Ticks and Picnics

Well, I am starting to put more than one tick per baggie, but this is getting ridiculous! I have been pulling ticks off our children (and Tom got one off my shoulder) ever since the weather got warm enough to start eating outside. So far, no big bull's-eye rash, but it's hard to pull ticks off of both "the girls" and then see them get runny noses and fevers shortly thereafter. I'm freaking out that I'll miss the signs of Lyme disease. But I'm trying to be vigilant! This is coming up because we just went to Petapsco State Park for Tom's yearly work picnic and Lily had her second tick in 2 days eating her upper thigh!

Besides that though, the picnic was fun, as usual. There is a little playground nearby, and as more and more of Tom's co-workers have kids it becomes a busy social place. It's fun to see the updates of people's lives I only see yearly. It's fun to eat good food outdoors :) This year one of the interns brought along his fire-juggling set, and that was interesting! But the girls favorite part was not the food, the playground, or the juggling. It was the stream, and throwing rocks into it for almost an hour straight.

So, while I hate ticks (and poison ivy, and humidity, etc) I love what comes with it, the beauty of nature, of picnics in places where the grass is just cut undergrowth and it's all so green and growing. I love, love, LOVE, the aesthetic of my children surrounded by (somehow dwarfed and magnified at the same time) the great green outdoors.