Peeve has Returned!

So we have this Red Eared Slider named Peeve. I became her stepmom when I married Judd; she accompanied him throughout his bachelor days. She is the most unique turtle I have ever encountered. She is like a little cat, she has almost free-reign of the apartment and likes to crawl up on us and cuddle.

Peeve is also a master at hiding. We let her out about every other night, and with all the noise she makes climbing all over things, it is not that difficult to find her...usually. But this week, we went three days without a sign of her! We were getting pretty nervous, it's not like she can run away. We went though all these scenarios over what could have happened to her. I got this nasty feeling that we may have accidently thrown her away because we had a garbage bag on the floor for a little while while cleaning some stuff, and I wondered if maybe she crawled in it when we weren't looking. This revelation came to me at about 4:30 the other night. Poor Judd was so bummed about his missing turtle, so I decided it was time to go dumpster diving. I imagined myself being this really great hero bringing back a smelly, dirty, but otherwise alive Peeve and making Judd all happy again!

Unfortunatly for me, my glory moment was ruined when Judd realized she might be able to fit under a nightstand. I thought it was impossible, but sure enough, he reached under it and there she was! She really is a crazy-good hider, we've found her before in purses, under clothes, under lovesacs, etc...it's just never taken us more then a night to find her!

I'm glad she's okay and alive, I'm just bummed I wasn't the one to find her!

Good Night, Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Bedbugs...bite...

We have bedbugs. These stupid things were supposed to be eliminated in this country back in the 50s with DTD or whatever...but they have returned in full force. They bite, ruin sheets, eat leather headboard protectors, and cause sleepless nights.
We've slept in the living room for a few weeks now with all our animals surrounding us. So basically we haven't really slept in a few weeks! I am so exhausted...we had a bug guy come and exterminate them, but we still have to take our clothes steamer and really run through the blankets and mattress just to make sure.
I have no idea where they came from, as Judd works at an engineering firm and these are not bugs we see on pets at my work. I guess Las Vegas is a hot spot for them right now because of all the tourists that bring them with them.
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! I HATE BED BUGS!!!!

DUCKLING!!!!! (among other things!)

So we have this adorable little duckling staying with us for a little while. The name she came with is "Tweaker". We're not really sure whether it is a boy or a girl, we just like calling her a girl. Someone brought her into my animal hospital last Monday and said that her mama duck abandoned her before she had even hatched. One of my coworkers wanted her, but because she was going to be gone for a week, I volunteered to take her! So now we have this little duck living with us. She's a week and a half now, and we'll probably keep her a few more weeks until she's a bit bigger. She grows like crazy though every day, so who knows how long that will last! She absolutly loves us though, she cries if she can't see us and she is a little cuddler. She especially likes Judd, she likes to crawl up and sit on his shoulder! It's going to be hard taking her to the bird sanctuary when she's bigger, but we're just enjoying her cute company while it lasts!

In other news, I am still shocked at the American Idol Finale last night!!!!! I so wanted Adam "Glambert" to win because of his amazing voice and theatrics (I went to LVA, gotta love the dramatic one!). Judd was voting for Kris the whole time, so he was pleasently surprised when Kris took the title. I like Kris too, I just really liked Adam and Allison. We were Danny fans for a little while during Hollywood week, but he stopped wearing his wedding band and I found that kind of unromantic. I know he's a widower and all, but for all the hype about that, he still could act slightly married, right? It will be interesting to see what happens to everyone now...especially Adam! He had my vote ever since I saw a YouTube clip of him as Fiyero in Wicked, which increased his likability points for me! His "Mad World" and U2's "One" (thanks Simon for calling Bono and getting permission for him to sing that!) interpretations...pure genius!

So a bunch of my friends that were in my high school class of 2005 are graduating college this year. At first I was kind of bummed that I was still going to college while they will be done, but I've kind of had a change of heart in the past few days. I may still be in school, but at least I'm in a major where I can get a "real" and exciting job in the media afterwards as opposed to the many who went to school for theatre and will be just like every other struggling actor in this rough economy. Not to offend my friends, they are extremely talented and deserve to do well. I think I had just a couple extra bumps that prolonged my education that they didn't have, such as getting married, having to work a lot of hours that I could have used to take more classes with, and having to pay for a huge portion of my education out of my own pocket (well, mine and Judd's pockets) instead of relying on my parents to foot the bill, housing, food, etc. Not that any of those things are bad, it just makes for a longer road, that's all. Besides, I like school. As much as I would like to graduate soon, I really enjoy learning and will miss it when I'm done.

Well, there goes my thoughts for this morning!

Congrats Dawn and Tyson!!!

(Dawn catching the bouquet at my wedding...look what happened!)

They’re “finally” married! Dawn and Tyson are absolutely awesome people and we couldn’t be more thrilled for them! I guess that old superstition about the girl who catches the bridal bouquet is the next to get married, because that is what happened here. Dawn was one of my bridesmaids, and she totally beat out the other girls when I tossed my bouquet! (Ok, I totally admit to aiming in her direction because she just seemed like the best candidate for a potential marriage, even though at the time she didn’t have a boyfriend!).

