Swimming and Spiders!

Over the weekend, our friends invited us to go swimming. We were having a great time, especially Will who kept going down the slide. I was floating around with two noodles between my legs. Another family showed up so I decided to give up one of my noodles to them. I let one slip out from underneath me. All of the sudden I noticed TONS of bugs around me and Josh (poor little guy). I thought they were nats, but then I noticed they were HUNDREDS, literally hundreds of baby spiders! Then I see out of the corner of my eye, a HUGE spider running on top of the water.

Well, I started screaming and tried to get Josh out of the water as fast as possible (Randy had already jumped out so I passed Josh to him). Being a rather large pregnant lady now, I couldn't just pull myself out of the water, so I swam as fast as I could to the ladder and got out. (Anyone else getting the heebie jeebies as you read this....I certainly am!) To make a long story shorter, a HUGE wolf spider had crawled into the tube of the noodle with it's babies when the noodle was sitting on the side of the pool and when I moved the noodle from between my legs, the air pocket it was in made the mommy wolf spider and the hundreds of baby spiders come out! (just got the heebie jeebies again...yuck!)

The men caught the mom spider and had to skim the top of the pool all over because the baby spiders were everywhere! Wolf spiders are unique because they carry their egg sacs around and then babies for a while after they hatch (yes, I have done my research on wolf spiders). So when they smashed the mom spider, more baby spiders came crawling all over the place again (heebie jeebies again).

Needless to say, I felt pretty nasty and didn't sleep well that night. I kept feeling like there were spiders all over me. Even little Will had nightmares about spiders. I will NOT be getting on a noodle anytime soon. I think pictures are appropriate now.

This is the wolf spider that was in the noodle. Look at how big he is compared the the guy's hand! ( I can't even look at this picture without getting the heebie jeebies and I think I've swiped my arm 3 times since writing this thinking there is a spider on me). I think I'm scarred for life. ;) Click on the picture to enlarge it and see it better.

A close up.

Even with the nasty spiders, we still had a good time swimming.