Aloka got a tick

Aloka was complaining about having a bruise on her head today. Then tonight she felt her head and she said she had a bump there. I asked her if she hit her head today as I was feeling for the bump and I felt something hard and small, more like pimple size but more prominent. I have never had a tick nor seen one on someone, but I moved her hair away and sure enough there was a little grey oval thing which I could only assume was a tick. I called Richard in to the bedroom (Aloka was just going to bed when we found this) and we got out our trusty "Smart Medicine For a Healthier Child" book and read about ticks.
Aloka was completely freaked out. She already has a thing about bugs. They really creep her out, and she's heard about lice so she has a small fear of bugs in hair. She was scared, and kept asking if we'd ever get it out. It was luckily pretty quick of a surgery!
I rubbed some thick vitamin E oil on the tick, and Richard heated up some tweezers after a few minutes of letting it not get any air, and he gently pulled it out. Neither one of us have any experience with ticks but knew we didn't want to leave the head in. I wasn't sure tick heads were so small, but Josh said they're teeny when I called to consult with him.
Anyone with tick experience, feel free to reassure me this head is still attached!

a bunch of pics from the summer

I'm finally on a satellite connection so it's a little faster and a LOT more expensive, alas! I'm just uploading the cool little video of Josh and Aloka actually catching tadpoles, which we just found out are bullfrogs!! Josh is going to put them in a larger aquarium and we're hoping they survive. So far, they're doing great! Josh read a little about them online to determine that bullfrogs is indeed what they are, when he was concerned because our frogs didn't have any signs of legs yet and still have their tails, where other friends of ours who caught frogs in the same pond have already started growing their legs. Bullfrogs apparanely take a year to grow legs and drop tails. Here's the video:


And:
Presenting Aloka the photographer:


And here are a few from Kokanee Creek Provincial Park at a friends birthday. The last picture is a mama duck with her babies!


And this is from when we went for a trolley at Lakeside Park in July:

Berries we picked on our land (this was just the beginning of a bazillion strawberries, huckleberries, and saskatoon berries, aka service berries!)
And these are just a couple photos from my birthday/rock moving party:

My sister Larissa came out for our birthdays!

and a quick update, i'm still pregnant. 40 weeks tomorrow, but i told the baby to hang on in there so i could take Aloka to her first day of school starting on my due date!

Also, i don't think i blogged about this so there's some folk who don't know i cut my hand pretty bad 3 weeks ago. i fell while holding a glass, and crushed the glass with my right hand, had to go to ER for stitches and it's been a difficult recovery because we use our hands for lots of things as i've discovered. It was a gross nasty cut, and i was going to put a picture up of the injury but i decided to spare people! anyway, it's healing, and i got the stiches out a week ago. i'm loosing a chunk of my skin (the cut was on the fleshy part of my palm below my thumb) but once it scabs and comes off i can finally get my hand wet again! i can't wait. More later!