless teamwork.

About Ric: I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. I have two younger sisters and I am the proud uncle of a 10-year old nephew, 7-year old niece, and a 7-month old nephew.

I graduated university in Vancouver and then I moved to Los Angeles to attend law school. After law school, I worked for a law firm until I decided that I wanted to take control of my own destiny. So I started my own immigration law practice and I have a wonderful group of employees who I love and consider my family.

I’m a diehard hockey fan and my favorite team is the Vancouver Canucks. I’m excellent on rollerblades (it’s a lost art) and I love to ride my bicycle along the beach with Kris on weekends. I recently bought a lime tree and it’s already bearing fruit! I also love to collect art pieces and I enjoy photography – though I don’t pretend to be an expert in either!

I look forward to teaching our future child. I think knowledge is power, and the earlier I can impart knowledge, the better the person they will be when they grow up. I also look forward to learning from my future child. Children are so smart and they teach adults a lot of things. I’ve also been told that your child makes you feel young again – you get to experience things that you did as a child, and you see the world through the child’s eyes.

Fun Facts:
• I’m a dual Canadian and U.S. citizen
• I’m a great Instagram Husband (and I’ll make a great Instagram Dad)
• I know the lyrics to almost every 90’s R&B song

By Kris: I love so many things about Ric. The thing that first drew me to him was that he was such a kind person. He’s mature, light-hearted, and ambitious. To me, this not only makes for a great husband and partner, but also a great father. One of the best qualities about Ric is that he wants everybody to be happy.

About Kris: I was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the United States as a refugee when I was very young. Like my path to parenthood, my path to the U.S. was winding. After leaving Vietnam, I briefly lived in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines before finally settling down in Orange County, California.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and also a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. Today, I am a sales account executive for a large technology company where my job is to reach out to new and existing customers. I love my job because I get to interact with a lot of different people around the country from a variety of backgrounds.

I enjoy working out in my spare time and I try to hit the gym every day. I also like to go bicycling around the beach with Ric – something we do on a weekly basis. I also enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes. Sometimes they are a hit, and sometimes they are a miss. But we always have fun trying – and that’s what matters the most.

Fun Facts:
• As a child, I came in third-place in a national anthem singing contest in Cambodia
• You can spot me in the background on the reality TV show “Million Dollar Listing” on Bravo next year
• My favorite animals are elephants, horses, and dogs (in no particular order)

By Ric: One of Kris’s best qualities is her willingness to do anything for people. Whether it’s her parents, sister, friends, or me – she can’t say no to her loved ones. It was clear from the beginning that her kindness and willingness to help others is unconditional. I’ve hoped for Kris to be a mother for so long because I know that this quality will translate when she is caring for her child – she will go to the ends of the earth for him or her.

Introducing Our Loved Ones: All of our family and friends are extremely supportive and excited about our plan to adopt.

Kris is very close to her parents and sister. Her parents are retired and live in Orange County. Their days usually consist of going to church, taking walks, and asking us when they’re going to be grandparents. We will drive down to Orange County to take them out to lunch every week. Kris’s sister lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their dog, Lupe. Kris and her sister are very close and talk every day.

We usually spend Christmas and Thanksgiving with Kris’s parents, sister and husband. Then we’ll fly to Vancouver to spend Christmas and New Year’s with Ric’s family who all still live there.

Ric’s parents live in Canada and are both retired. His mother was a real estate broker and his father was a dentist.

Ric’s sister and her husband have a son (10) and daughter (7). His other sister and her husband have a baby boy who was born in 2019. Ric’s sisters also come to Los Angeles every summer when their kids are out of school, so our house gets pretty full with children and guests in July and August.

Our Home & Community: We bought a newly built 3-bedroom house in Playa Vista, California in 2019. Playa Vista is a beautiful little planned community on the westside of Los Angeles. Imagine the movie “Truman Show” with Jim Carrey – but with more personality. It’s a modern community that was specifically developed for professional couples with children. We became fast friends with many of our neighbors as well. Many of them have small children and we take turns hosting dinner parties at each other’s houses.

Playa Vista is also a very safe community with 24-hour security, parks and play areas within walking distance, and a “village” that hosts farmers markets on weekends. The village has a Whole Foods, Starbucks, and movie theatre – so getting groceries, coffee, or catching a movie is a 5-minute walk away. The farmers market draws a lot of parents who bring their children to listen to live music and engage in other children’s activities. Playa Vista also has a highly-rated elementary school about 1 mile from our house. So it will be very easy to walk or drive our child to school.

Our Closing Thoughts To You: Thank you again for considering us as adoptive parents to your child. We’re grateful that you took the time to learn about us and we hope that you get a sense of the enthusiasm, excitement and love that we have and will provide as parents. We also wish you the very best on this journey.