Adventure Buddies

Homeschooling most definitely has its perks.

We have been so fortunate to

 have landed

in such a wonderful homeschool group

and from that group,

we've been blessed with new, wonderful friends.

Today,

we were invited to go with

our new friends,

our Adventure Buddies,

to the Wildlife Refuge

to do some photography and sketching.

The weather was perfect,

the kids were excited

and the wildlife was abundant!

 

 

On our first stop,

we were overlooking a canal,

trying to figure out if we were

looking at an alligator

WAAAYYY  in the distance.

Crista brought her nifty circus binoculars

to scope out the scene.

Unfortunatley, they just weren't powerful enough.

A nice man confirmed through his

binoculars that it was indeed a gator

we were looking at.

He went to his car and pulled out his telescope

and set it up for the girls.

It was pretty awesome.

We were able to see the mud on the gator's face!

 

He noticed my camera and asked what I shoot with.

When I told him Nikon,

he told me to wait,

went back to his car

and brought out

the Big Daddy of all lenses!

He then allowed me to attach

my camera to it

and take pics of the gator!

 

Just to show you the difference between

my lens and his...

this is my picture.

Can you see the gator?

Its that teeny tiny little speck way down the canal.

 

And here's the same gator

with the big lens on.

Crazy, right?!

 

 

THEN...

he attached Crista's camera to it

and let her take pics.

This sweet man was so kind and generous to us!

 

 

After the pics of the gator,

we went a ways down

and the girls decided to set up camp

and sketched a bit.

 

 

Crista played around a little

and experimented using

nature

to color her sketches.

She used clover and grass,

yellow and purple flowers.

Both girls found out pretty quickly

that the little white flowers,

they had thorns on them.

Lesson learned!

 

 

Crista and Magdalynn.

 

One of the many views from today.

It was so peaceful

and beautiful!

We saw so many alligators today.

This was probably the smallest

and the closest we got to,

which is plenty close for me,

thank you very much!

 

Sarah and Magdalynn.

Our Adventure Buddies!

 

The day was awesome

and I'm looking forward to our

next fun outing together!