- Utah -
Hi there :) Thank you for spending a moment with us! A precious baby is in our hearts who we are excitedly anticipating and ready to accept, love, and add to our family with open arms. We are adventurous, fun, God-loving, spunky, and tall. We love to connect deeply, make memories, explore, stay active, laugh, play games, hike, camp, cheer for BYU, build with Legos, ride roller coasters, and serve in our community. Drew is a biomechanical engineer manager, and Ashton is a homemaker and counselor.
Ashton's family would describe her as a dynamic, friendly, determined, fun, and passionate seeker of Truth. She loves to adventure, stay active, and travel with her family, Europe and Hawaii being among her favorites. She adores being married to her best friend and spending quality time with him outdoors, doing triathlons, playing frisbee golf, and eating frozen yogurt. She prides herself in being her kids' #1 super fan in their many activities and is sometimes even their coach! She dreams big and diligently works to reach her goals, like playing for the BYU volleyball team and most recently reaching her goal of graduating with a master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. She seeks to embrace challenges as opportunities for growth. She values deep connection and seeks to live a life grounded in the pillars of connection: honesty, responsibility, and humility. As a mom, she is intentional about modeling and teaching these core principles to her kids. She seeks to enjoy life’s journey, share light and love, and let God prevail.
Drew is such a kind, patient, loving, smart, hard-working, adventurous husband, and father. He is a man of his word, is a good listener, and is fiercely loyal. He has a heart of gold. He prioritizes God and family above all else. He leads out in a way that helps us to have a Christ-centered home. He approaches parenting as a partnership, and we both share the household tasks as equals. He loves to build things. He is slow to anger and works diligently and intentionally daily to better himself. Drew loves to mountain bike, snowboard, do triathlons, take Ashton out on dates, have family movie nights, bake delicious desserts, travel, and provide many learning opportunities and experiences for the kids. He is a wonderful provider and protector of our family.
We are humbled to connect with you for a small moment. We reach out to you in a spirit of compassion and non-judgment. We recognize that we cannot fully comprehend how you may be feeling at this difficult time. We hope that you will find the clarity and support that you need as you take many options into consideration as to where your story may lead from here.
Being a parent encompasses the full pendulum of highs and lows and encompasses spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional stamina, gifts, strength, creativity, heart, love, patience, and above all growth. We strive to be on the same team and to find joy in the journey. We like to take our kids on one-on-one dates and plan family activities frequently to help strengthen our relationships with our kids and stay strong as a family. We also prioritize teaching our children how to work and helping them to gain experience with the reality that they can do hard things.
We believe in practicing what we preach and being an example of the principles we are asking our children to live. At the core of our parenting are the principles of living in Truth, which encompass being honest, responsible, and humble. We hold our children accountable for their actions. We try to set our children up for success by setting up clear expectations and communicating the consequences up front. We try to always match the poor choices with an outcome that makes sense and is connected to the outcome of the choice made. When our kids choose to make a poor choice, we follow through with the previously communicated consequence and keep the approach light by focusing on the reality that “you chose.” We want them to learn that choices have outcomes.
If you could be in our home and see a snapshot of our family, the following are some of the norms and family traditions that you might experience. You would see our family attending church each Sunday, kneeling in prayer, and reading scriptures together regularly to keep our relationship with God and our family strong. You’d see Drew and Ashton, as best friends, prioritizing our weekly date night to keep our love thriving. You would see us sitting with our four vivacious children enjoying healthy, home-cooked dinner meals sharing our highs and lows of the day. You would hear us laughing and connecting deeply with family and friends as we host game nights, and dinners, and have frequent get-togethers with cousins and grandparents. You would experience us singing around the piano together. You would watch us lace up our shoes and grab our gear to go into nature to hike, mountain bike, camp, paddle in the lake, or ski together as a family. You would see us all making mistakes and seeking to be humble, honest, and responsible as we make reparations for any damage done. You would quickly find that we spend time regularly out of the house doing fun things, staying active, and going on adventures together; down these lines, you’d see us riding bikes/taking walks in our neighborhood, exploring new parks in our community, frequenting children’s museums, going to theme parks, experiencing the local fair, parades, zoos, and farmer’s markets, going to the gym together, feeling soft blankets at the Minky store, training for triathlons together, trying new restaurants, picking pumpkins to carve at the pumpkin patch, and doing secret Santa for less fortunate families during the holidays. You would notice us packing our bags to go travel together (Hawaii, Florida, Europe, southern Utah, and California are among our favorite places to explore). You could cozy up along with the kids as we read aloud to them before bed. You might watch the delight of the kids playing and interacting together up in the playroom building things out of Legos, blocks, fort materials, and playing dress-ups. You’d see us playing together and working together: Family Fun Night/movie nights and working together each Saturday to complete our “Saturday Work Day” tasks where we all pitch in to take care of our home and yard. You’d observe us modeling to the kids how to live a life that is connected to Higher Power, Self, and others. You’d see us teaching our kids life skills, having one-on-one check-ins, and taking them on parent-child dates.
While expecting Alyssa, Ashton dreamed up the baby’s nursery and she then learned to use a saw and an air-compressed nail gun to complete the work and make it happen. Drew helped with the Home Depot runs, and with painting, and he was Ashton’s number one supporter in making her dream nursery come to life.
Drew is hardworking, patient, loving, respectful, and supportive. He is an engineer and currently works as a chief technical officer at a medical device company. He is a wonderful provider for our family. He graduated with his master’s degree from Stanford University, he loves to compete in triathlons, and he just earned his black belt in Tae Kwando. Ashton is passionate, friendly, athletic, fun, adventurous, and is a Truth seeker. She is a homemaker and also just graduated with her master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is very passionate about the work of healing the body/mind/spirit/soul. She played volleyball in college, loves to have dance parties in the kitchen, and one of her favorite ways to show love is through thoughtful gifts.
We have four amazing kiddos! Brooklyn is 12, Harrison is 10, Isaac is 8, and Alyssa is 3. See our profile pdf for specifics on each child. Needless to say, they are all so excited at the thought of having a new baby in the home!
When we asked our kids to share words that describe our family, they collectively said: fun, adventure, love, courage, connection, Truth, peace, shine, joy, and keeping our promises. We will do our part to provide the baby in our hearts with a life of fullness, growth, and joy. The new baby will be so loved, doted on by older siblings/cousins, and will fit right into the flow of our family.
As far as we foresee our relationship down the road with the birth parents and families of the baby in our hearts, we seek for it to reflect our commitment to being respectful, open, constant, considerate, supportive, and connected. We hope that the birth mother in particular will feel of our love, acceptance, and profound gratitude for her irreplaceable role. We are committed to a relationship with good communication. We are open to birth parents and family members being a part of the baby’s life through visits. We are also open and willing to send pictures and updates on a regular basis. We hope to work with the birth parents to understand how we can partner together to support them and baby in their needs and desires for connection and involvement over the years. We hope that as the baby grows that the birth parents will feel thrilled about the adoption placement because they will see that the baby is thriving, and our hope is that they will be thriving too.
