Painting Canvases - Keepers

This past Thursday Aunt Jennifer taught our Keepers Club how to paint canvases!

 First she showed us how to copy our names or words onto our canvases using graphite paper.

Hard at work!

Joshua gave his canvas an "aged" look by rubbing paint on.

Finished Products!

Thanks for another awesome meeting Aunt Rebekah!

Beach Pictures...

One afternoon we stopped along the causeway to Sanibel for some pictures.

Before we started the monkeys decided to climb palm trees :)

David "fishing" lol

Well, this is my last post about our trip to Florida.

Now I'm going to be catching up on the other things we've been doing so stay tuned!

God bless you!

A Couple More Things We Did In Florida...

 

We went to the Lee County Manatee Park Visitors Center.

During the cool winter months (November through March) the temperature of the Gulf of Mexico and local rivers drop below 68 degrees F. The endangered Florida manatee seeks refuge from the cold waters by swimming into the warm water discharge canal of the Florida Power and Light plant. This non-captive manatee sanctuary provides a winter haven for these warm-blooded native mammals that live, feed and raise their young year round in the fresh, brackish or saltwater coastal areas of Florida.

 

 Sun Harvest Citrus is Mommy's favorite place to buy oranges when we visit Florida

Homeade orange ice cream and free juice samples make it even better right? :)

There Red Navel Oranges are the best!!!

 

 One morning we drove through the Ding Darling National Wildlife Preserve.

This 5,200 acre refuge is named in honor of pioneer conservationist and political cartoonist Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling.  "Ding" headed the U.S. Biological Survey (forerunner for the Fish and Wildlife Service) and is also credited as one of the key people in the development of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

 

 



Alligators!!!

Thursday, our last day in Florida, we drove along Rt. 41 and looked for alligators!!
We saw over 100 alligators sunning themselves in the Florida afternoon sunshine.

 A large adult American alligator's weight and length is 800 pounds and 13 feet long,  but can grow to 14.5 feet long and weigh over 1,000 pounds.  The largest ever recorded was found in Louisiana and measured 19 feet 2 inches.  Alligators have an average of 75 teeth.

We were all looking at the bird when we saw the alligator sneaking up behind it...it looks like fresh bird might be on this alligator's dinner menu!  :)

 We stopped in the Big Cyprus National Preserve along the way to see some more alligators.

 We had to keep a hand on the younger ones...don't want them falling over the railing!!! :-O

 We also stopped at Shark Valley and took a short walk.
 Shark Valley is in the heart of the Everglades.  It stretches 100 miles from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico. Wildlife is plentiful here where animals share a freshwater ecosystem of sawgrass marsh and tree islands.

 Orchids

We went for a little .4 mi walk through the marsh

 "Daddy, are there alligators in here?"  :)