Listening Walk

Carter had more homework this weekend.  He was supposed to go on a listening walk and then draw the things he heard.  So after nap today we took a walk in our neighborhood.  We started off walking on the newly paved path that was just completed.

Then we walked up the hiking trail in the neighborhood that leads to a water tower.  This trail goes STRAIGHT UP.  But both boys walked the whole way up and down.

I LOVE this picture!

When we got back home, Carter drew pictures of a train, the water fountain in the lake, birds, bugs, cars, and an airplane (at first Carter was frustrated that he didn't know how to draw anything but I drew each thing on a separated piece of paper first and then he tried to copy them).

I think today was the first and last time we'll be hiking on our neighborhood hiking trail.  When I was getting the boys dressed for bed, I found tons of little dots on them in their underwear and diaper.  They were dozens of ticks!  The boys were covered in them (especially in that area).  Luckily Brian had gotten home about an hour earlier so he was able to help.  We spent the next hour removing about 50 ticks from each boy.  A few of them were still running around but most had already attached (Carter had a lot attached to his private parts too - poor boy!).  There was a lot of crying.

We've found several on me too but Brian still needs to help me check myself (these guys are super small and hard to distinguish from moles).  I'll be checking the boys in the morning again because there's a good chance we missed a few (especially in their hair).  Here are the ones we pulled off the boys and put in a cup of soapy water.

We did a little research and think we got tick bombed.  These ticks were so small that we think they were still in the larvae stage.  They can stay in groups of up to thousands at this stage and attach to the first host they find.  Thank goodness Brian wasn't with us because he's a tick magnet when we go hiking and it would have been even harder to find and get all the ticks off of him with having more hair on his body!  I'm off to search for more on me now before I go to bed!