About Us

Our family has grown and shrunk many times over the past few years. We have adopted two wonderful children and fostered three others who have returned to their biological families. Our hearts and hands are open to new opportunities for growth. Here is a little bit about us!

Ben: Ben grew up in Springfield, MO and got his degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies and a minor in Italian from BYU. In order to get his degree he had to study at the University of Jordan in Amman for a summer. That is where we had some amazing Middle Eastern adventures! After he graduated he worked as a computer tech and decided to make a profession out of it. We moved to Missouri and have been here ever since!
 
Ashley: I grew up in St. Louis and got my degree in Elementary Education and a minor in German from BYU. I worked for Alpine School district for 3 years.We moved out to Missouri a few years ago to start our own business and have loved it! I homeschool both Deven and Ari and run my own little neighborhood school from our house. 


Arianna (we call her Ari): Ari born in December 2011. Her wonderful birthmother connected with us through LDS family services. We were able to bring her home about a week after she was born and she has been a light in our lives ever since. 

Deven: Deven joined our family in November 2013, when he was 6 years old. He was placed with us through foster care and we were able to adopt him about 8 months later. Deven has some challenges because of circumstances when he was younger, but our whole family has grown and gotten stronger because of him. 

 How we met: We met at a friend's wedding. I was friends with the bride and he was friends with the groom. We were both in that awkward category of "friends that are considered family," so we were "stuck" together for a lot of the functions, like the family dinner.   A week later Ben called me and asked me out on a date. A few months later we knew we wanted to get married but we had plans to go to opposite ends of the globe for the summer. I went to Vienna, Austria for a study abroad and Ben went to San Diego, CA to sell pest control (yes he was a bug boy). We got engaged in August, at the end of that summer.
We then got married in December later that year.