Red Bull Stash

Tuesday afternoon the Island Girl came in from school, grinning from ear to ear.

She told us that her and a friend were sitting in their science class at the college when she noticed a four pack of Red Bull in a corner on the bottom of a bookshelf.

She picked it up and on the bottom she found this.



She went to the website listed on the bottom of the carton and realized that she'd stumbled onto the Red Bull Stash.

Which sent her and her friend on a Red Bull scavenger hunt all over campus.

They ended up finding 7 four packs!

They each kept three and gave the last one to a friend.

So she came home with 3 four packs of Red Bull.



Which made her very happy.

So if you happen to be on a college campus, go to Redbullstash.com, look for clues and see what you find.

Wordless Wednesday

An Alabama Geocaching Run

My Dad, the Oldest Island Boy, and I decided to go to Alabama last Friday and try a geocaching numbers run.

A numbers run is a series of caches placed 1/10 of a mile apart and is designed so the cacher can grab a lot of caches in one day, which gives a quick boost to your total number of geocache finds.

Geocaching for us is more about the adventure than the number of finds we have but we've never done a numbers run and thought it would be fun to try.

This particular series is on an old country highway leading into Bay Minette.



The caches are all hidden on reflectors or in the edge of the bushes along the way so it's a matter of driving 1/10 of a mile, grabbing the cache, signing the log and then jumping back into the car to do it again, and again, and again.



We took a few minutes out of the hunt to eat a quick lunch on the tailgate and then went right back to it.



The Oldest Island Boy has been caching with me since I started but not long ago he decided he wanted his own account. He hit 100 finds not far into the run.



Dad hit 600 a little while later.



And an hour after that I hit 600 too.



We were looking through the edge of the bushes at one of the caches and I caught sight of this.



I managed to stop just in time to keep from getting all caught up in her web.

She's beautiful and her web was huge.



I was standing there looking at her and being extremely thankful that I wasn't all wrapped up in her web when I felt something crawling up my back.

I was just starting the spider web get it off of me dance when I realized it wasn't a spider - it was the Oldest messing with me.

I whirled around and gave him a look that let him know I didn't think that was funny.

He jumped back and my Dad said "Son, there was a stone cold killer in the jail when I worked there and the looks he gave me weren't near as scary as the look she just gave you".

Good. They need to understand how dangerous it is to mess with me about creepy crawly things LOL

A little later we were talking about things we're scared of and the Oldest asked my Dad what he's scared of.

Without hesitating he said "That look your mother gave you a little while ago"

I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about either of them messing with me again.

We also ran into this guy but he's more interesting than creepy.



Later in the afternoon we stopped to grab a cache that was hidden along a fence next to a cow pasture.

I love cows!

We don't see cows here at the beach so I'm like a kid when we go up into the country and get to see them.

These cows were hysterical! They obviously thought we had food and as soon as we stopped the truck they came running.

And then it happened.

Cow sex right in front of my son.

He'd been asking me which one was the bull and it didn't take long for us to figure it out.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't get a good shot on the video because I'm not sure you're allowed to upload bovine porn onto Youtube.



By the end of the day we'd found 109 geocaches and saw cows having sex.

Overall, the numbers run was an experience that I'm glad we tried but in the end it's still more fun to find those caches hidden in the woods.

The Island King - Crime Fighter Extraordinaire

The Island King left the house yesterday to meet a client and run some errands but his day didn't go as planned.

He was driving along Airport Road and happened to glance down a side street into an apartment complex, where he saw a guy running as fast as he could down the middle of the street, towards Airport.

He said the guy was running really fast but what caught his attention was the fact that this guy was wearing yellow latex cleaning gloves that came up to his elbows.

There wasn't any traffic so the Island King made a u-turn and went back. The guy was running along a fence, still at full speed and the Island King knew something wasn't right.

So he called 911. He said he told the operator that he was watching a guy run down the street wearing these gloves and that he didn't know if a crime had been committed or not but that it sure did look like something was going on.

