Tappana Times: The Month of Love and Crazy Hair

Well February passed by in a blast. My life seems to get crazier and crazier, but I'm determined to keep up with this blog and writing about things that are important to me. So here goes, our February:

Crazy hair day at school left me with two girls to crazy-it-up. So we went wacky and it was fabulous.

I also had my first day as a substitute teacher. I'm working for a more intimidating district and I signed myself up for all ages. Considering I only will take jobs on Mondays and Fridays, I need as many opportunities to work as possible. Basically, every Monday and Friday I'm terrified when the phone rings of what assignment I might face. If I have a high school class with no lesson plan, I don't know what I'm going to do.... I guess each period we'll all be playing heads up-seven up until the bell rings...

So far I've subbed a third grade class and a a high school special ed class. Both went well, and I've been blessed. I'm sure I have my days ahead where I will be crying, but for now I'll count my lucky stars. I'm just grateful that it's a job that lets me choose my available days to work, and it's helping me decide if teaching is something I'm actually interested in pursuing.

Besides substitute teaching, I've had the fun of finding love notes around the house for my Valentine's Day surprise. Each note had a song quoted on it and my husband purchased each song as a gift. Pretty sweet if you ask me. I love Valentine's Day, and surprises, and this totally made my week. Brigham knows how much I love Valentine's love.

Speaking of love, I LOVED making the cute little Valentine's Day trees to decorate my house with. Ammon and I had a blast collecting sticks, attaching the paper roses, and arranging our masterpieces. My decorations were embarrassingly meager and this helped to liven things up.

Our other heart tree consisted of sticks and hearts cut out of paint color cards. I'm telling you, my four year old truly enjoyed helping with these, and he could have organized his sticks in his vase for a lot longer than I let him. I love having my own house again that I can get crafty in, and thanks Pinterest for the inspiration.

On actual Valentine's Day, we were in Idaho for Brigham's brother's wedding. 

The kids were actually old enough to enjoy flying this time and they did great! 

Ammon, while flying in the air: "We're going backwards!"

Lydia: "What?! We're already in Idaho?"

Used to long car rides, it was amazing to them how fast we arrived. Ammon grinned from ear to ear during the landing, with his hands firmly clamped on each ear. 

After dropping the kids off with Grandma Sue, Brigham and I went on our prearranged date to do a session at the Boise, Idaho temple. We were excited to attend a temple we've never been to before.

On the way there, Brigham was reading the Google reviews on the temple and mentioned how some guy was complaining how ugly the temple was, and how it looked like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie. I scoffed, "First of all: none of the temples would like something out of Lord of the Rings because they are so beautiful, and second of all: even if they did, that would be AWESOME."

When we actually approached the temple I had to eat my words, "Oh my goodness it DOES sort of look like something out of Lord of the Rings," but I also got to add, "and it IS awesome!" 

It was a beautiful temple, especially on the inside. I loved how beautiful the rooms were and our session was so spiritual. After waking up super early and making it through stressful traveling, it was exactly what we needed to set our minds for the rest of the weekend.

It's a good thing we had such a nice time at the temple, because the rest of the weekend didn't go as well as I had hoped.

While the wedding was beautiful and we had a good time, I was in crisis mode. You see, four hours before we were supposed to leave for the wedding, I found a bug in my hair. And guess what that bug was....lice.

I may have sobbed, I may have freaked out, I may have been a wreck....but really wouldn't you?

I was staying at a stranger's house with a bunch of family I hadn't seen in ages, I had a wedding to attend in a few hours, and I had lice.

Rewind to Sunday earlier that week: I found lice in Ammon's hair during sacrament meeting, so we rushed home and I shaved him down and picked out all the eggs stuck to the tiny bits of hair left on his head, while lamenting how my son was going to look like a cancer patient for all the wedding photos. I figured we had taken care of it. Well, I was wrong.

