rhino or beetle?

This morning Jorge went to take out the trash and I hear "babe, come and look at this". I never know what it is going to be that he wants to show me. Is it something the girls did? Maybe some dog pooped on the sidewalk in front of our house again... You just can't tell with him. I wasn't expecting him to be pointing out something that makes me go running for my camera. Well, I didn't really have to run. And, he should have known me well enough to say "bring your camera with you".

I opened the door to find what a first looked like a dinosaur! Ok, maybe I am exaggerating (a little). But seriously, look at the size of this!

This beetle could probably get a job in construction and help with our rent and utility bills. And, you know my feelings about beetles, but for some reason, probably the humorously gigantic size of it, I found it not so scary. You see, I even hand my hand pretty close to it.

You know without any central air or heating in the houses around here, the need for them to be air tight is just not a necessity. Bugs can easily get into our house (although this guy would only fit through the open door and I am not about to give him a key!). Bella has been on bug patrol lately. We (well, I) hate spiders so we have told her if she sees one to let us know. Having seen us step on them, she has started to do the same to all bugs, except the giant crickets (we told her to leave those alone--they are innocent) in the house. And, if Bella does something you can be sure that Emily, aka Repeat, is going to do the same.

While I was trying to take a million pictures of this beetle, and was using Bella's size 7 shoe as a comparison for size, I see the shoe disappear. The fact that both Emily and Bella are shoe crazy, I thought it was just one of them wanting to wear the shoe. Emily did grab the shoe, but she wasn't wanting to wear it, she wanted to use it to smash the beetle. She picked up the shoe and slammed it on the beetle. Luckily for the beetle she hasn't been lifting much weights lately so she didn't get enough power behind it to do any damage.

Jorge picked it up and let it go free...far away from our front door.