Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Australia!

We spent Australia Day enjoying a sausage sizzle and pool party at Elissa and James's house. Elissa and James don't actually have a pool, so the pool part of "pool party" was fulfilled by having a couple of kiddie pools and a giant slip-n-slide fashioned by James out of a bunch of tarpaulins.

The slip-n-slide was... interesting. The boys had a great time sliding and trying to launch over one of the paddle pools, while the girls had a great time making fools of themselves while trying to do the same.

It was extremely frustrating! It was much harder than it looks, even with two bottles of detergent and shampoo poured over the tarpaulin to make it super slippery.

Despite the injuries it was a fun day of relaxing by the "pool".

What's that Bug?

Last weekend Matt found an awesome bug on our driveway that we almost ran over when we got back from the shops. It was a very fancy cockroach looking thing, with a super shiny head and a grooved shiny body.

He could obviously fly since you can see the wings peeking through, but when I touched him he didn't react. I don't think he was doing so well, but regardless I didn't want us to run him over so I put him on my key and relocated him in the garden.

I tried looking up pictures of shiny beetles but couldn't find anything similar, but then I finally came across an awesome website called What's That Bug. I submitted a picture of our bug and got a prompt answer:

"Hi Jess,

You rescued a Metallic Borer Beetle in the family Buprestidae. Because of their often beautiful coloration and metallic markings they are called Jewel Beetles and they are highly prized by collectors. We believe your individual is in the genus Castiarina and of the numerous individuals pictured on the Coleoptera Buprestidae of Australia webpage, it most resembles Castiarina castelnaudi, though many other species are also quite similar. We verified that by comparing your image to a specimen of Castiarina castelnaudi on the Entomology section of the Agriculture of Western Australia website."

Thanks, What's That Bug! It was so cool to actually find out what the little guy was instead of being curious forever.