Birthday surprises from Bethy

For my birthday, Bethy planned a day full of special surprises! She picked me up from our parents house in the morning with a box of Halloween Duncan Donuts. This has become a little tradition of ours on my birthday, I love donuts and we both love festive halloween treats so it is so much fun for both of us, and the perfect birthday breakfast.

They had a pumpkin spice cake donut!

The entire time we were driving, I had no idea where we were headed. We ended up at the Tracy Aviary! I hadn't ever been there before and had always wanted to go, so just being there alone would have been enough for me, especially since it is all decorated for halloween. But when we got there, Bethy checked us in for an appointment with Picasso, which was intriguing. 

After a small wait in the gift shop, we were lead back to a special room where we got to meet Picasso, a beautiful Blue and Gold Macaw and she was there to paint me a picture!!!!!! I could not believe this was happening, this was the coolest thing in the world, I had no idea this was even something that existed!

I got to pick out three paint colors for him to use in my painting, I choose, Dark Blue, Turquoise and Purple. Picasso's helper filled little dishes with the paint and put a sponge in each dish. She would then hold the dish up to Picasso and she would grab the sponge and paint around the canvas.

A little bit about the artist:

"Picasso is a 12-year-old, female, blue & gold macaw who arrived at the Tracy Aviary back in 2009 as a surrendered pet. While, typically, this aviary does not take in abandoned birds, an exception was made for Picasso as space was available. With a previous life as a large bird housed within a small cage and kept in a basement, usually alone, Picasso had developed a shyness and obvious discomfort around large crowds that would take time to rectify. Fortunately, the fine people that make up Tracy Aviary allowed Picasso the time needed to warm up, a rule that they apply to all of their birds. One of the projects applied to Picasso to help her use up time and create a positive approach was painting. What happened afterward became a tale worth recounting.

Picasso — so named after her newfound love — learned to paint by holding a sponge in her beak, dipping the sponge into paint, and then creating her unique art on a canvas. She immediately found the practice to be comforting, and her nervousness around crowds dissipated. Picasso became an ambassador bird and while she does paint in front of crowds at times, it is her ability to easily engage in one-on-one painting events with people that revealed her best side." 

Picasso is known for her precision strokes that create texture, and you can see each stroke and color quite clearly. There is another painting Parrot at the Aviary, Da Vinci,  he has a much more blended style, he smudges the sponges across the canvas, and mixes the colors together more so than Picasso.

The finished product!!!! Like seriously, look at that masterpiece, I am totally in love with it. I love the circular motion and energy it has, I love how the colors blend together, it is nicely balanced in it's composition, and it's so pleasing to look at. I seriously could stare and analyze it for long periods of time, it is so amazing to me Picasso created this beautiful piece, and I got to watch the process!

After our time with Picasso, we had free access to the Aviary so we took a little stroll around to see all the birds while my painting dried. It had snowed during the night, so it was pretty cold and we were the only ones there which was awesome.

This little cutie was the friendliest little bird. As soon as he saw us coming he ran right up to the fence and interacted with us the whole time we were there. He would climb the fence to be face to face to us, he was so cute.

As if having a parrot paint me my very own, personalized masterpiece wasn't amazing enough for a birthday surprise, Bethy still had more planned! We picked up the rest of her fam and drove to another secret location which turned out to be the Aquarium! Every October, they do a haunted Aquarium were they decorate every inch of all their exhibits and I had always wanted to go but hadn't ever made it yet, so I was excited to be here! BUT that wasn't the only reason we were here, Bethy had made yet another secret reservation that she checked us in for when we arrived.

We had a little while before our secret appointment time, so we got some yummy lunch. All of their desserts are the cutest things ever.

When we saw this monster of a rice krispy treat, we knew we had to get it, rice krispy treats are my favorite!!! followed very closely by donuts.

This thing was huge, it was literally the size of my face and had fruity pebbles and fruit snacks mixed in, talk about epic.

Then it was time for our appointment, which turned out to be a penguin encounter!!!! Cue all the happy tears and giddy, excited dancing!!!!!!

We met up with our group in front of the penguin exhibit, where we got our first glance of some of the adorable buddies we were about to meet!

Once our entire group was assembled, we had a nice small group, it was just one other couple and then 3 aquarium workers that hadn't done the experience before and were learning about it so they could accurately answer questions about it for guests, we were led to a small classroom in the top of the ship in the lobby of the aquarium.

We were given a small presentation that taught us a little bit about these type of penguins, and then we went over safety procedures and how to correctly feed the penguins. We were also given these super warm jackets to wear since it is freezing in the penguin exhibit.

We were then led into a back room and each got a bowl full of fish and thankfully they also gave us gloves.

When we were all ready, they opened the door and the penguins started filing in! They were all so excited about the fishies and all our hand out treats were gone in a matter of minutes!

Hanging out with and feeding penguins was a dream come true!!!

After all the fish treats were gone, we got to hang out in the penguin room and just observe these silly little guys.

Ricco was very drawn to my shiny, silver zippers on my boots.

This little guy was practicing to be a daddy and spent the entire time pretending this tennis ball was his egg and practiced getting it safely under his fluff to keep it warm.

Most of the penguins would run between their exhibit and the back room, it was so adorable to watch them run in and out with their little wings out.

Normally, you aren't allowed to pet the penguins at all during the experience, but we got special permission for one little pet.

They are all just so adorable, and so fun to watch.

After our amazing time with the penguins, we toured through the entire Aquarium. They really go all out for Halloween and it was so much fun discovering all the spooky decor as we went along.

These Binturongs were one of our favorite animals we saw that day. They are super adorable and slow moving. They are sometimes referred to as Bearcats, which totally makes sense and they do look like a mix between a bear and a cat. They spend most of their time in trees, but will make their way down to the ground often to find something yummy to eat.

Monty loved this giant tank with all sorts of large fish swimming around.

The otters were having nap time when we walked by their exhibit. One of them was napping right by the window!

After touring through the entire aquarium I was ready for a little snack, I couldn't resist getting one of their adorable penguin donuts to commemorate all the fun we had during our amazing penguin experience! 

It was the perfect way to end such a fun filled birthday celebration of a day! Thank you SO SO much to Bethy for these amazing experiences, she knows me so well, she knew these surprises would make me the happiest birthday girl. Love you so much!