Naples Botanical Garden

Here's our homeschool group at the Naples Botanical Garden. It was a beautiful, sunny morning/afternoon today and the kids wore themselves out! We either walked around or played from 11am to 3:30pm. Needless to say, Gabe took a power nap on the way home :)

My camera's battery died before we made it through the garden... I didn't get any photos of the kids playing a game of Bocci Ball or the Caribean Garden and hammocks, but you can still see that we had a great time->

This is the Butterfly house. We saw lots of native plants, Zebra Longwing butterflies (Florida's state butterfly), and Monarch butterflies. There was even a chrysalis house!

Here's Noah at the Cypress Swamp section of the Children's Garden. He and his friends ended up getting pretty wet!

Here are the kiddos holding up the waterfall :)

We took a break for a picnic lunch after a short visit to the Children's Garden...

Here's Gabe's favorite part... the treehouse! He played with his friend (who is also Gabe!) inside the treehouse after lunch.

Here's Annalee climbing the treehouse!

Here's Gabe, and he's still in the treehouse!

The Shell Factory

The kids and I went to the Shell Factory today! Not only did they have millions of shells on display and for sale, there was also a nature park, restaurants, rides and games. AND, their October Fest was this weekend (It's too hot in October, so they moved it up a few months!). We ate lunch at a restaurant that had hundreds of fish and sharks mounted on the wall- it was either that or weiner shnitzel and sour kraut! Check out the park at http://www.shellfactory.com/ !


Annalee made friends with this goat at the petting zoo. I think it was asking for food!

Gabe looooved the nature park! He is a hands-on kinda guy :)

Elena thought this peacock was beautiful! She also liked the arcade inside the Shell Factory gift shop!

Noah was chatting with this cockatoo at the nature park. He actually got it to say "Hi, Noah!" I think we spent 20 minutes just with the birds!

Yes! Noah also enjoyed using the dinosaurs as jungle gyms at the "Day of the Dinosaur" part of the nature park...

Elena's New Job

Our neighbors asked Elena if she would like to look after their new puppy for them while they are at work during the day. She agreed, even before they said they would pay her for playing with him! Huckleberry is a bull terrier and a ball of energy, but Elena (and the rest of my crew) has no trouble keeping up with him...


Elena and her new charge, Huckleberry.



The kids have taught him to fetch, but he doesn't have much of an attention span yet.

As you can see, this has become a family affair. Elena is considering sharing her wages with her siblings :)