More Critters

One of our neighbors works for Terminix. We had him come over and spray our lawn and around the house for pests. I have noticed a lot fewer roaches and am quite pleased with his work. However, said neighbor also set up some sticky traps out near the water softener in the garage in order to catch...who knows what. Well, on Monday I heard some strange noises in the garage and asked Andy to go investigate. You won't believe what he found stuck in the trap! It was a turtle!!! How did a TURTLE A) get in our garage and B) get stuck in a trap!?!? I was dumbfounded. Fortunately, Andy was able to get the turtle unstuck and he set him free in our back yard. The turtle scampered, as quickly as it could, into the woods. Later that week, I found another turtle in our back yard. We don't think it's the same one, but I'm starting to feel like we are the ones invading someone else's space by living here.


Look at what Andy saw in our back yard yesterday!
It's some kind of a Turkey Vulture or something. I'd much rather have a turkey vulture in our back yard than a bunch of bugs in our house. So this guy is cool.

* As a side note, last weekend, I spent about 6 hours assembling our new entertainment unit. I really like it and I enjoy putting furniture together...which is a good thing because Andy hates stuff like that.

Locks of Love

So the last time I got my hair cut was almost a year ago. At the time, I wanted to go short, but the lady talked me out of it. She said it was too pretty to chop it off and advised me not to. Ever since then, I've been working up the courage to get it cut. I finally decided that if I donate my hair to Locks of Love (unless you've been living under a bed, you should know what that is) then a hair stylist would be less inclined to talk me out of cutting my hair....oh and some young cancer patient would have the benefit of getting a wig too.

So yesterday was the big day. I got 11 inches taken off! I had gotten a business card of a hair stylist who was recommended to me by a girl at church who has really cute hair. I will admit, it's a lot shorter than I had anticipated, but I'm OK with it. Change is good and I'm already enjoying quicker showers and significantly shorter drying/styling time. Besides, it's so hot and humid here that my long hair was just getting pulled back into a pony tail every day anyway.

Here I am before cutting off 11 inches:




Let me just preface this next comment by saying that I am not a fan of Little Women...or Pride and Prejudice, for that matter. But I do remember seeing the movie Little Women (with Winona Ryder, I believe) back in the day and the only funny part in that movie (at least the only part I choose to remember) is when Jo cuts her long hair and the little sister says, "Oh Joe! Your only beauty!!"

That *might* be a little how I feel, but mostly because I am so not used to having short hair. This is the shortest my hair has ever been!

Here I am after:



Before and After:


I think I look like a completely different person. What do you think?

Reveal yourself!!

1. Leave one memory that you and I (or you and Andy) have had together as a comment on this post. It doesn't matter if you know me a little or a lot--just leave a comment about anything you can remember!

2. Next, copy and paste these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

And if you're just a "blog stalker" that I don't know very well, please use this as an excuse to comment and say hello!

Yard Work

Yesterday, after I went running at a nearby park, I stopped by a road-side plant store. I picked up a few plants to place around our mailbox. When I got home, Andy and I started weeding our front yard. We have several areas that REALLY need to be weeded. We got started on a patch in front of the house and after we had been working on the area for an hour or two, Andy said. "Look! There's a dear!" I thought he was kidding, but when I looked up, I gasped because there really was a dear standing about 20 feet away from us and there was another deer coming out of the trees between our house and our neighbor's house. They stood there for a minute looking at us...looking at them...and then they scampered off back into the woods. It was very cool. It seems so strange to me that we live about 5 minutes from the ocean and yet we are able to see deer in our backyard.

I figure that as long as Andrew and Amy can post about the funny things their kids say, I am allowed to post about the funny things Andy says. So while we were weeding, I mentioned to Andy that I'd like to plant something that will grow up the trellis on the side of our house. I told him that I was thinking about planting some bougainvillea. To which, Andy says, "Is that a plant? It sounds more like a karate move. Like, I'm going to bougainvillea your face!!" I about died.

As a side note, Andy and I spoke in church today. It went very well. Several people came up to us and said that we did very well and that they were spiritually fed. I spoke about temples and Andy spoke about obedience, hard work and prayer.

Some of you may recall, from my earlier posts that there's a real spit-fire of a lady in our ward, Miss. Peggy. She sure says some funny things. Well, today in Relief Society, we were talking about the Book Club. They were introducing this month's books by Oscar Wilde. It was announced that the two books they'll be reading are "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "An Ideal Husband". Someone announced that the books might be difficult to find at the library because they would be in the screen play section. Someone else mentioned that "An Ideal Husband" was also a movie and could be rented at Blockbuster if you couldn't find it at the library. True to form, Miss. Peggy pipes up and says, "Oh honey, if it's hard to find it's because it's fiction!" Everyone busted out laughing. She's great.

If you're a Pearson, you'll enjoy this...

Memory Lane

Thursday at noon I realized we had the three day weekend free and were only a five hour drive from my childhood home of Washington DC - so on the spur of the moment Jamie and I headed north. We stayed with some family friends and had an excellent time. We drove around the neighborhoods and elementary schools and it was a true trip down memory lane. The community swimming pool was exactly as I remember it. The 7 eleven was cool to see. The people who bought our last house in Virginia were very nice and showed me the house all they have done to maintain it. I saw many old friends at church and we saw the firewarks and sites in Washington DC.



Here we are avoiding the rain before the concert started on the mall in the downtown DC.



Here we are at the World War II memorial with the Washington Monument in the background.



The WWII memorial is nice. It has a central pool with fountains and a wreath for each of the 56 states and territories that fought in the war. That's right - can you name the six territories?



This is our first house in Virginia on Camden street - is has not been maintained very well and is quite overgrown.



This is the last house my parents owned on Fort Hunt Road. It is very nice and has been well kept. Many trees have been taken down and the workers knocked the basketball hoop down during the recent renovation of the kitchen. I like the red door.



They have changed the kitchen a lot and it looks great.



Jamie is holding a nickle with the Monticello on it - in front of Monticello. It was very interesting and well preserved. We drove by Mount Vernon, Montpelier, and saw Monticello all in the same day.