Our lovely friends are back.

Now that it's spring our house seems to be getting more crowded. Of course, the kids spend a lot more time outside so that helps. But despite the fact that much of the kids' daily activity has moved outdoors, our house seems to be getting more and more filled with the activity of creatures that, although much smaller than the children, are more great in number... and more creepy-crawly. We have bees and flies coming in through the windows (there are no screens on most windows here in Germany, and even if there were, our back door is wide open most of the afternoon so it wouldn't really matter), and other little bugs that I cannot identify. But these giant brown spiders are easily recognizable and cannot be missed because of their ridiculously huge size. After a winter of not seeing any of these gargantuan spiders that I posted about last fall, they have started coming to visit again. 

They were not invited. 

Hub just got back from three weeks of training, and right after he left is when these huge (okay, spider-size, but still huge) and creepy friends started making themselves known. I was so brave. Every time I saw one that was not too high to reach, I calmly went to get my trusty cup and piece of cardstock, trapped the spider under the cup, slid the cardstock between the wall and the cup, serenely walked to the door, and threw the spider outside. They're actually really easy to catch, and as I mentioned in the post last fall, I feel kind of bad about killing the harmless, but creepy little (enormous) guys. And trust me, you would NOT want to clean up after a squishing incident involving one of these things.

So to get to the point (finally), I'm proud to say that I am no longer afraid of these unwanted house guests. In fact, I may have even missed my little buddies a little bit over the winter... On second thought, that's going way to far. But I'm very happy that it's spring, and if spring means sharing my home with these oh so lovely friends, then I'll take it.

But they WILL keep letting me catch them and take them outside, without putting up a fight, if they know what's good for them.