A Birthday Full of Wild Wonders

Nora turned 9 this past May!  For her birthday, she chose to have a Wild Kratts themed party.  Wild Kratts is a show on Animal Planet where two brothers talk about different wild animals, my sisters and I always loved watching this show on vacation, since we don't have cable at home.  For the party, Jenny found Wild Wonders, an animal rescue and education facility.  They offer a variety of programs to teach people about different wild animals.  Nora got to pick 8 animals to come to her birthday party!  This was such a fun and memorable experience, Wild Wonders is such a wonderful company, click the link to learn more about what they do!

Sarah was the representative that brought the animals to our party.  She was very knowledgeable about all the animals, and gave such a fun and informative presentation!

The first animal we got to meet was Cinnamon, the chinchilla.  Our family had a chinchilla while I was growing up, so we all have a special place in our hearts for these unique and adorable animals.  Cinnamon just happened to have had a litter of baby chinchillas just a week before Nora's party, so we got to hold the week old baby chinchillas!!!  Talk about the best surprise ever, we were in heaven, they were the softest sweetest little guys ever.

We spent a long time with the beeby chinchillas, they were just too adorable.  Next up were Elliott and Sobe, the Bearded Dragons.  Sobe was a little shy, so she hung out with Sarah, but Elliott was totally fine with being passed around, so we all got a chance to hold him!

Next up was this adorable little sweetheart.  The skunk was one of the animals I was most looking forward to meeting.  She was super mellow, we didn't get to hold her but we did get to pet her, and smell her... if we wanted to...  She is de-scented, so she couldn't spray us, but she did still have a little bit of a "skunk smell"

I could not get over how adorable her little face and itty bitty paws are

This pretty bird is Koko, an Umbrella Cockatoo.  She was all sorts of silly, she was dancing and talking and was just a good time.  We got to pet her and learned about the white dust that Cockatoo's create to coat their feathers with to make them water proof, it was really interesting, I had never heard about that before.

Hamburger came next, he gets his name from the way he likes to be held... like a hamburger...

Then we got to meet a silver fox!! She was so sweet and adorable.  She had been sleeping during the first part of the presentation and was still a little sleepy when it was her time on the stage.  The lucky birthday girl was the only one that got to hold this sweet fur ball.  Nora walked around and let us all pet her.

To finish in style, we got to meet a tortoise and a hare.  The "hare" was a Flemish Giant Rabbit.  Along with the skunk and the fox, this was another animal I was super excited to meet.  His name was Tank, and he was so sweet and docile.  He sprawled out on the floor and let all the kids pet him for as long as they wanted.

My camera died before I could take any pictures of the fun decor and food Jenny and Mike had prepared :( but it was all fabulous!  Thank you Griffin family for inviting us all to such a fun and memorable birthday!! and thank you to Sarah and everyone at Wild Wonders for all that you do, and for letting us meet some of your amazing animals!