The dispatched tells him to hold on and he can hear her ask another dispatcher what color gloves were described in the call that had come in moments before the Island King's.

She comes back and tells him that there has been an attempted home invasion in that area, the guy he's described fits the description, and that she will send deputies.

Meanwhile the Island King, still in his truck, is hanging back and watching the guy.

The guy stops next to a big bush and takes his shirt off. He's squatting there in the bush and at that point the Island King rolled along side him.

He said he was looking at the guy and then the guy was looking at him and he had no idea if the guy was armed or not so he kept going.

He made a u-turn and while he was doing that the guy took off running in the opposite direction.

By the time he got turned around he'd lost sight of the guy. So he turned down the nearest street and was rolling slowly through the neighborhood looking for him.

Several police cars arrived and he pulled in a parking lot to talk to them.

He showed them the bush where the guy stopped and they brought out a K-9, let him sniff around the bush and then off he went, following the guy's scent.

The Island King was filling out a report when another deputy radioed that they'd caught someone and wanted the Island King to ID him.

So they put the Island King in the back of one of their squad cars and took him two blocks down, where they had a man handcuffed in a parking lot.

It was him.

It turns out that this guy tried to break into a woman's apartment. She called the police, he ran off and straight into the Island King's path.

They took her down to ID the guy too and she also said it was him.

They'd caught the man and found his shirt and one of the gloves he was wearing but hadn't found the second glove so the K-9 dog was still searching for that.

The Island King gets in his truck to leave, pulled down a side street to turn around and saw the glove laying on the side of the road.

He could see the deputies still in the parking lot so he waved them over and showed them the glove.

One of the deputies laughed and said "We might as well give you a badge and a gun because you've got this case all wrapped up"

Meanwhile, he was supposed to meet a client and the client has been calling non stop for the past thirty minutes.

But the Island King was busy following the guy, filling out police reports and IDing the suspect so he hadn't been in phone answering mode.

At one point, he was waiting for the deputy to take him to look at the guy so he was able to call his client and explain that he'd seen a guy running down the road, called the police and they'd caught someone suspected of attempting a home invasion and that he had to go ID the guy so he was going to be late for their meeting.

He said he wasn't sure his client believed him but seriously - who could make up a story like that?

So in the end, he spotted the guy, made a positive of ID and found a piece of evidence.

Can you believe it? My husband leaves the house, supposed to be gone for about an hour and just happens to end up helping catch a bad guy.

And then made delicious steak sandwiches for dinner.

All of which totally erases the fact that I wanted to hit him with a skillet yesterday.

Good job, babe!

A Lesser Sponge Crab?

Last week while we were looking for shells on Pensacola Beach we found a really interesting little crab in the surf.

My Dad picked him up, we looked at him for a minute, I (the famous wildlife photographer)snapped 2 pictures, Dad released him, and off we went.





We were on our way to meet cousins for lunch and didn't give the little crab much thought.

He came up again at lunch though, and we passed his picture around for everyone to see. He was round and had bright red pinchers - something you'd recognize if you'd seen it before.

Bells should have gone off when NO ONE at the table recognized him. Every person at that table is a Pensacola native and every one of them have been on the water since birth.

But none have ever seen this kind of crab before.

But the bells didn't go off because they brought our lunch, which was delicious, and there were people to visit with.

I thought about him again that night and spent some time on Google trying to find out what kind of crab he was.

I couldn't find anything about a round crab with red pinchers.

I sent his picture to FC and was surprised when he didn't recognize him.

My Dad sent me an email the next day telling me that he'd looked through some field guides and decided that the crab must be a Lesser Sponge Crab (Dromidia antillensis)

I checked my guides and agree with him. We found a Lesser Sponge Crab who had no sponge.

The field guide states these crabs are found from Cape Hatteras to Florida and Texas; Mexico; Bermuda; Bahamas; West Indies to Brazil.

Considering the fact that no one at lunch recognized him, Dad and I have never seen one, and FC wasn't familiar with him, Lesser Sponge Crabs must not be common in this part of the Gulf.

