Camp Out

The girls and I are new to American Heritage Girls but I am already loving the program and the opportunities this group is going to provide for us. I loved being a Girl Scout and especially going camping. But as an Adult I wasn't overly thrilled with the Girl Scout program. I didn' find that it was promoting the characteristics and focus I wanted for my girls' lives. Well, I know other moms feel the same way because this is how American Heritage Girls got started. We joined only this past month but we have already been given this long list of activities, trips and so on that the girls can join in on. The most exciting of which was our first camp out. It was a bit concerned about the camp out at first because leadership kept falling through but a couple moms and myself stepped up to take the girls out for the weekend.

 We drove alittle over an hour to David Crockett State Park in TN. The fall colors were beautiful and the drive was very peaceful. We camped at the scout site which was perfect. We had a pavilion, bathrooms and places to set up our tent. There were deer that would come through the site which was fun to watch.

 It was pretty cold the first night so after foil chicken dinners, smores, and hot chocolate by an awesome fire, we all snuggled into bed for the night.

 In the morning, the girls made pancakes and then warmed their feet up by the fire.

 The girls worked on their outdoor cooking skills and fire safety badge.

 We took an awesome hike to a waterfall.

 PF learned how to use a saw.

 Butterfly made an awesome play set out of acorns which kept her and Dragonfly entertained for the rest of the day.

We had a wonderful weekend and can't wait for the family camp out in April. I will have to skip the next camping trip in March unless of course I think at that point that delivering while camping is a great idea....very unlikely!

Huntsville Botanical Gardens

We received a free pass to the botanical gardens in the mail. I was thrilled because this is a place I wanted to take the girls and to be able to go for free was a major plus. We decided to wait until the scarecrow trail was up and running. From what I gathered, different people in the community create a scarecrow for the trail so they are all very unique.

 PF loved the bonsai garden.

 Next to the artist scarecrow. She hopes she can do one in the coming years.

 I really liked this one.

 The dancing ladies for breast cancer.

 A pirate ship playground.

 Huge lily pads

 Toward the end of the day, we were all getting tired as we stumbled by the children's garden. We ended up spending another hour and a half playing in this area. There were several different water play areas and needless to say the girls were pretty wet after playing.

 There was a storybook area and a maze as well.

 Then we went into the butterfly house which was beautiful and we enjoyed all the butterflies flying around us. One even landed on Ladybug's finger. This was a great way to reinforce what we are learning about in Science right now.

The girls also loved the turtles they could touch. We enjoyed our time here so much that we are planning to get a season pass in the Spring!

Indian Creek Geocaching

 Since our normal Friday was cancelled for this week, I decided to take the girls on a fun field trip to a local park. This park has a walking/trail with several geocaches along the way. I decided this would be a great nature walk and a fun way to get in some exercise. Some of the girls brought their scooters and this path was perfect for it.

We found this new fruit on the ground and thought it was so interesting. I came home and found out it is:

Maclura pomifera, commonly called Osage-orange, hedge-apple,^[1] Horse-apple, Bois d'arc, Bodark, or Bodock^[2] is a small deciduous tree or large shrub, typically growing to 8–15 metres (26–49 ft) tall. It is dioecious, with male and female flowers on different plants. The fruit, a multiple fruit, is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7–15 cm in diameter. It is filled with a sticky white latex sap. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green. It is not closely related to the orange: Maclura belongs to the mulberry family, Moraceae, while oranges belong to the family Rutaceae.^[3]
Maclura is closely related to the genus Cudrania, and hybrids between the two genera have been produced. In fact, some botanists recognize a more broadly defined Maclura that includes species previously included in Cudrania and other genera of Moraceae.
Osajin and Pomiferin are flavonoid pigments present in the wood and fruit, comprising about 10% of the fruit's dry weight. The plant also contains the flavonol morin.
It was once thought that placing an Osage orange under the bed would repel spiders and insects. This practice has declined with the rise of synthetic insecticides. However, scientific studies have found that extracts of Osage orange do repel several insect species, in some studies just as well as the widely-used synthetic insecticide DEET.^[4]

 These are the trees they come from.

 The girls found several inch worms.

 We found two out of four caches that we wanted to find.

 We got back to the car and got out our lunch. After lunch, the girls were going to play on the playground equipment but the equipment was too hot so instead they waded in the creek near by.

MREs

Joe and I had wanted to get meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) for quite a while so that the girls could experience them. The girls sat (mostly patiently) while Joe explained the contents of each of their MREs. He then showed them how to "field strip" the MRE so that they wouldn't take up as much space inside of their backpacks.  

 Don't let Butterfly fool you...she was being much more "goofy" than grossly intrigued!

 Dragonfly knows when to make her silly face too!

 The girls were really excited to discover what was inside of their MREs.

 Ladybug and PF stuffing the contents back into the MRE package.

Joe, holding up the "field stripped" version of one of the MREs.