Strange encounters of the creepy kind

Just wanted to chronicle some of the weird insects etc. that I've come across this summer.

This one looked like a leaf, sort of.  That bumpy ridge on its back made it pretty hard to see, despite how clear it looks in this picture.  Plus it was cool, until it tried to fly away in the direction of my head.  I imagine the neighbours enjoyed watching me run screaming.  I know Jay did.  

This is the centipede?  millipede? that ran by me while we were out at the lake.  It looked like it was made of plastic, and I had to overcome a surprising amount of freaked-out-ed-ness in order to get my foot that close.  Creeeeeeepy...

This is the tiny adorable gecko that ran out from under the mat outside our front door last weekend.  Those are my toes, for reference.  We had seen one a few weeks before - it was bigger and it came in the door one evening when Jay went outside to do something - except the bigger one was translucent pink, you could see all of its internals.  I'm not sure if that's normal or if it was albino or something, but it looked really cool.  Jay was the one who freaked out that time.  I was so busy removing it for him that I didn't get a picture.  

These are the snails we saw in Newfoundland.  Not sure if you can really tell from this picture, but they're the stripey things all over in the grass.  I'd never seen snails other than in a body of water before.  There were tons, I told Jay I'd gather him a bouquet.  

And this is the Walking Stick?  Praying Mantis? thing that I scared out of the lawn when I was mowing yesterday.  It's super awesomely weird.  

I find all the awesomest bugs.