Which means that we had an encounter with a crab who washed in from Tropical Storm Lee and I didn't even take the time to get a good picture!

The next time I find something unique like that I'm going to take the time to appreciate it.

Oh, and I'm going to get someone else to take pictures.

Rat Snake

I needed to go to the grocery store the other night so I talked the Island King and the Youngest Island Boy into riding up there with me.

Neither of them wanted to go inside so they waited in the parking lot while I ran in.

I came back out and could see the truck parked at the other end of the parking lot near the entrance to the sand bowl we got stuck in a while back.

So I walked over to them and as I started to get close the Youngest came running up telling me he'd just stepped on a snake.

What?

He and his father were walking around the sand bowl and as they were walking the Youngest looked down and right before he put his foot down he realized there was a snake laying there.

The Island King caught the snake and told the Youngest to run back to the truck and get the camera.







After getting a good look at him they let him go and watched him slither off into the brush.






He was gone by the time I got there and after the Youngest finished telling me all about it the Island King said "I thought about keeping him until you got here so you could see him".

Which made me look at him like he'd lost his mind.

And then he laughed and said "But then I decided that wouldn't be a good idea".

No, it wouldn't have been.

It was cool that the Youngest got to have a snake encounter and even cooler that I did not.

Wordless Wednesday

Sushi

I LOVE sushi and can't ever seem to get enough of it.

My family loves sushi too and occasionally we'll hit up our local sushi bar for dinner but my kids have all outgrown the "kid's plate" stage and going out to dinner means 5 adult entrees - which means the Island King has a small cardiac episode every time the bill comes.

Our local Publix makes fresh sushi in the store and it's actually pretty good so we grab a tray or two from there a lot but that's expensive too and we always end up fighting over the last piece.

So I decided that we needed to learn to make sushi at home.

For the price of 2 rolls from Publix I can make 8 rolls.

That's a lot more sushi and at a much more reasonable price.

So we bought the necessary ingredients



And got everything prepped.



Then, the Island King decided that in order to make good sushi he needed a headband.



Note - He may look wasted - he's not. That's his "I'm a Japanese Sushi Chef" face.

He proclaimed himself Chef Aragotto and went to work.





While his accent leaves a lot to be desired, his sushi wasn't bad. In fact, it was very good.

And the kids and I laughed until our sides hurt.

Just another typical Saturday night at our house.

Shelling on Pensacola Beach

We drove over to Pensacola Beach on Wednesday to see my Aunt, Dad, and two of my cousins - and to look for seashells.

With Tropical Storm Lee having churned through the Gulf all weekend we were hoping to find some pretty shells washed ashore.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day! It wasn't hot or muggy and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

A perfect day for walking on the beach.







We found a lot of broken sanddollars and one whole one - which is now sitting on the table in my Aunt's house - in California.

I love how that works. Rolling through the tide Wednesday morning and winding up in California on Thursday.

We also found a lot of these.



Starfish do not do well in storm tossed waters and we always find lots of them washed up after a storm.

Sad.

There was a lot of walking



Discovering



And visiting.



The Island King walked for a while and then decided he wanted to sit and enjoy the weather.



He had the right idea but my Aunt and I decided that this guy had the best spot.



After shelling, we met our cousins at Peg Leg Pete's for lunch - which was delicious!





It was a wonderful day filled with perfect weather, a beautiful beach, and my family.

Living in paradise is rough but we're making the best of it.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Labor Day

Tropical Storm Lee spent the weekend here on the Gulf Coast and is still here.

We've been lucky here in Destin with no major wind damage and not too much flooding.

Some standing water here and there but nothing to cause real problems.



And just like 2008, we won't be spending Labor Day at the beach.

Because this is what the Gulf looks like right now.



Pretty to look at but an absolute no swimming kind of day.

It was fun to go out and take a look but not somewhere you'd want to spend the whole day.



So we've spent the weekend doing this and will spend today doing more of the same.



Along with some reading, movies and a game or two.

Not a bad way to spend the holiday.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Labor Day!