Tonya

When we went to England we hired Tonya to watch our kids for us while we were gone. They were older and we figured they would be less likely to get homesick if they were all together. Tonya did a wonderful job even though she may not be so sure. When we left Brandon and Ben both had these gigantic tadpoles. I don't remember where they got them but they probably found them in the irrigation ditch behind the ponds. One of the first things the boys said to us when we got home was, "Tonya killed our frogs". While we were gone the tadpoles turned into frogs, pretty big ones from the sounds of it. My guess is that Tonya said to herself that she hired on to take care of the kids, not frogs. I'm not even sure what you would feed a frog. I guess you could run around the house all day and swat flies and I don't really blame her if she didn't want to do that. The boys were obviously too young to know what to do with a frog so the poor frogs wasted away and passed on. I think the boys pined over them for a couple of days and moved on as well.

Another time Brandon and a friend of his were completing their "fort" in the tree. We had these tall metal poles that we used for growing our peas and beans on. They were about six feet tall and we would string chicken wire between them. They were quite heavy. Brandon and his friend had hauled a bunch of them up into the tree and then they were sitting on the ground below doing what ever it is little boys do. While they were sitting there one of the poles fell out of the tree and landed right next to Brandon. Brandon remembers thinking, "boy that was close". Suddenly Brandon's friend starts freaking out and that is about the time Brandon realized that there was blood running down his head the pole had hit him on the head and he didn't even realize it. There was a lot of blood. He ran into the house and showed Tonya who I'm quite sure was quite alarmed. She piled him into the car and ran him out to Easters who patched his head up quite nicely.

It only gets better. Amy Forrest was one of Kira's best friends. One day Amy was over at the house and they were playing on our back porch. We had this fancy wrought iron railing around the back porch and the kids loved to slide down the railing. I loved to slide down the railing. Tonya saw them and warned them to be careful but you know kids, they think they're indestructible. It always amazes me to see just how resilient they are. Well Amy was sliding down the railing and caught her leg in the wrought iron bars. Her leg remained in the bars as her body fell off the railing. She landed on the steps tearing a huge gash in her leg and that is what they were most worried about because of the blood. They ran and got Tonya who cleaned her up and checked her out and then she suggested that the gash may not be her biggest problem. She was afraid that Amy had broken her leg. Amy agreed but the other kids were more worried about the blood. They loaded Amy up and took her to her mother who rushed her into Brooks. Amy came home with stitches in one leg and a cast on the other leg. Poor Tonya had to deal with it all. I admire how she was able to stay calm and keep her cool. I have no doubts that she has turned out to be a wonderful wife and mother. I'd love to get an update sometime on her and Michael.

Kira's favorite memory of that time was when Tonya would let her stay up late on the weekends while her and Michael would watch a movie. She would always fall asleep before the movie was over but she felt so grown up when she was allowed to stay up.