Spiders.  

We seem to have spiders in our house.  Luckily they keep the termite population down.  For more information on hobo spiders, as soon above, go here:  http://www.hobospider.org/ .

This spider was hanging out on our basement stairs.  We decided to catch it in an attempt to identify the species.  Spiders are scary, but this one was not as scary as the wolf spiders in Cheney.  (Katy called them turtles and they lived in her toys.)  Here is a specimen very similar:  http://www.everythingabout.net/articles/biology/animals/arthropods/arachnids/spiders/wolf_spider/.

If you haven't heard this story yet, Jeremy killed two of these lovely creatures while we were living in Cheney.  They hiss, bark and jump at least 4 feet high.  This was also the summer that my foot swelled up (lasted 2 months) and I kept dreaming of big, hairy spiders, even before we found the first one.  (I think they were trying to lay eggs in between my toes.)

Frightened that this guy might try to escape, we placed rocks on the lid and taped it down.  Wendy, the little furry child on the right, loved to look at the spider and try to let him out.  She just wanted to play.

We thought the spider maybe was hungry so Jer caught a fly and threw it in with him.  After 10 minutes of the fly's obnoxious buzzing about, the spider caught the fly with one quick movement.  Then proceeded to suck the juices from its body. 

Towards the end, the spider started to suffocate so Jer sprayed him with insecticide.  He died immediately.  

Katy has been sleeping in the basement due to her sister's inability to settle down for bedtime.  She keeps talking about the little spiders who nuzzle up to her in bed.  But once she moves, they realize how much larger she is than them and, in their panic, bite her.  Luckily, her body only reacts with a small, red bump that goes away within hours.