Our new pet!!! (You might want to have a paper bag handy in case you need to . . .well . . .you'll see)

Isaac said "MOOOOOOOOOOOOM come look!!!" On my way there I hear Ryan say "IT'S HUGE-MUNGUS (how he says humongous) "No," I say . . . that looks fake, I think it's a toy" then I remember that I have never bought a seven inch long HUGE Centipede with shiny/pointy leggs and a red head!! So I poke it with a plastic baseball bat and it moves a little (you still have your paper bag?) SO THEN I scream, because WOW, this is DISGUSTING and Curt comes running to see what all the fun is about. And this is what we find, only 2 ft away from our sliding door!!! I am usually not very squeamish when it comes to bugs and creepy crawly things, in fact, Curt jokes that he's the one that jumps on the couch and screams when he sees a spider and I'm the one that defeats most 8 or 6 legged creatures. But this was TOO much. IT IS SOOOOOOOOOOO GROSS, I really get shivers every time I even think about it. I let Curt catch this one, although it would have looked good on my creepy crawly thing resume . . . but I'm not sure I could have I was SO grossed out!! If we EVER find ANYTHING this big IN our house. WE are SO TOTALLY MOVING!! So the whole rest of the day all these questions have been going through my head . . .
Why was it right by our door?
Is it safe to let the kids play outside?
Our old house was just across a big street and down the hill, and we NEVER saw anything there, why are we finding all these gross things here? (see the bottom of the post--oh yes, there is much more fun that has been had at our house within the last few weeks)
Are there more of these monsters in our yard?
Am I a lier for telling the kids there are no such things as monsters?

Take a look for yourself . . . make sure you have your paper bag ready . . .
Ryan just said "That's NASTY!!" and it really is.

That is Curt's hand and that is a quart sized canning jar!!!!
To top it all off, Curt took it to the bus stop when he went to pick up Nicole and showed it to our neighbor boys. They said they saw one of those in their bathroom . . . on the ceiling. We are starting to check the MLS housing listings again!!! I'm seriously going to have nightmares for months.

Other things we have found since moving here:
1. "Mom, there's a frog!!" says Ryan one morning. The "frog" is right by our kitchen table on the carpet, where everyone walks barefoot all day long. The frog turned out to be an inch and a half long scorpion!! INSIDE! After an extensive internet search, the ones here are pretty harmless, and they said they are comparable to a bee sting. Still a little disconcerting -- every shadow or anything I see on the carpet, I inspect closely in case it might be another one. Ick.
2. Nicole was shaking Claire her 3 year old cousin one morning, telling her to wake up. Sabrina, Claire's mommy asked Nicole to let her keep sleeping etc. Then Nicole says "But there's a centipede on her!!" Fortunately this one was probably only an inch long. We've seen quite a few of those in the house, but they are managable.
3. "MOM!! Ryan touched a spider!!" I start preparing my "we don't touch spiders" monologue when Nicole yells "It's a black widow!!" So now I'm running to where the kids are huddled, and thankfully Ryan looks normal, and o.k. Apparently he had tried to pick it up, then it attached it's web to his hand and was crawling up it again, Ryan shook it off. Here's where I came in--it sure looked like a black widow, so I turn it over with a stick and yes indeed, there was the red hourglass. Nice. My monologue turned into quite a bit more serious discussion!
4. While we had our cousins here the kids were playing outside and someone yells "there's a snake!!" We yell back for them not to touch it, and run outside. The snake is now slithering into some of our bushes. The reason being is that Isaac touched it!!! We do some more internet searching and it is a garter snake thank goodness, but rattlesnakes are not uncommon here! Yet another close call. Sheesh!!
5. Twice we've seen this huge 2 inch long black and shiny green beetles with horns that can fly.
6. Tons of wasps--we put up a wasp catcher trap thing and filled it up--we counted125 or something thereabouts.
7. Ants--they are a whole post all their own--but I came to grips with the ant issue the first time we lived here.
I'll just stop there, I don't want to overwhelm you.