My "Walt Moment"...

So, you know how every once in awhile you say something or do something and you think to yourself..."Wow, that was so my Dad (or Mom, or grandma, etc...)"??? Well, I had one of those moments the other day...I was dropping off one of Carson's friends at his house and while I was standing in their front yard, a huge brown spider starts dropping slowly from a tree branch a few feet in front of me. I said "Oh my gosh, look at that HUGE spider!". My friend, Paige (who is vet by the way, but obviously not a vet who likes spiders), screams and takes several huge steps backwards. This spider starts raising and lowering and I realize that it is spinning a web up and down (you know, just like in Charlotte's web). It really was super cool. So, (here is the Walt part) I say "I wish I had a jar, we could take it home"...to which Paige says "Oh, I have a jar...I would LOVE for you to take it home!". So she gets an empty jar, I capture the spider, the kids name it (Halloween, in case you were wondering) and we get in the car and go home. On the way home, Carson says "Mommy that was SO cool how you captured that spider in the jar!!!" Yes, as Paige said...I totally earned some "Mommy points" from all the kids this particular night! :) They thought it was pretty neat.
Anyway, we get home, Kenny thinks I am nuts for bringing this spider home 9you should have seen the look on his face because he knows I am not really a fan of spiders)...and then he thinks I am even more nuts when he finds me sitting on the Internet later that night trying to figure out what kind of spider it is (well, was!)...again - SO WALT! It had some really unusual markings on his belly and I was intrigued.

Sadly, "Halloween" met his demise on the front porch shortly after Kenny "released" him back into the wilderness (which is what I told the kids we were going to do). We never did determine if "Halloween" was poisonous or not but either way, we didn't want him to think it was OK to hang around!

Oh, one more part of the story I feel like I should tell, just to be completely accurate...at one point while we watching the spider ascend and descend on his little web, he literally swung himself at me. I screamed so loud I am surprised people did not come out of their houses, and I nearly fell over as I ran down the sidewalk. Paige was laughing so hard at me from her vantage point on the opposite side of the yard. I am sure I looked like an idiot...oh well! :)

"Halloween"...R.I.P.