Going Rocky Mtn. Snowboarding!

Tommy left at 3:30am this morning to go on his two week snowboarding adventure in Montana, Wyoming, and maybe Idaho. We'll miss him and keep the fire burning while he's gone :-).

Elroy Public Library Homeschooling Group

Yesterday was the first meeting of a new homeschooling group in our area. There were over 32 kids in attendance (age range: 2-13) and several families couldn't attend yesterday. Reeve and Kyle hooked up with some familiar faces from the story hour and met some new faces.

The librarian, who is awesome BTW, initiated the kids with an hour long library tour. She gave the kids a map, which Reeve loved, and then at the end quizzed them where certain things were in the library. Reeve, who is not accustomed to raising his hand, blurted out the correct answers (no one need worry about Reeve being shy). Miss Mary, the librarian, had to ask him several times to raise his hand.... I don't think she's accustomed to dealing with homeschoolers :-).

There were lots of 6 and 4 year olds for Reeve and Kyle to befriend. See the girl with the braids and blue sweater in the pic below? She's 6, and Reeve already told me he thought she was cute.

This group will meet every other Thursday, and we're really looking forward to it.

KYLE'S LYME UPDATE: No word yet on the results of his Lyme titer, but his rash looks better. Last night it was barely noticeable and looked more like a bruise than a rash. He was as energetic and bubbly as ever yesterday, so thankfully no other symptoms have presented.

Lyme's Again! Ugh!!!

It's been an extremely warm winter here and not enough frigid temps to kill the horrid ticks! We never found any ticks on Kyle but the other night we spotted three bullseye rashes on his upper thigh area. One tick bite can cause more than one bullseye and the bullseye rashes don't necessarily appear at the bite site, they can show up anywhere. He and Reeve were playing in the nearly 50F temps all day on New Years Day then the following night we spotted this.


Yesterday morning I called his doctor and brought him to the hospital for bloodwork. I should find out the Lyme titer results today or tomorrow. Even if it was a Lyme tick that bit him the results could be negative because his body might not have had a chance to build up the antibodies. We didn't want to take any chances, so he's on antibiotics for 3 weeks. Luckily he feels great and is his usual high-energy-self. When Reeve was bit by a Lyme tick last May he got to the point where he developed a fever and felt lethargic and stiff. Reeve's 100% better now.

Kyle was very brave having his blood drawn. Reeve and I were right by his side. He was very still and afterward told the tech that "No it didn't feel like a bee sting... it was a WASP sting." The tech chuckled, very relieved that it went so smoothly, and offered him a candy cane. I said no thanks he doesn't want a candy cane, he'd prefer stickers. It was true, Kyle would rather have the stickers and he was completely stoked to get 4 big stickers. Next stop was the pharmacist for the antibiotics. We got him the chewable kind, and thankfully he loves the taste. Now we just need to remember to take them 3x's a day.

By the end of the day yesterday his bullseye rashes had morphed into larger splotchy rashes. I sure hope they look better than this today!