Ronda, send me an email about the A. brevifolia. I think I can help you out. :) Christopher, your Aloe marlothii looks great! Similar to one I have, but I still don't know if that's it or if it's A. aculeata. Yours looks much better than mine! :P Nice Aloe vera, Andrew. Glad to hear you still have pups from it! Never too late, Chad! Two GREAT Agaves you have there! One of these days I will grow some variegated Aptenia too! Love it. Interesting your Astrophytum has very little speckling (white scales), aseedisapromise. Nice plants! ~Rosemarie

That omitted some of the classics! Capture the Flag: Everyone divides up into two teams at night. Each team has a "flag" -- usually just a shirt or bandana. The terrain is split up into two sides, one for each team. Each side positions their flag -- depending on your rules, either announcing where it is, or hiding it within certain constraints (say, must be roughly eye level, must be hanging from a tree branch, or whatnot). Usually, no "guarding" of flags is allowed (you can't have a person hang out within, say, ten feet of your flag, although they can pass through the area). If a member of the opposite team is on your side of the border and you spot them, you can "tag" them and bring them to your "jail" -- if you can catch them before they flee back to the safety of their side ;). Jail "guarding" is usually subject to the same constraints as flag guarding. If a person is "jail" is tagged by a member of their team, that person and the person they rescued get free passage back to their side. The winning team is the first one to grab the other side's flag and bring it back to their side without being tagged first. ----------------------- Skits: Classic campfire entertainment. Kids come up with skits to perform in front of all of the other kids (often figured out in advance of the trip if you haven't seen many before). These are generally performed with improvised props (camping equipment) or no props at all. Humor is the most common aspect of them, although sometimes pranks are involved. Googling should come up with a huge list of them. -------------- Commandoes: A game of flashlights. There is one base (a circle of arbitrary radius), one person trying to defend it with their flashlight, and everyone else who tries to sneak into it. Anyone who sneaks into it "wins" and gets to defend the base for the next round. The defender "defends" the base by shining the flashlight around, looking for people. If they tag someone with the beam, that person is "hit" and has to go far away and try to sneak up all over again.

Yes, Teresa, I think you found it. For me I think they came in in dried dates. But you never know. Really, though, trust me and do the thorough cleaning, especially vacuuming up high. If you do a halfhearted job and then see grubs crawling around in your food, you'll want to kill yourself. Don't ask me how I know! If there are little holes in a bag, be suspicious. Be very suspicious. They do indeed eat through plastic bags, even heavy ones. Obviously, throw out anything with moths, grubs, or frass. Anything else that is in cans, bottles, jars, or thick plastic, well sealed, just wipe down. Anything in bags, including plastic, or boxes, even if it's unopened, gets a 4 day vacation in Club Freezer. If you don't have freezer space, google for the oven method. A sense of humor is essential. One day when I did this, everything went wrong - one of those days where I would have been ahead if I'd never begun, you know? When I found myself sitting on the floor surrounded by a whole boxful of spilled cornmeal, I just started laughing. at some point, what else can you do? That's when I decided some wine was required before the fun task of gingerly opening each opened box and package of stuff, knowing that moths could fly out or grubs could be crawling in each one. Yes, it did happen with a few. And remember what I said about the wine and the present.

Ashley said: "I am accountable for. If he knocks some girl up, I'm accountable to get an attorney and go to court for statutory rape. He can't get a tattoo or body piercing without my consent. He can have freedom over his body when HE is responsible for his own actions." That is so true. Children DON'T have freedom over their own bodies until they are 18 and parent's do have responsibility for them until they are 18. When you have a promiscuous girl that is 16 or 17 and sleeping around, the first question asked is "where are her parents!?!", "How can they allow this?". What would happen if the parents said, "well, it's HER body, she can do what she wants with it." Does that mean if she wants to be a stripper, she can? (besides the laws requiring her to be 18) In my state, there was talk about a law to hold the parents responsible if their minor son impregnates a girl to make the parents support the baby until he is 18 and can legally be held responsible. Not sure if it actually became law, but the State was frustrated with the teen pregnancy rate & most of the teen girls end up on assistance as single parents while the minor fathers cannot be held responsible to pay support until they are 18. Whether spanking is right or wrong, it's a stupid debate! Of course those that think they are perfect and have perfect children would NEVER even think of spanking... why would they need to? They have perfect children because they are perfect parents... but then what are they doing on a forum like this??? Hmmm. Oh yeah, they are so perfect, they are here to share their perfect advice and their perfect wisdom so we all can be as perfect as they are.... Perfect! Spanking is a subjective issue since we all have our own interpretation of what spanking is. My sister will tell you she was beaten. All I remember is her running away if she thought she deserved a swat and crying so in my memory bank, she was NEVER caught, let alone spanked. I was spanked a few times, once or twice the belt left welts & turned to a bruise, but I would disagree with anyone that considered it abuse. By today's standards, it probably was abuse. But, I knew I had done something wrong, I had ignored my parents repeatedly and as a final resort, dad got his point across & I learned from it. I have to agree with doodle... THANK YOU DADDY!!! My dad taught me to take personal responsibility which is lacking in today's society. My daughter went to court about a month ago because we were stopped at a stoplight & a lady slammed into the back of our car. There is no question that it was her fault and her attempt to get out of paying anything to my daughter was to deny my daughter was in the car. She claimed, despite the medical records that showed my daughter went to the doctor right away, that we concocted this story a year later when I didn't get much money from them. Basically, I got just enough to pay my medical bills. It would have been really nice to hear her say "sorry I hit you, are you okay?" We were suing her to pay my daughter's medical bills. There just isn't much personal responsibility anymore.