Hi! My name is Tonia and my family and I have lived in the Nottingham Country ward for almost 3 years. I was born in Utah but my family moved in with my grandparents in Southern California when I was 6. I then spent 11 years at the beach, raising bees in the backyard, and visiting the Hollywood movie lots my Dad did special effects for. In high school we decided to brave the cold and moved back up to Utah. I traded rollerblading for hiking and camping and loved the autumn colors and big bonfires up the canyons. I also did cross country running and graduated as the first Senior class in a new high school called Lone Peak. Having too many different ideas about what career I wanted I decided to get the basics out of the way at Utah Valley State College (which I'm pretty sure is called something else now).
While working a full time job at Borders Books and Music and attending school I had most of my big life plans altered by one skinny returned missionary from Texas in worn out shoes and 70's jeans. Ben Davis (not that one, the other one) and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple in 2000 and immediately took all our hard earned savings out in order to ditch school for a semester and backpack Europe. (Highly recommended). We then returned eight countries later to live with his parents (not quite as highly recommended) in order to save up money again for school. We returned to Utah and both went to the University of Utah (sorry BYU fans), worked, had two daughters, lived in the tiniest of apartments, and had a blast. In 2004 Ben got his undergrad in geology and was accepted at the University of Texas in Austin. We packed up our things, traded our red shirts for burnt orange and moved into another tiny apartment on the hottest day of the year.
Austin was quite a culture shock for me but after getting use to big bugs, ants that bite, and sweating while you run I had a great time being a graduate widow with the other stay at home moms of student life. On the rare occasion we did see Ben we spent the time at the many music and art festivals, taking trips to the San Antonio Zoo, and getting lectured on why the Alamo was the greatest historical event of all time. After three years I agreed with it all and to prove it had another little girl who could officially declare herself a Texan.
While I could have stayed in Austin for years to come our life was altered again when Ben graduated with a Master's in Geology and accepted a job offer in Houston Texas. We moved to The Woodlands for a year, had another daughter, and finally decided to do a very adult thing and buy a house in Katy, Texas. Perhaps through all of this I read Pride and Prejudice one too many times because six months ago we decided to seal our fate as the Bennet family and have a fifth daughter who hopefully will turn out nothing like Miss Lydia Bennet.
Now that life has gotten a little less mobile I spend a lot of time devising lesson plans for my home-schooled children, trying to cook spectacular and interesting food, trying to lose weight from the spectacular food, reading, attempting to write on our blog, and attempting to keep a clean house. Both my husband and I love to get together with friends for geo-caching, potlucks, and football games so if anyone is ever interested give us a call!
