Holly Toledo Zoo!

The Brownies all earned a free trip to the Toledo Zoo for selling a certain number of GS Cookies this year. The Zoo Day was this Saturday, so we packed up the entire family and made a day out of the event. (Along with 3000 other girl scouts of various ages!) It was a fun day, full of lots of animals and very little (if any!) whining!

We saw many animals, including Lauren's favorite - the giraffes. Two of them were feeling a tad frisky, and ummm, well .... the girls all received a free lesson in natural life! I do not think any of them really noticed anything funny however. Bill and I laughed, because every time we go to the zoo it seems we see procreation happening! What is it about us?!

We also saw Annika's favorite, lions! They had white lions on display there. I did not realize there was white lions in real life. I mean, I remember Simba the White Lion that was on before Speed Racer, but that was just a cartoon, right? hmmmm, guess I learned something this trip! (I have no photos of the real lions, just the brass ones that Annika fell in love with!)

We had fun on an animal-themed carousal. Annika was chomping at the bit to ride this, and it was decided that we (the Brownie troop) would save this for last. It was hard keeping Annika focused on the fact that we were going to ride it, just not quite yet! But she did really well.

OH - the zoo had a special lecture about butterflies for the Girl Scouts. The lecture was rather interesting, but unfortunately the lecturer forgot that the average age of the audience was about 9 years, and therefore much of the language was over everyone's head. And, to make matters worse, the butterfly exhibit was not open yet. So all the kids were really excited to see real live butterflies, but they couldn't. Poor planning for the target age, once again. However, the real highlight was the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach that the lecturer brought out at the end of the lecture. She let all the kids come down and feel it too. So of course our two girls had to go touch and feel this very large bug!

Just outside the lecture room, and just outside the not-yet-open butterfly exhibit, were some very cool butterfly cutouts. The whole troop had fun posing as butterflies in these cutouts.

Annika did, however, have a great time playing with all the bronze animal statues throughout the entire zoo. Every time we passed a grouping of animals, she had to stop and pet, talk to, and sit on each animal. We lagged behind because of this, but it was worth it to see her all excited about the animals. I think if she could have anything in the whole world for her birthday, she would choose to have all of these bronze animals in her back yard for her to play with when ever she wanted to! She LOVED these animals!