The Chalet and Shingles

My aunt and uncle rented a Chalet in Midway last week and invited us to stay there with them and other extended family. We brought our sleeping bags and slept on the floor, but the girls loved it (though none of us got much sleep). Apparently there are fireflies in Midway area. I didn't know there were any in Utah, but Midway has them. My uncle gets very excited about such things, so he cut some willow tree branches and showed us all how to make nets. In the Despain family, you can't just buy nets, no no, you must make your own nets to catch the fireflies. Here is Tim making a net for Ali, and I made one for Lydia.

Here is Lydia's net we made together. They thought they were great and brought them home. We use them to catch butterflies now. We all thought the fireflies were beautiful. We caught several and put them in a jar to observe them. Then we let them go.

This is a great climbing tree the kids discovered. This branch was bigger than I could fit my arms around. My uncle also took us around the area showing us a variety of edible plants. We tried cattail, wild horseradish, wild mustard, cheese mallows, thistle (an artichoke relative), and stinging nettle. That's right, stinging nettle is edible, you just have to immerse it in boiging water first. Hey, now I don't need food storage!

We also saw some animals. The kids loved the giant earthworms we found, there were also woodpeckers, marmets, butterflies, fish, polywogs, and a dead deer (ohhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhhhh). Ali's favorite though were the snakes we found. She picked it up and folded it in half, made it into a wad and squeezed. Yes, the snake lived, but I was surprised it didn't bite her. Even Lydia was brave enough to hold the snake. It was a great little family vacation, especially since we had to cancel our trip to Yellowstone last week. Curse those gas prices. Thank you Russ and Ruth for inviting us! We had a great time!

Oh, the last part of the title doesn't refer to the shingles on the Chalet roof. Lydia got Shingles on her leg last week. I didn't know kids got shingles, just adults. Again, I was wrong. Luckily in children it is just a little annoying (she said her leg hurt for a couple of days) and it isn't very contagious. Her have to touch the blisters directly to catch chicken pox from her. So the Dr. said to give her Tylonal and sent us on our way.