Fast forward back to the wedding day: I tried to pull myself together, keep my distance from others, and make it until that evening when I could do more about my situation.

Let me tell you it was miserable. I felt like a walking disease, and I was embarrassed to have anyone find out. Not to mention, I didn't really want to go near others...just in case. I was full of the heebie-jeebies and constantly trying not to scratch at my head and have a sudden freak-out hissy fit.

Despite the bugs, we still had a good time, especially the kids, and it was a beautiful night. These cousins sure LOVE each other.

 But I sure was glad when we were back at the house and I was slathering both Lydia and I down with lice shampoo (Lydia was just a precautionary measure). I just wanted to GO HOME! Brigham combed through my hair and we hoped the 100% guarantee on the lice spray truly came through.

The next day was Valentine's Day and we flew back to Washington.

We got to our terminal pretty early and had time to kill, so we relaxed and I enjoyed spending time with my three pretty amazing Valentines. 

When we made it home I was so grateful. Especially since I found more lice in my hair. I then declared all out war on those little DEVILS. Seriously, it was the lice zombie apocalypse on my head. I researched everything possible to kill those demons and did almost all of them. Here is a list of things I applied to my head, multiple times, multiple days (I pretty much sat in a pink shower cap with some concoction or another on my head for a week.):

Lice shampoo

Lice spray

Coconut oil

Apple Cider Vinegar

Tea Tree Shampoo

Listerine

Denorex Shampoo

I also combed my hair every day for about two hours with a metal lice comb, wiping the comb on a paper towel between each stroke, blew dry my hair on high heat for as long as I could stand, and straightened every single strand as close to my scalp as possible. I washed my sheets and pillow cases twice a day and when I wasn't wearing a shower cap, I wore a hoodie so my hair couldn't touch the couch or anything to spread it.

Sounding scary? It was. From that first day I found that first bug, it took about three days before I didn't find anymore bugs (the lice shampoo DOES NOT WORK), and two more days after that before I didn't find anymore eggs. The bugs are easy to kill, it's the eggs that get you. It took another week or so to not want to freak out and scratch my head every time a hair moved, and my poor scalp and hair are still trying to recover. After all those products and heat intensity....talk about crazy hair!

I'll do what it takes.

Luckily no one else in my family got it besides me, but I felt horrible because my poor niece ended up getting it. Not only did I have lice in a stranger's house while on vacation, I spread it to my niece who traveled back to Utah, and I traveled on an airplane. I'm a country-wide lice infester! GAH!

So now that you are having your own nightmares from my lice story, everyone stop scratching your head that has been itching like crazy while reading this, and just spray your head with tea tree oil spray (they hate it) for extra mental comfort...unless you live in Washington, because then you truly need it in the the spring and fall when those devils become an epidemic. 

Sigh. Moving my traumatized self on.

On a happier note, I was able to recover a bit by going on a girls retreat with some friends in my stake.

It was SO nice to have a little time to do whatever I wanted without kids or responsibilities. We played games (I kicked everyone's butt at Bananagrams, and Pirate's Cove) and I had time to just eat, read, and sleep in. I was super nervous to leave, especially after my previous traumatic vacation, but the kids and Brigham did great without me and I didn't realize how badly I need that time. It was wonderful.

And a little crazy. Good crazy :) Like I told Brigham: what happens at girl's weekend stays at girl's weekend.

I'll end with these two adorable babes. Ammon was mysteriously cold one morning and shaking so hard from head to toe. He didn't want to finish his breakfast and could hardly play the tablet he was shaking so bad. Concerned, considering the only time this boy doesn't want to eat is when he is ill, and I wrapped him up from head to toe to warm him and up, and made him drink warm herbal tea. I was worried he would get sick, but after a small fever after he woke up from his nap, he was fine. It was a mystery. But he sure looked cute all bundled, so I snapped a shot.

And that's our crazy month of February. May yours include the love but not the lice in future years.