Exhaustion

Well, the last week has been CRAZY!  I was spending at least an hour each day, combing and de-nitting Ainsley's hair.  I did a Lice Ice treatment on Sat. night and these tiny specks of what looked like sand or very tiny pieces of pepper kept showing up on the front of her head.  They weren't there before, so I figured that it was lice at its earliest stage.  They do not like the smell of mint and tea tree oil which in Lice Ice and were heading for the hills.  When I saw how small they were, I thought I better recheck the boys.  Reggie had it for sure, but Khalif was questionable.  We treated everyone, including Ryan and spent all Mother's Day doing laundry because now it was everyone's bedding/towels/clothes/jackets.  I have learned quite a bit about lice through this experience and yesterday, I was feeling quite desperate, wondering if it would ever end.  My friend had a professional come in to treat her daughter and offered her number, so I gave her a call and she reassured me we were on the right track.  Since she was coming to Livermore to check Ainsley's friend, she was willing to take a look at all of us and found nothing!  I found 2 nits on Ainsley that morning, so I wish I could move forward, but something tells me to keep checking her daily (I found 2 more this morning).  I did get a lice zapper that will electrocute live lice, so if I do that daily, it will stop the cycle.  In talking with her I decided not to do another chemical treatment because she said they are proven to work only if left in the hair for 10 hours (the instructions say 10 minutes!) and we found that to be true as the big lice ended up crawling out of Ainsley's hair onto her towel, but not dying.  After I did the Rid on Reggie, I found a live one the next day before I cut his hair.  Since I cut the boys' hair, the expert said they are fine and at least they are sleeping back in their beds and we are back to only laundering Ainsley's stuff.  I think we are finally on the home stretch, but I may never recover from this nightmare!  It hasn't helped that Ryan has been traveling quite a bit for his new job.  At least he is enjoying it and happy to be reconnecting with lots of work buddies!  Oh and a huge blessing that we switched gyms....Ainsley is loving it and we have had a lot more time to nit pick!  Not sure that she'll stay there forever since she is the youngest and the best and she may want to become competitive again, but it is what she needs for now and we are all happy with the change.
I was surprised with a nice breakfast and cards on Mother's Day and a cherry tree for our yard.  It has been a few months since we worked in the yard and I spent some time out there trimming and pruning things.  It feels much better to be out there now :o).
Notice our hair, crusty with treatment!

Last Saturday, Ryan and 3 of our friends went and got a free piano!  It has been such a change...Reggie has been practicing a lot more and it has been very nice to hear the piano.  Even K "practices" and he is very controlled and respectful with the keys and even his songs sound great!

K had a visit with his aunt that day, so we took the kids to volunteer at a Foster fundraiser at Fry's.  We were selling hot dogs and raffle tickets for almost 4 hours and we all had a blast.  Ryan thought the kids would be grumpy, but they really enjoyed it and enjoyed eating 4 hot dogs each and a pepsi (disgusting!).  The hot dogs, including a pepsi were only $.50, so people would buy 5 or 10 at a time.  Those that bought one or two, came back for more!  They were Kirkland hot dogs, so pretty tasty and all the proceeds went to the Foster Parent Association.
I almost forgot, Ryan and I had a nice anniversary dinner at the Hilton on Friday night (it was the Foster Parent Appreciation dinner).  We met some very lively people with some very interesting stories that kept us quite entertained!  The guest speaker was awesome and although it was a county sponsored event, God made it in there quite a bit.  It was refreshing and good to be told that we were "chosen" for this journey and we should feel honored that we were chosen :o).
It seems as if God is opening more doors in the Foster world where we are getting more involved and I think it will be a good thing.  I have a meeting in a couple weeks with our church leader, Nancy, because she has asked me to partner up with 2 others to lead the Foster ministry.  Ryan and I have already met with a couple considering fostering a couple weeks ago and Nancy has been giving out our contact to others-not sure that after hearing our story people will be gung ho, but they will at least know the reality of what could happen.  We will see what God has in store, but it is nice to have something good come out of this crazy ride (we had court today and Ryan was subpoenaed, but guess what???  The dad fired his attorney again (this one lasted 2 months) and Ryan was sent home and told to come to the next court date-no progress yet again.  3 years that us tax payers are having to foot the bill for this madness).  We are learning more than I ever wanted to know!