Our hearts are open, all ready to grow our family! We have been married 16 years and raised two children; Kelly's biological son, now 21 and serves in the US Army, and our daughter who was adopted as a toddler, now 18 and lives nearby. We love to do things together as a family, but also believe each child needs and deserves our one on one, individualized attention and time.
As a family, we love to do a variety of activities. We enjoy the outdoors such as hiking, boating, fishing, camping, and enjoying the beauty that nature has to offer. We love to spend time at the park, having picnics and playing sports such as soccer, volleyball, frisbee golf, basketball, baseball, and tennis. We love it when we are able to attend local and major league sporting events. We also attend a variety of entertainment shows throughout the year including concerts, the symphony, magic shows, dance productions, the circus, ice skating, family comedy shows, and other stage productions. We like to visit museums and historical places and learn about history and culture, especially when we travel. At home, we enjoy watching movies, playing board games and the Wii, cooking, and holding social gatherings with friends while cooking on the bbq and playing yard games. We look forward to once again supporting the children we adopt in their desires to participate in sports, music lessons, art, dance or martial arts lessons.
We believe education is important. We understand that for children to be successful in school, they need to have the proper support, encouragement, and internal motivation. We love to help children and young adults explore their personal interest, strengths, passions, and desires and use those to reach personal goals. We help children believe in themselves and feel the exhilaration of success. While we both work full time, Kelly has a flexible schedule and Roger gets off work at 1pm each day and will always be home to support the children in completing their homework. We both have served on parent boards at the school, make it to parent/teacher conferences, and participate in other school events and extra-curricular activities. Because education is important to us, we have both completed our master's degree, Roger in Social Work and Kelly in Early Childhood Education, and we are committed to supporting our children in any level of education and training they seek to fulfill their life long career dreams.
Our faith is important to us. We raised our children to have values and morals and to believe in God. We actively attend church each Sunday and support the youth groups and serve as Sunday School teachers. We have taught our children the value of serving others through regularly serving throughout our community as well as participating in a family Christmas service project as part of our holiday tradition.
We live in Ogden, Utah, a suburban city with much history. It is nestled up against the mountains and within 30 minutes of snow resorts, reservoirs, mountain hiking and biking trails, and a large array of other outdoor recreational activities. There are many arts and cultural opportunities. We are 45 minutes away from a major city, Salt Lake City, Utah's capital and filled with much history, the zoo, and home to many museums and theaters.
We live at the base of a mountain in a single family home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. We have a beautiful outdoor yard where we love to spend time. We have one dog who is 14 years old and great with children. We are open to having additional pets, however, we are both allergic to cats. We are within walking distance of the elementary school, the community park, church, and hiking trails. The middle and high school are within a couple miles from our home. Ogden is home to Weber State University and the Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College where high school students are encouraged to become concurrently enrolled, seeking a career path.
Kelly works as the director of a preschool and after school/summer program for children between the ages of 2-12 so if there are times younger children are not in school, they can go to work with Kelly and participate in the many activities there.
As we raised our two children and helped them through childhood and now into adulthood, we have learned that each child is unique with individual needs and interests. Every child needs to have clear boundaries, rules, and expectations, but be given room to explore, experiment, make their own decisions, and learn through their own mistakes. Each child is blessed with talents and abilities that when recognized, can be a strength to them and a blessing to others.
Our son, KC struggled with ADHD. Despite being academically advanced, he had social challenges which led to many disciplinary problems through all of school. We spent a lot of time working with his principles, teachers, and school counselors to develop academic and behavior plans that would help him grow. We took the time to research and learn all we could about his circumstances and what we could do to support him. KC was able to run track and cross country, learned martial arts, learned to play the clarinet and guitar, and participated on school and community sport teams. We supported his strengths and talents, but provided him with the structure he needed to succeed. He ended up graduating from high school at age 16, started attending college, and joined the military, his dream, at age 17.
Our daughter, Amanda also struggled. In her first two years of life she experienced a lot of changes and went between many different care givers before we adopted her from foster care. When she was younger, she went through speech therapy and academic struggles in school. She struggled with reactive attachment disorder and personality disorder. Again, we took time to learn about these conditions and her specific needs and worked with her counselors to get through her struggles. Amanda was able to graduate high school while being dual enrolled at the technology school and is able to support herself. She still requires support and assistance from us at times, but she is doing well supporting herself.
In addition to our parenting experiences, both of us have had training and education in working with children and adults who have experienced trauma in their lives and with mental illnesses. Roger is a mental health therapist, working with those who have addictions to overcome their trials and move on to a healthier life. Over the past 16 years as a social worker, Roger has worked with those with disabilities, at-risk children, youth in the juvenile detention center, and the homeless population. He is also a certified instructor for Becoming a Love and Logic Parent. Kelly has worked with children age 0-12 for the past 22 years. She has spent the last 5 years working as a program director for a non-profit childcare center that works with low-income families. Her specialty is designing positive behavior support (PBS) plans for children with extreme challenging behaviors. She coaches the staff on classroom management techniques and teaching social emotional skills to children. Together, we enjoy presenting at local and state conferences on strategies to work with caregivers for children with challenging behaviors. Through both of our schooling and experience, we have a wide variety of training to work with many challenges that come with raising children.