St. George with the Esplin family

We recently went to St. George with the Esplins. We went down on Friday morning to give John a head start for work. He did some work on Friday and then Saturday, which is nice because he can expense the travel down there and defray a little of the cost of the trip.
On Sunday afternoon the Esplins joined us. We were really excited to spend a few days with them. We really enjoy their company and rarely get to spend extended amounts of time with them. As a precaution not to make it a week-long movie fest, we packed lots of games and no movies besides the movie library already in the house. We both got our fair share of movie watching at the Island Park cabin with 3M and we swore we wouldn't let that happen again!
On Monday morning we went to Sand Hollow reservoir. The entrance to the park is really close to the house which makes it really nice to get in and out. It was so close, in fact, that we couldn't find it at first! Well, John put the address in the GPS and the GPS took us about .5 miles too far to the old entrance which is now fenced off. We kept driving and no entrance. So John pulled over and chatted with Ted who saw the entrance but couldn't reach John because he forgot his cell phone at the house.
Once we found the entrance it was no time before we had found a place to setup our beach front. We took our new "relaxation station" (big party island) which we purchased early this year. We love our new toy. It seats 4 or more and the center is mesh which allows the water to come it, but you can walk on it which is nice for us to cool off our feet and the kids love to play in the middle in the water without sinking to the bottom of the lake!
Just as John was getting the anchor set on the island Paige asked him what the itching disease was. John was pretty confused and asked for some clarification. Paige saw a sign on the way into the park that mentioned that the itching disease was rampant in the reservoir. Oh great, not only do we have to deal with the muscles in the water, but we are exposed to the itching disease too!
Kristin ran out of sun screen and so she took off to Wal-mart down the road. After an hour of her gone we were all slightly concerned about her well being. She then turned up with several gallon jugs of water, anti-bacterial wash and a loofah. She spoke with a pharmacist who told her that 1 in 5 get the itching disease which is a viral infection similar to chicken pox. So there are 10 of us there, so 2 of u s are going to be itchy, OK, so things are just getting better and better as the day goes by. Once you are out of the water you have about 20 minutes to get rinsed off otherwise you could get the itching disease within 12-48 hours. John had been out of the water for 30 minutes at that point and he needed to go back out to get the floating island. With that wonderful news everyone but Eliza and Parker were done with the water. They were just too young to understand the threat and there was no fighting them, we just needed to keep them in the water and not drying.
The next scene was a great one. Kristin was stripping down her family and washing them on the beach. The people next to us were quite intrigued with us washing on the beach. Everyone but John got washed up. Once we got back to the house John was quick to get inside and do a deep scrub down. We also took no chances and threw all the towels and clothes that had been to the beach in the washing machine We didn't want any bugs getting on other cloths and then run the risk of getting re-exposed later on.
The next 48 hours were a hoot. Not really. That evening everyone was really self conscious of every little itch fearing it was the itching disease coming to claim their body for the next few days! Huge sighs of relief came 48 hours later when nobody was breaking out in hive-like sores! We were pretty lucky to beat the odds. Paige's sister Cassey went down earlier in the summer with all of Michael's family. She said they played at the reservoir for a couple of days and nobody got the itching disease so maybe it's not as bad as the pharmacist and the signs made it out to be. That could explain why the lady at the gate didn't mention any words of caution to us as we went in.
Tuesday evening the girls went shopping at the outlet stores in St. George. Ted and John were on for baby sitting duty for the little ones. In an attempt to keep the kids happy and entertained without their mothers, John created a game of "Don't Eat Pete" on some scratch paper. He made the board too big which put too many M&M's on the board to eat. Just as we were getting close to playing Parker had an accident which required an emergency bath. John had the board full of candy and had to leave the room to take care of Julia. When he returned a minute later the board was empty and Eliza's mouth was full! She ate the whole lot of M&M's! Parker was first to go. The object of the game is quite simple, eat candy. The other players decide which square is Pete and when the player picks up that candy they all shout, "Don't eat Pete!" before he/she eats the candy. When Parker went he got a jolt when we yelled. He quickly retreated behind the nearest chair for safety. After Katy's turn Eliza went again. We decided that since she had already eaten a whole board's worth of candy she didn't need many so we chose the 3rd square s Pete. Yet, she foiled the plan as she decided to start at the bottom and make her way to the top! That night was an interesting one with Eliza hopped up on sugar.
We had a great time with the Esplins and we had some pretty good laughs at the itching scare we had at the reservoir. Hopefully we will be able to do it again, but we're not sure a trip to Sand Hollow will be on the next agenda!