“Stay”cation, Super Bowl Party & a Terrible Discovery!

Last Friday we packed the kids up and took them to their Uncle Travis and Aunt Natalie’s house.  Sophie could tell something was up and was excited for whatever it was. 

Once she realized we were dropping her off somewhere, she had a different reaction.  Natalie and Travis were so nice to take them the whole weekend!  It’s a lot of work taking care of four kids!  The kids were all excited to sleep over and to play with their three dogs!

 

That night we went over to my sister, Aimee’s house for a cousins party.  We had a pot-luck dinner, played a really fun game and visited.  Can you believe nobody took any pictures that night!  Sad :(

Tom and I were so excited to go home to an empty house and not get woken up by kids!  It was nice to sleep in and not worry about anyone but ourselves.

Saturday afternoon we met up with our good ward friends, Chris, Nick, Tiffany & Kenny at the temple to do sealings.  Since we were all married at the Salt Lake Temple, we had wanted to all go there to do them, but unfortunately, they were closed.  So we just went to the Jordan River Temple and still had a great experience. 

We then went home, hurried and changed, grabbed our stuff then all headed down town to the Radisson Hotel in Salt Lake City.  We had gotten a great deal through Priceline and it was fun to pretend we were on a real vacation.

(Originally, the whole point of doing this weekend was to go to the Little America’s famous Sunday brunch.  However, since Priceline doesn’t let you choose the hotel, we ended up at the Radisson instead.  After we’d booked our room we discovered the Little America didn’t even do their big Sunday brunch anymore.  Oh well, we had fun anyway.)

In the Radisson Lobby: us, Tiffany, Kenny, Nick & Chris

After we checked in we rode Trax over to City Creek.  The girls had fun shopping while the guys patiently waited :)

 

We tried a new place for dinner called “Brio” which had delicious Italian food.

 

We walked over to the Giant Harmon’s Grocery store across the street and bought junk food for later.

We went back to the hotel and tried to enjoy the hot tub (it would’ve been nice if it wasn’t for the Polynesian family in the indoor pool playing “Marco-Polo” which echoed throughout the whole pool area).

 

We changed and then headed over to the Off Broadway Theater for a late night improve show called “Laughing Stock”.  It was funny and something different.

 

We went back to the hotel about midnight.  We all changed into our pj’s and hung out in Tiff & Kenny’s room.  We played Blitz, ate our junk food and even ordered a pizza about 1am.  We finally headed to bed about 2am, sick from all the food we ate!

 

Then next morning we ate breakfast in the restaurant at the Radisson.  It was good, a decent price and they left the buffet open longer for us since some of us accidentally slept in :)

 

  We then headed home, picked the kids up from Natalie & Travis and went back to our house for Sophie’s nap, unpacking and cleaning.

Later that afternoon we headed to Eagle Mountain where our friends, Josh & Rebekah live and had a Super Bowl party.

We had the usual non-healthy dinner of nachos, fried chicken, little smokies, etc.

Some people were there to actually watch the football game. ;)

 

Rebekah came up with some fun crafts for the kids, such as building things out of toothpicks and mini marshmallows.

 

The kids had fun getting reacquainted with the other kids there.

And I enjoyed getting my hair brushed by Josh & Rebekah’s foster daughter, who was just fascinated by my long blonde hair.

 

Da Guys…

Josh, Dustin, Dee, Tom & Jeremy

It was a fun night.

Then next day was Monday.  It started out as a typical day.  After school I was standing over Jeff while he was doing his homework and commenting on how long his hair was getting.  I then noticed a bug in his hair and pulled it out.  Being a little concerned, I Googled “lice” to see what they look like.  It looked very similar to the bug I found.  I checked the rest of his head to find nothing.  I checked Cedric and Sophie too, but then decided it must’ve been something else since I didn’t see anything in their hair.  Then Lily came home from piano lessons.  I started to check her thick, brown hair and that’s when I saw something moving!  The bug scared me since I was hoping I wouldn’t find any.  I then found another one and that’s when I decided we had a lice problem!  I jumped in the van and bought a lice removal kit right then and there!  I called my neighbor who had gone through the same ordeal about a month ago and asked for pointers.  Since her kids and mine go to the same school and ride the same bus, we think that’s where it came from.  Lily had been complaining for a week or so that it felt like spiders were biting her head, so I had checked her for lice before, but never saw them.  I’m not sure when they arrived exactly.  When I got back with the kit I didn’t know where to start!  I threw all of our coats in the washer and then went to work on Lily’s hair.  It took us about two hours to wash and comb through all of her thick hair.  Sure enough, we found several, now dead lice and quite a few itty bitty tiny eggs.  She was in tears asking me why this had to happen.  I had just read the LDS church booklet “True to the Faith” and the section about Adversity. I read some to Lily and we both were in tears as we talked about how the Savior knows what we were going through.  That he has suffered even as we have.  That if we have faith, even through adversity, that we will be strengthened and blessed.  It was a good teaching opportunity.

Anyway, Tom came home from work during all this, finished making dinner, bagged up all of our stuffed animals, pillows, etc.  Then I proceeded to spray down the car seats, couches, etc. with the de-licing spray, contact anyone she’d been around in the past few days (so far no one’s reported of any lice) and we did laundry, constantly all that evening and the entire next day.  We also boiled all our hair supplies and did anything else we could do to get rid of it. (I was sad my favorite brush melted).

(This is what the lice look like.  I put my ring next to it for size comparison).

 

We also used the special shampoo, gel and comb on Jeff’s hair (since that’s where I first saw the lice), but he came out clean.  I truly feel that Jeff had that one, big, dark lice so I would notice and check the other kids.  I feel Heavenly Father had a hand in that part.

So far no one else in our family has shown any signs of the lice.  Lily and Jeff stayed home from school Tuesday, just to be safe and I notified all my preschool families.  I figured they weren’t in any danger since they are never around Lily and she’s not in the preschool very often.  Plus, as I’ve studied up on lice, they can’t jump or fly, they die after 24hrs if they aren’t on a host (scalp) and so I felt it safe to still teach.  However, only 7/12 kids were there Tuesday and only 5/12 on Wednesday!  It is a scary thing to deal with. 

Once it’s been a week we do the shampoo, gel and comb through again.  So right now we are in limbo.  There’s no more lice, but who knows on the eggs.  Since they take a week or more to hatch, only time will tell.  Until then we continue to check everyone every day.  Have Lily shower and blow dry her hair on the hottest setting (heat is a great enemy to lice), spray her brush, switch out pillow cases and towels, etc.  It’s been one of the longest weeks of my life!  Hopefully, we never have to deal with this again!