organized CHAOS

Dinner with Director...good stuff!


We were given the super deluxe zoo membership this year for Christmas. And with it comes fun little perks - one of which is dinner with CEO of the Zoo, the Botanical Director and the Animal Director. We went tonight to July's dinner and it was alot of fun!

We were able to go inside the Bactrian Camel (the ones with two humps) exhibit and the girls were able to feed them -
They have these huge hairy lips that were surprisingly soft- we learned alot of interesting things about the camels. We were sad to learn though- that they were getting old and suffering from arthritis. The animal director said it wouldn't be long before they would have to euthanize them. He didn't mention it infront of the kids of course- but let us know when we were leaving. I always thought they looked so sad! So maybe its for the best.

We were also able to plant green beans and the kids brought them home to grow. We learned that there are over 250 species of plants and trees at the zoo and that its actually a botanical garden which is part of Nebraska's state wide arboretum. Interesting! They also have over 100 species of trees- crazy isn't it!

We then went back to the meeting room and learned about 4 different reptiles; the leopard tortoise, the blue tongues skink, gila monster and the dwarf African crocodile. We were sitting at one of the front tables where the speaker was. He first pulls out the tortoises and notice there is no Corynn in the picture- she came by us because the little tortoises frightened her.
He then pulled out the skink and walked around the group with it too. Still no Puka(corynn's nickname)- she was really scared of the skink. A crazy mix between a snake and a lizard. Wierd! Then he showed us the gila monster- which he left in its cage. It has poisonous spit - so he was being cautious. This must have been good enough for Corynn - because she went back up front by her sisters.
Finally - he showed us the dwarf african crocodile- and once again...you guessed it....
no cage - no puka! Back to the safety of mom and dad. It was fun though and we all learned alot!