Summer brain is affecting me badly.
I never posted about Kelly and my overnight visit to the zoo.
A few years ago this used to be the rhino exhibit but the zoo turned it into a place where they can have special events, one of them being able to spend the night and have night encounters with a few of the animals.
We had 10 girls and 4 adults camp out and we had an absolute blast.
We arrived at the zoo at 7pm and we picked out our tents.

 Then we went and visited with our local rhino in her night house. A shy, lovely lady who recently lost her mate to old age. When I asked how old do rhinos generally live I was told 40 years. The rhino at our zoo is currently 38 yrs old. WOW
We then walked through the dark with nothing but flashlights to the giraffes night house.
Here we met Eleanor, who has skinny stripes, Denver, who has bigger stripes and then to Ms. Texas who has some very wide stripes.
We were given carrot sticks to feed to Denver. Denver is our female giraffe that we almost lost to oleander poisoning. Sadly the zoo lost their only male Watoto to the poisoning.
Anywhoo, the night was very hot with little to no breeze so the night house was stifling, heading back outside we headed to the kitchen to see where the animals food is prepared.
In the kitchen/freezer the girls were able to see some of the Popsicles that they prep for the animals. We saw blood Popsicles, fish Popsicles, rat Popsicles, you get the idea.
The girls were able to see some of the animal hospital but we weren't able to see the 3 new lion cubs that had been born just a few days earlier.

So at about 10:30 we headed for out tents and got ready for bed, knowing how little girls at a sleepover are we actually didn't begin to doze until about 1am also, it was so hot that it made getting comfortable almost impossible.
Rise and shine at 5am we heard the peacocks crow and the lions humpf. I should clarify that I was up at 5am we didn't get the girls up til 6. Trying to get exhausted girls to hustle because breakfast was ready is like trying to get them to clean their rooms.
Saturday morning was filled with our main purpose at being at the zoo.
See our brownie troop earned money from our cookie

sales back in March. The girls decided that they want to help some of the animals at our zoo. Lynn, our leader, did the research and found out that we could spend the night ($40 each) and we could buy some toys for the animals to play with.
We had $800 to buy enrichment toys for the exhibits.
We bought 2 large balls that had holes to add snacks into, we purchased 3 extra strength circles and one disc and something else that they gave to the lion that we didn't get to see.
Anyway, one large ball was given to the gibbons and they filled it with lettuce and goodies inside that the gibbons had to figure out how to get out.
Then the girls got to spread peanut butter and pick out scents that went on the circles and other ball. Two of the tires and the disc were put into the warty pig exhibit. The one exhibit that all the girls felt needed some love.
Then the last circle and ball were prepped to go into the elephant exhibit. Out of all the animals the elephants had the most fun.
We learned that the toys we purchased should last about 10 years, we also learned that the toys will be rotated throughout the zoo to the different habitats. So we made sure that we told the girls and their families that next time they come to the zoo to keep an eye out for the various toys and see who gets to play with them.
Spending the night at the zoo was a great experience and hopefully one we'll get to do again. Who knows, Chelsea should be starting Daisies in a couple of years.
*Carrie*