"Friday, May 8, 1998
My toads died, but not too long until my birthday!
I'll tell you how many days...8 days is how many.
I can't wait!! I'll have cake and ice cream. I'll
get presents. I'm sure they'll be fun. Oh... how
I can't wait! I'm so excited!

I watched my first hockey game today. It was
on tv. The Sabres won. That's who I was
rooting for. I felt so happy that I had to jump up and down.

In only two days it is Mother's Day. Rachel asked
me what I should make. She said I could use
her Highlights.

Sat. May 9 Tonight Daddy found a FROG. It is very
small. I've found toads this small. This frog
has sticky feet. Mommy thinks he's a tree frog.
Daddy found the frog in the basement.
I found a Box turtle today! It was pretty.
he had yellow and red stripes on his head. He
has long toenails and fingernails. Daddy filled
the pool for the Box turtle with a little bit of water.
Daddy also put a big, flat rock in the pool.
My birthday is in only a week."

I loved those toads. I was so sad that I accidentally squeezed them to death. Whenever I think about that, I feel guilty. I was only six, and didn't know any better, but I feel bad all the same. I loved them a little too much, I guess.
I remember that turtle. We've found many a read-eared box turtle since then. I recall, Mom had just called us to come in and get ready for bed. We all came running to the house. As I was running, I ran past what turned out to be a large turtle, just sitting on our lawn!
We leave for vacation tomorrow night. I really hate the day we leave on vacation. I just have to keep thinking about getting there, and having a jolly good time, wot?
Sorry. I do that too much. :)
I ran out of yarn for my current crochet project. It's really worrying me that I won't be able to finish it before we leave. It really is almost done, but I wanted it to be all finished before we left so's I could impress Grandma Sue with how nice it looks.
Please pray for the people of Greensburg, KS. I know you all have been hearing about it a lot on the news. When we lived in Larned, KS, Dad served a vacancy in Greensburg. We made some wonderful friends there. I spent my 10th birthday with those great people. So far as we know at the moment, no one we knew died, but many of them lost everything. It is still hard to believe that the church, the park next door, the water tower, everything is gone!

"Monday, May 4, 1998
Two days ago or maybe three Jojo found a toad.
Bekah picked it up. Mommy got a coffee can and
we put the toad in the can. We looked in the
"Pets In A Jar" book and we found out that the toad
eats earthworms and caterpillars and grasshoppers
and crickets. We also found out that a gallon jar was
what we should put him in. We put dirt in the can
so he could dig and we pit a little bit of water
so he would not die from the sun. I named him
Hoppy.
He went behind the Barbie house. Once he went
and got stuck in the vetrinarian cage! Mommy took
it apart and got him out. She called me and I got
him out."

That incident was rather frightening. We had a little toy pet cage that we used for dolls, and I had put the toad inside of it, though I don't know why I did that. Hoppy had found a way to get himself stuck in the plastic wall of the cage! To this day, I still don't know how he did it. Mom had to take the cage apart with a screwdriver to get my toad out. We found another toad a few days latter, who I named Jumpy. I loved those toads. No, I couldn't write so well at six years old. I was dictating to Mom, who was nice enough to write all of that down for me.