Danger from above, danger from below, danger in the food court

When we told people that we were moving to Australia one of the more common questions was "what about the snakes and spiders and crocodiles and sharks and jellyfish and sharks and..."  We assured whoever it was asking that Australians say the same thing about Canada and bears, cougars, wolves, etc.  Make no mistake:  Australia is significantly more creepy and crawly and bitey and venomey than Canada. 

Exhibit A:

http://www.perthnow.com.au/four-beaches-close-after-shark-sightings/story-fn6o0xxk-1226225804666

"Brighton, Trigg, Scarborough and Watermans beaches were closed to the public after the Surf Life Saving WA chopper spotted two 2.5m sharks early this morning and a third 3.5m shark at about 10am.

Two sharks had been lingering between the popular swimming spots but have since left the area, allowing surf life savers to re-open the beaches.

SLSWA could not determine the species of each shark today*, but all were spotted between 50m and 75m off shore.

As many as eight sharks were spotted off Scarborough and the South-West coast on Sunday, forcing the closure of a number of busy beaches."

The reason I highlighted Watermans above is because that's our beach where we live.  I have always been uncomfortable with sharks but I was just starting to get over it.  Back to square one.

(*edit- The sharks were identified later in the day.  The two "smaller" sharks were Tigers.  The bigger one was a Pointer aka Great White.  We're gonna need a bigger boat.)

Okay, so we'll stay out of the water and just enjoy some quiet summer evenings at home in the backyard.  Not so fast.  On Sunday, we found this little bugger:

This is a Red Back Spider in our backyard.  They look like Black Widows and are just as dangerous.  As a matter of fact, after the Funnel Web spider, which only lives on the East coast, this is probably the most dangerous spider in Australia.  Even so, it is only deadly to the very young and the very old, however, it has a painful bite and can make you quite sick.  When we discovered it we had a friend over and she exclaimed "Wow, that's a big one!"  Fantastic...  It's moved on to spider heaven.  Hopefully, it's thousands of children aren't currently plotting their revenge.

Lastly and most frightening... Zaren and Cyrus have entered the workforce.  They both got a job at a bagel & coffee shop at the mall.  In fact, they gave them identical shifts.  However, we're not sure if it will last beyond the Xmas break since they will be in school and the malls are closed at 5 everyday except Thursday.