Tonya

It was a big relief to me when Tonya joined the family.  I sometimes forget that not everything is about me and I was seriously worried that all of the brothers were avoiding marriage because of me for some reason.  You know, as in "I don't want to get stuck with someone like that!"  It had been five years since Derek and I were married and Tonya's husband is NOT five years younger than Derek.  In reality it is more likely that the brothers didn't want a first apartment like ours, and even more likely that they just hadn't met the right people yet.  Anyhow, I was glad when Quinn married Tonya.  I have had a bazillion reasons to keep being happy about that.  Here are some of my favorites.

Tonya has been a good friend to me.  I enjoy talking to her about lots of things.  She lets me whine at her if I want to and she is sympathetic.  I have a lot of sympathetic family members and I appreciate each one!  That makes me wonder if I whine a lot.  Hmm.  Tonya and I both have this annoying thing where we cry really easily about lots of random things and so it's nice to have a buddy who understands when my eyes are dripping and nothing really sad just happened.

Tonya is the only Aunt in the family that is called "Ont" instead of "Ant".  When we are with her we discuss the way that apricot should be said and we smile when she insists on being the only one in the universe to use the "proper" pronunciation of some words -- which I believe she learned during acting classes.  She's an incredibly good sport about it and allows us to butcher the language however we want to as long as we don't give her too bad of a time about the fact that the "correct" pronunciation she uses isn't the common one (to us).

Tonya has the greatest number of children who are close in age to my kids in the C. family for the obvious reason that nobody else got married for a while.  My kids love to visit the cousins in the warmer part of the state.  Tonya and I always end up going to the grocery store to pick up a few things.  Dan needs soy or rice milk and (shockingly) they drink milk from a cow (No.  Not their own cow).  Tonya and I are always both buying things and I constantly try to sneak some of her stuff into my pile (since it's food we'll be eating).  She has a tendency to try to sneak my things into her pile (because we're the guests?).  It's kind of a tradition by now.

One fun memory with Tonya is during a C. reunion.  The whole family was outside and she came in to help me make missionary name tags for my girls for our skit.  We found some paper but we needed crayons.  Where are crayons kept?  In the Master bedroom, in the top drawer of the dresser.  Of course!  So, feeling like we were somehow being naughty, we snuck into the Master bedroom and opened the drawer.  Now that felt awkward!  I personally think that underthings go in the top drawer of dressers and I was worried that maybe Mom and Dad C. had changed their mind about where the crayons go.  Thankfully they hadn't and we got the crayons and started to leave the room.   Mom C. was right there on the other side of the door getting ready to come in!  We apparently looked so guilty that she started laughing and assured us that we were allowed to get crayons out of the drawer.  If it weren't for the fact that Tonya doesn't eat chocolate she might have thought we were sneaking candybars out from under the bed.

Tonya has been helpful to me when some of my kids started having asthma and, it seems like she somehow understood from the first what I was feeling when Dan's food allergies were first discovered.

Tonya is an incredibly talented person.  I'm always impressed with how well she can remember a book after reading it and even express intelligently what she liked about it and what she did not.  I can usually remember if I liked it or not -- but after a day or two I probably can't name the characters, or any other important details, or exactly why I liked it.  She is a talented writer and she expresses herself well verbally too.  I think she can even think when put on the spot which, I think, would be a great talent to have.

She and Quinn do a wonderful job of doing projects to improve their house and yard.  Tonya has a talent for doing detailed work that would drive me nuts after a few minutes (scrapbooking type things and sewing projects).  My girls enjoy talking to her too and she is generally a good person to have around for a lot of reasons. 

Tonya is a spiritual person who loves her Savior and her family.  I'm thankful that Quinn waited until he found Tonya to get married so that I could have her as a sister and a friend.

Happy Birthday Tonya!