Clyde Peeling's Reptileland

Today since Stan went to Watkin's Glen with some friends for the weekend for the races, I decided to take a Personal Day at work and have a full "girls weekend" with Anna.  Even though much of the time is "girls only time" for us, we do see Stan at some point during the day even if just for a little while so I guess this weekend is a little different because we don't see him at all.  I was trying to think of something different to do but I just asked Anna what she wanted to do and she said "see animals, go shopping, eat grilled cheese, pizza and ice cream".  Hmmmmmm, see animals???  At first I had to think of where we could go to do that.  Eventually I thought of Clyde Peeling's Reptileland so I mentioned it to her.  Anna then said that she wanted to see "horses and elephants" but I told her that we wouldn't be able to go anywhere to do that but that we could look at other animals, including alligators (which she loves).  That was all she needed to hear and she was in.  So today around naptime (I was hoping she would sleep in the car) we left for our little trip.  We went to Repileland, shopping (where I might add Annalise was so jazzed up to look at clothes and shoes, LOVE THIS GIRL), went to the big playground since it was nearby and then went out to dinner.  While at Reptileland my camara ran out of batteries AGAIN so I didn't get any pictures of her touching a HUGE snake and an alligator.  They do a show at certain times of the and we were there are the right time to see it.  There was all of about 7 people (including us) there so the guy was able to let all the kids touch the stuff.  I was surprised that Annalise walked right up without any hesitation.  She was not fearful of the animals at all!

Anna was thrilled when we arrived =)

I hated to wake her =(

Awake and ready, yet looking a little confused.

First stop: Emus

Second stop: the indoor display of amphibians and reptiles.

I though this lizard was cool.  The entire bottom of it was suctiony.

Anna loved the tank of tree frogs!  She is getting really good at her colors (also something she used to hide from me along with singing and coloring).  Now she shouts them out whenever and wherever!

Looking at the treefrogs

Since it was a weekday the place was pretty much empty so I left her get out of the stoller to practice staying with me.  People laugh at me when I call it practicing...but it IS practicing.  We practice staying together and we also practice not touching things (well here I let her touch stuff but other places).  She did AWESOME!

Anna also pushed the stroller for awhile.

Checking out this big turtle.  There were quite a few tanks of different kinds of turtles and she kept going back and forth saying "Hi turtles!".

I think turtles are cool.

"Hi, turtles!"

For some reason I find these turtles really gross.  I never saw or heard of them before.  They are called Snake-Head Turtles.  I think they are creepy!

Of course Anna's fav.  We also went home with 2 different alligators from the gift shop that she selected out of everything there.  One of them has glow in the dark eyes.  In Anna's words, "It's pretty cool".

Learning the differences between Crocodiles and Alligators

The Anaconda

Anna kept saying "Ooooooooooooooo, big snake, Mommy. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiig snake."

Yikes!

On the way out of the indoor exhibits, we passed the Emus again.  Annalise wanted food to feed them.  I got her some and....

...she dropped it on the ground OUTSIDE the pen.  The Emu didn't seem to mind =)

They also had a nice (but small) Butterfly House.

Annalise liked watching the butterflies fly everywhere.

And this was the last picture before my camara died =(