Morgan & Daniel

We met at CrossFit in 2013 — mutual friends, same sense of humor, both married to other people. Life had other plans. By the time we were both single, I looked at him one day and realized I felt safe, seen, and genuinely happy. Then, like a ton of bricks, completely head over heels.

What I noticed first wasn't romance, it was Dan's hugs. Not the one-arm shoulder hug or the butt-out hug. The kind where someone truly cares about your wellbeing. The kind that says you've got this. He changed the way I hug.

We built a blended family and I poured my whole heart into it; birthday parties, Halloween costumes, themed Christmas Eves. One year I dressed as Mary in a costume Dan ordered without realizing 40 inches meant width, not length. Four people could have fit inside it. Then came Poppy and everything got brighter. Dan is the light switch that illuminates the whole room. Poppy is the sun, you don't even need the lights when she's around. And this new baby? They're the music that's about to start playing.

Home is where our family is. No matter the house, it's the three of us that makes every place feel special.

Our primary home is in Florida, at the end of a sandy little road, sitting on a private bayou. Mornings mean snuggles watching ospreys fish from the nest outside. Evenings are Danny Boy playing guitar on the lanai while dolphins swim into the bay. And every night, twenty minutes before sunset, we load up, Poppy in her Hot Wheels car and pajamas, Dan and I holding hands, walking to the ocean to watch the sun go down.

In Utah, Poppy is the resident baby, greeted by name everywhere, handed bowls of cherries, and invited into the club's kitchens. Her favorite things are golf cart rides for ice cream and playing drums on Daddy's stage.

Our family has had a home in the Adirondacks since 1887. Every summer, every generation gathers. We hike, pick wild blueberries on the peaks, and hop rocks up and down the stream. On Monday nights, fifty kids play capture-the-flag while the adults watch from the sidelines, swapping stories of the same games they played in the same place as children. Back at our family's home, we gather around a long table lit only by candles, every generation together. The kids debate whose turn it is to blow them out before heading inside to make s'mores and fall asleep listening to the stream. This will be your baby's place too.

The people around that table: Dan's twins, Kalvin and Grace, both 14 — one a skier and world-curious, the other a bookworm obsessed with horses. When they leave after visits, Poppy cries. My parents Peggy and Rick, who planted this whole life - my mom baking muffins and tending her garden, my dad fly fishing and looking proud at the dinner table. My brother Dunham, whose kids always have matching pajamas with Poppy at Christmas. My best friend Kitty, fifteen years of spin class, travel, and the same jokes. And Lily, the silly aunt with colorful hair who brings joy into every room.

Last summer, we took six friends, including two other three-year-olds, to a fishing lodge in Alaska. Dan was skeptical. He came around the moment the lodge greeted us with tiny wellies for the girls. Nobody can resist tiny rain boots. The kids had one job on the boat: tell the first mate when they spotted a fish. They did so with GLEE. "FISHY!" When puddles formed on the dock, they jumped in them for an hour straight. The crew surprised them with handmade coloring books and let them take the wheel. Pure joy.

Poppy has a passport. She hiked the Cliffs of Moher when she was five months old in a front pack. We don't travel to check boxes. We travel because the world builds curious, compassionate, perspective-rich humans.