Our skin has been crawling this week! This is something we didn't see or hear about when we were contemplating our move. Evidently, NC is "the buckle of the tick belt."
Yup, those nasty little bugs that attach & suck your blood are very prevalent here! And boy have we had our fill this week!
A couple of weeks ago, Laura found some strange little bug crawling on a pile of clean, folded laundry. She thought maybe bed-bugs (Laura experienced those on her mission) and we started looking out for signs of more. Since then though, I'm convinced it was a tick nymph.
Then, last Sunday right before the closing prayer in sacrament meeting, Keri had an itch on her hand. When she went to scratch, she started a loud whisper of "spider! spider!". When she tried to get it off... it was stuck & wouldn't come off. Panic set in. It was a tick embedded between her fingers. Laura calmed her down & someone in the ward had tweezers in their pocket-knife and pulled it off. After that, our skin was crawling for a couple of days!
Then, just a couple of days later, Laura finds some strange huge bug laying on the stairs. "What is it?" she yells (luckily, I was working from home that day). From researching on www.whatsthatbug.com that Sunday, I immediately recognized it as an already engorged tick! 
(this is a picture of the real thing laying on our carpet!!!) It had already had a feast on someone or something & had fallen off after getting it's fill. We hope it was from the dog! Needless to say, it's dead now.
Then just yesterday, 
Sarah found another tick crawling on her chest of drawers. It looked just like this picture of a Lone Start tick from the web. We caught & killed that little bugger!
Needless to say, we're recording dates found & watching for flu-like symptoms very carefully now! We also went and bought a stash of repellant with DEET and are doing regular tick checks now!
I think Holly would love it here!! :-)
