The Benores in DC!

Katelyn Marissa Benore is more than a month old now and she is still the most wonderful gift we have ever been blessed with. When Shantell and I met 10 years ago, we could never imagine how long the journey would take us to begin our family and what that journey’s ups and downs would look like. After several miscarriages we began to think perhaps God had a different plan for our family. We begun in earnest looking at different options for taking care of children. We went as far as going through a year long foster care certification. But jus as we thought the door to having children of our own was closing, Shantell got pregnant … twice within a few months of each other. The first had miscarried again, but the second began to be more stable as time went on. About the same time, God was about to change everything in our lives and I do mean everything.

Not long after the pregnancy news, Kevin was provided a new job opportunity. This was a big change, because it would mean leaving a well established life in Fort Worth, where we had spent 7+ years. New baby, new job, new city, and new housing. Thankful our marriage is strong, because those amounts of “newnesses” can always be stressful. But this was not the first time Shantell and I had big new changes. Uprooting from Florida to Texas in our new marriage was something we also did.

So where did we come up with Katie’s name? In 2000, a few months before I met Shantell, her mother passed away. This past February, my mother also passed away only. Luckily my mom knew before she died that I was going to be a dad. Before Katie was born we decided that if our child was a girl, we would honor our mothers by deriving her name after our moms. Shantell’s mom’s name was Kathie and my mom’s middle name was Lynn, so Katelyn is her official name. But long ago, in our first years of marriage I knew we would call our little girl Katie for short, because it honored Shantell’s mom but kept the name modern and cute. Marissa also has special meaning. We wanted a “M” middle name to honor all of the “M”s in our lives. Our stepmoms’ names both begin with “M”. Both my sister (before she was married) and sister-in-law’s middle names began with “M”. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers also had names starting with “M”. Shantell’s maternal grandmother middle name began with “M” and her paternal grandmother’s maden name also started with “M”. So the letter “M” is very important to the women in our life.

Anyway, if you would like to see pictures you can Facebook either Shantell or me. If we know you, we will accept your friend request.

A few months ago, Shantell and I decided to start a new phase in our life. If you were guessing something like “they were trying to give away puppies, maybe they kept one”, then you are right about that … but that is not what I am talking about. (As a side note: we kept the runt of Daisy’s litter … and named her Lexi with the help of Shantell’s sister Whitney.) But no, that is not the big news we tweeted/facebook’d about.

Well, I will keep my readers in suspense no longer. OK, maybe a bit longer. On October 31, 2009 I tweeted “Taking a couple of classes today. And don’t ask why it’s a secret for now.” After that, people asked “Why?” and tried to guess everything from ministry related, to puppy classes, to parent classes. Every Saturday since October 31 we have been taking classes. Sometimes the classes were extremely fun and interesting. Others were a bit laborious. A couple of times it took me a day to physically recover (hard chairs + 100 mile round trip drive + arthritic tailbone = ouch). So what was the class for?

As of December 12, we have finished our classes to become foster parents. In the next few months we will continue finishing up our paperwork, getting our home inspected, and getting stuff purchased/gifted to us for the new addition to our family. Our goal as parents is to eventually adopt a little one. However, if you don’t know anything about foster care, the first goal is to reunite the child with their birth parents. This seems like a tension that stands in contradiction. But it is not. If we have a child that we are caring for and their parents get their life back together, we want nothing more than to reunite that child with their parents. However, if there is a child whose parents have their rights terminated for any reason – we would be honored to provide them a safe environment and become their forever family.

We will be registering for stuff, just like those who expect children through pregnancy do. Since we are new at foster care (and parenting for that matter), we’ve decided to start small … we will be seeking a child from birth to 2 years old. The reason for doing this is to limit what we have to purchase upfront for a child coming into our home. If we were open to any age, we would be required to have beds for all ages among other things.

So that’s our big news about the newest phase in our life. We will keep you posted on our progress. Keep in mind that some information we will not be able to share because of privacy laws – but we will share what we can! Thanks for reading and pray for us in our new endeavor.

Since our Dachshund’s original owners never surfaced, we have added Daisy to our family. At first we thought about taking to her to the shelter … but not many “no kill” shelters around. Also she kinda grew on us. So we went from zero dogs, to falling in love with Hoss, to having both Hoss and Daisy in our lives. Hoss has adjusted to Daisy after a little more than a week of figuring things out.

This is what we know about Daisy. She is one or two years old. She is a full sized Dachshund and is already house trained. This picture is of Daisy snuggling up to Hoss.

Last Tuesday, August 25, 2009, Shantell attempted to help a neighborhood kid retrieve a dog from the field in between

our neighborhood and the highway. The dog did not want to be caught and the kid disappeared when it got dark. We did not know who he was or where he lived. I went back out with Shantell to look for the dog, but it was nowhere to be found.

The following Thursday morning, August 27 on my way to work, I saw the dog. It was walking by the side of the road … near the highway … in the rain. I picked her up and took her home. More than a week later we’ve not heard from the

owners. We even had the neighbor sales office email every homeowner. We hope to return her to her family but if we don’t hear anything … we will take care of her. For now, we are calling her Daisy.