Goblin Valley

To kick off our summer, we took a day trip down to Goblin Valley.  It was such a nice day.  We went with Ada's friend from school.  I very much enjoyed talking to her mom.  It was a tiring day, but I was happy that my foot didn't fail me.  A lot of walking, not too much hiking and my foot did it all. 

Seth was trying to get up on a rock, Jer helped him up and Seth said triumphantly, "I win!"

We played cops and robbers, ghost in the graveyard, tag, follow the leader and just hiked. 

It was so much better than the day before... Thursday night we played D&D with my brother, I noticed part way through that Sam kept scratching his head.  I went upstairs to get our lice comb and just check for lice.... sometimes he scratches when he's been rolling around in the grass, but I thought I'd check anyways.  Ada asked what I was doing, then she said that she's been itchy too.  I ran the comb through her hair and the first swipe there were two adult lice.  Gah!  Not again!  I jumped out of the game downstairs, bagged all the stuffed animals, stripped beds, combed through everyone's hair and by midnight I knew I didn't want to spend our summer doing this again.  Lice ruined all of our last year.... we weren't going to do that again this year.  I had found a professional service place last time that I had talked to about an air machine.  Last time I didn't think it was worth the money... this time I think it was.  Friday, the kids missed their last day of school and we drove up to Holladay to get de-loused.  We were there for 4 hours.  Jer and Seth didn't have any lice, Evelyn and I had nits but no bugs, Sam and Ada had colonies.  Sam's were adolescent and Ada's were adults... both times with lice we've gotten it from our girls!  Last year, I made sure that each girl had their own brushes... but yet Ada insists on using mine whenever possible... that's probably how I got nits.  I kind of suspect that we got lice from the same friends both times.  Evelyn from the younger sister and Ada from the older.  They only usually play with us during spring break and summer vacations.  The lady at the service place found out it was my birthday and sang me the best song ever.  "Lousy birthday to you...."  She treated all of us, discounted Sam's treatment because it was very quick and told us that it's 99.2% effective and 100% guaranteed so I'll keep checking for lice for a couple weeks just in case.  We got home, cleaned like crazy, called some friends that had been playing lately, even found and removed lice from Ada's best friend, Frankie (and her sister and mom.).  Janelle was really sweet and asked if the kids could sleep over at her house.  Because they'd been treated, we said yes.  Then Jer and I went to Tucanos for my birthday.  We ate, rented Murder on the Orient Express, tried to watch it but fell asleep not half way through.  (Watched it later and it was excellent).  I do not want to deal with lice again.  It was expensive to get treated, but if we can keep them away this time, it's worth it.  I can keep them away from those girls for at least the first couple of weeks of the summer, but I'm not sure what to do next.  I told them about the lice last time, but I'm pretty sure they didn't do anything about it.

Frankie, Megan and Andie. Megan is a photographer too... we kept commenting on things that we noticed.  It was fun.