Florida Discoveries 20: The Corner of Reef and Citrus

I took these pictures while on a run on Wednesday morning.  I need to learn more about some of these flowers, but these are around a stop sign on a nearby street corner.

I took these with my iPhone camera, and several of the pictures were zoomed in and didn't turn out so well.

Enjoy!

Morning glories climbing up the stop sign...the first ones I'd seen all season.  I'm sure they're around, I hadn't paid attention, though.

Not sure what these are, if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to comment.

A gulf fritillary butterfly.  They're everywhere around here right now...so pretty.

Fall 2011 Cub Scout Family Camp

This past weekend our family headed to the Spanish Trail Scout Reservation near Defuniak Springs and had a weekend campout.

The scout council here calls it "Cub Scout Family Camp" and it's a great weekend.  Three weekends in October were made available expressly for Cub Scout-friendly activities.  Any Cub Scout families could register for any of the weekends they wanted, but our pack in Navarre elected to go as a group to the Columbus Day weekend event.

Last spring I had to leave the camping one evening early so I could run that half marathon, but this time I got to enjoy the Saturday night bonfire and skit show.  What fun!!!

I made a cherry-dark chocolate dump cake (similar to this recipe that I did back in June, but with "dark chocolate" cake mix) on Friday night and was a hit with the families in Jacob's den.

Jacob took a fall from the stack of palettes sitting behind our campsite (you'll see them pictured below).  A group of boys was playing and too many boys ended up on the palettes and Jacob fell into our camp chairs.  There are suspicions that he was pushed, but no one saw for sure so there's little we can do about that.  He got bruised up, but we had the doctor check him out earlier this week just for good measure.  All is well.

The members of our pack who came on the Saturday morning group hike.  Jacob's on the far left, Timmy's in orange.

There's a "monkey bridge" across a creek.  Miss Chris (one of the den leaders) is in the water playing spotter.

I'm so glad neither boy fell into the water...although Timmy dunked his shoes into the water later on after crossing the bridge.  He had some closed-toe Keen sandals that he wore the rest of the weekend.

At the BB Gun range.

Dave helping Timmy.

Timmy was able to earn his BB Gun belt loop this past weekend (and Archery too!)

Timmy with some other Tiger Scouts (and a soon-to-be Tiger).

Dave making dinner.  We're glad we brought the shelter, it did sprinkle on us some Saturday night. Note the palettes stacked behind us (they're for Boy Scout summer camp).  Note the kid standing on them on the left right.  Note the Dad with the laptop -- listening to the Virginia Tech game (it was a SQUEAKER!)

Getting ready for the evening skit.

Nice photobomb, Timmy!

Fried potatoes and onions -- can't go wrong there!

I made tacos for Saturday evening dinner.  I never thought to do it on a campout before, but it's amazingly easy -- all you have to cook is the ground beef!

This is the evening bonfire, the kids are dancing around it.

My only glimpse of Timmy -- and my phone's battery died after that.  Not bad...it stayed alive for about 40 hours.

Glitch: Where Webkinz Meets Dr. Seuss in The Shire!

The GeekMoms drew me into this new world of video gaming: the MMORPG.

"The WHAT?"

I know, many of my readers (hi Mom and Dad!) may not have heard that term, so allow me to educate you.  MMORPG = Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.

A couple fellow GeekMoms got to be alpha- and beta-testers for this new game called Glitch.  It went public on September 27th, and is amazingly addictive!  If you know a player, you can get in pretty quickly, but if not, it's about a 48-hour wait for the official invitation once you give them your e-mail address.

Once you're in, you choose your avatar, undergo a little keyboard/mouse-ology on how to navigate the Glitch-world, and then you're set out into the wild.

Like Webkinz, you're responsible for the care and feeding of your avatar (grow/buy food, earn money, make a living, get educated, get a house, etc.), and the visuals are similar to an elaborate Dr. Seuss novel!

I set up two accounts, one is my own avatar, and the other is one that the boys can use (I control the login and password, of course!)

Here's my Glitch window from this morning.  Impressive that this is all web-based, so I can play from anywhere (dangerous!).  I'm standing in the center of the space, with my dusty-rose colored hair and all.  My name is "Scruffette" (Jacob's idea), and you can see here that I'm chatting with fellow GeekMom "ChaosMandy" in a window on the right.  she was giving me some help with how to earn enough money to buy a house.

Check out GeekMom Lissa's review of the game, she was a beta-tester and is now on level 10,000 or something like that now....