Reptile Land!

Today we had my niece Autumn's fifth birthday party at Clyde Peeling's Reptile Land.  Reptile Land is a place I have driven past for years and years-- since I was a freshman in college driving from my home in New York.  Mom and Dad and I always used to comment on it when we drove past, but we never stopped.  Then LL and I moved to the area, and we still talked about going sometime, and never went.  Today was our day! And since I have a snake-loving daughter, we were all looking forward to the trip. :)

I charged the camera batteries, got everything all ready to go, took my first picture, and got a "out of memory" message on my camera....yeah.  I'd forgotten to put the camera card back in the camera.  Major oops.  Luckily, LL's phone takes pretty decent pictures, so we weren't totally out of luck.

The first event of the party was an educational program.  Collette started out in the third row, but moved all the way up to the first row before the program actually got started. Can you say "enthusiasm"? :)


She had her little hand in the air the second the presenter asked who wanted to touch the baby alligator, and was the first one to pet him.

And then, nirvana- he brought out a boa constrictor!

I wasn't at a good angle, but Collette was also the first one to pet the snake. And then got back in line to pet it again.  Most of the other kids at the party decided to pass on petting the snake, although a few people from other groups did.

When we were done with the show, we had pizza and cake. Collette was super excited to sing Happy Birthday to Autumn-- she loves to sing that song!

After lunch we checked out the animals:

This tortoise was super close to the kids-- we had to keep them from reaching out and touching it!

Collette, Violet, and Tabby taking a break on one of the cool benches.

The alligators were huge!

 Checking out the alligators with Aunt Gwen.

Poor Trey missed his morning nap and he was so tired! He was a trooper, though. :)

The butterfly house was really fun.  Collette kept holding out her finger and saying, "I want them to land on my finger!"

The inside exhibits were a big hit, too.  Collette kept running from one thing to the next saying "Hey guys- look at this! Look at this!" Luckily the exhibit was in a big circle, so doing laps didn't hurt. :)

Collette loved this turtle.

He would sit motionless with his mouth open, waiting for lunch to swim by.

These snakes were hu.mon.gous. 

Who doesn't love poisonous frogs?

A new exhibit at Reptile Land is is Dinosaurs Come to Life.  We tried to explain to Collette that dinosaurs are extinct, and the dinosaurs we were going to see weren't real.  But she was soooo excited to see them and "extinct" is a hard concept for a 2 year old to understand.

These animatronic dinosaurs look like the are straight out of Jurassic Park. They , were life-size, blinked, moved their heads, breathed, roared... my fearless Adrenaline Junkie was scared to death!

 This one "spit" water.

She finally started to feel comfortable and we posed by the "photo op dino"-- no animatronics. :)

All of the kids had a blast climbing on it.

Well, almost all the kids.  This little guy was sacked out.

It took a lot of encouragement to get the kids close to the T-Rex.  He moved up and down, and when he was at his full height, he was 16 feet tall!

Collette agreed to a picture only if she was being held-- she said, "I don't want him to chomp me!"

Cousin Isaac and Uncle Jon with the T-Rex.

The majority of the party go-ers-- Violet, Tabby, Autumn, Collette, Isaac, and Logan.

What a fun day!