Guess what we have?

Derk, the kids and I spent all evening yesterday outside -- we went for a nice bike ride around our neighborhood, sat in our camping chairs and listened to Derk play guitar and played soccer and frisbee. It was so fun. Once it got dark, we headed inside, and Derk noticed 3 of these puppies by our front door:


We've lived here a whole year, and we've had no run-ins with any nasty desert bugs -- no scorpions, nothing. Figures my first encounter is with black widows. And they're not just dinky ones, they're at least 2 inches long! And they're all females, which is even worse. So we brought the kids outside, showed them the spiders and the red hourglass on their bellies so they know how to identify them in the future. Then we came inside and watched a video online about black widows together.

After that, I sent Derk to the store to buy bug killer while I put the kids to bed. When he came home, we went around the perimeter of the house and found a total of 6 black widows, but only had 3 confirmed deaths.

Tonight we went out again after the kids were asleep, and we killed 7 more, not to mention a really large egg sack! That brings the total to 13 now. 13! All I can say is that it's a really good thing our house is new, otherwise I'd really be freaking out that they were inside! Our neighbor came over yesterday and told us he has a good exterminator he'll give us the name/number for, so we'll call him on Monday after we get the info.

So. Creepy.