This was my first experience being a bridesmaid, and I hope I did Dawn’s wedding as much justice as she did for mine. Planning her bridal shower and then helping with the bachelorette party was fun. Her other bridesmaids were such sweet girls, it’s a bummer they don’t all live in Vegas. I thought it was funny that at her Bachlorette party, Dawn was in fact, the only bachelorette as we were all married!

This was also my first time getting to witness a temple sealing besides my own. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful it is to see two people I care so much about committing their lives together and knowing that they will be together for all time and eternity. It just filled me with so much love, especially for Dawn who has really inspired me ever since she joined this church a few years ago. I was such a teary wreck, but it was happy tears!

I got to do the whole isle walk, complete with a goofy pose with Dawn’s brother just to shake it up a bit! They had Memphis BBQ cater the reception (great choice guys!) and the best “first dance” I have ever seen, complete with bits from everything from “Macerana” to “YMCA” to “Bye, bye bye”!

So overall, we’re so happy for Dawn and Tyson. I’m glad Dawn found someone as great as Tyson, and I hope Tyson knows how lucky he is to have such a wonderful wife!

I Remember

Normally I write deep-seated blogs on my personal blog, but MySpace is wigging out on me, so I had to use BlogSpot. I'll go back to happier ones next time...


I just recently finished a very engrossing novel, Nineteen Minutes. It is a fictional story about the horrors that follow a school shooting. Reading it, I felt like I was watching the whole thing unfold on CNN. Coincidently, I finished it on the tenth anniversity of the Columbine shootings. I've watched a bit of the memorial coverage from that day and I still cannot believe it's been that long. I still remember that day very vividly...

I was in 6th grade. My science teacher walked in the room and announced that a tragety had just happened in Littleton, Colorado. News was shaky at the moment, and they estimated 25 kids had died. Fortunatly it wasn't that much, but we learned later that 12 kids and one teacher had been murdered.

Suddenly, school had become a scary place. The goth kids and the rebels were looked at funny...were they crazy enough to kill the rest of us? I remember panicking once because I didn't realize that I had a knife in my bag left over from a camping trip. The knife fell out and a girl completly freaked out when she saw it. I had to beat her to the principal's office so I could turn it in myself before she thought I was a killer or something...

There was one girl who had this supposed "hit list". Rumors spread about it, how all the popular kids were on it. A lot of kids were kept home for a few days, myself included. While the school claimed there was never a list, we saw the girl in handcuffs, taken away, and never heard from again.

Columbine sparked my obsession, which turned into a passion, for the news. I watched coverage obsessively, trying to understand why. In watching all this news, I learned that I lived in a scary world...yet decent people still seemed to exist.

I feel Columbine to me was that bridge from childhood into adolescence. It was that step away from innocent bliss to awareness and acceptance. I could never forget. I don't want to. I would hope I would never be involved in something so tragic and that my future kids will feel safer in school then I did.

Sick Kid

I absolutly hate being sick.
I have now missed a full day of work as well as two classes, well, three if you count Institute. It's been nice to just lay around doing nothing, but not for two days! I want to be productive, darnit.
Judd's out of town this week on his annual motorcyle Moab trip, so I've had to suffer alone =( I think it's the flu. I'm scared, as in deathly terrified of needles, so I did not get the vaccine. I'm not sure why I'm that scared of them, I draw blood out of animals just fine at work! But I figured I'd risk the off chance of getting the flu rather than embarrasing myself and passing out at a clinic.
REGRET!!!!!
So now I'm just laying here pathetically watching America's Next Top Model reruns while waiting for my system to flush out all this crap in it. I probably should be doing something more productive like this mountain of homework in front of me. But I feel like with all this craziness, illness, and no husband around to feel sorry for me, I deserve a sick day!

Minus the sick part, of course...

Hey

-Judd Here,
Kristen decided it was my turn to add to this blog. She probably wants me to tell everybody how extremely lucky I am to have a such a wonderful girl in my life. We just got back from camping at the hotsprings yesterday. It was a blast, we love camping and we need to do it more often. Kristen is not a real big fan of the cold though probably because she has absoultely 0 body fat -I dont have that problem. Im trying to toughen her up though, we are doing more out-doorsie stuff like jogging, hiking and hopefully soon kayaking! I havnt told her yet but I just found a family friend who has one and is willing to let us use it whenever we want. We recently had two new additions to our family, I havnt taken any pictures of the little ones yet but as soon as I give them a bath I will show off how cute they are. Of course I'm talking about my Yamaha YZF426 and my Isuzu Rodeo Sport. I just spent the morning getting our trailer ready for our annual Moab trip, I am very excited for this and now I have a bike that is definatly more up to the task. The only problem with this bike is that it seems to be missing a clutch lever so I will need to figure out how to ride without it. My last bike was a real trooper and I will definatly miss it but this new one is just in annother league. Kristen, purely out of the goodness of her little heart, also decided that my old ride was ready to be retired. It also was such a good little Amigo and it definatly has a little oily place in my heart. For the past couple years I had been eyeing this newer type of truck and every now and again I would check around to see if anyone was selling one. It just so happened that we found the exact one I had been dreaming about on craigslist and so we snatched it up! :) This one is much more off-road worthy so it will definatly come in handy on campouts, picknicks and running over stuff. Anyway, thats it for now. Kristen and I have to get to writing our talks (we were called to speak in church tomorrow...)