Madi's Animal Adventure Weekend!

Wooooo wee! Madi had an amazing, animal- filled weekend! I love that Madi is obsessed with animals because *I*, myself, is quite obsessed with animals as well, and it just makes it that much more fun for the both of us to do these types of activities together. We kicked off the weekend by going to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (aka The Wild Animal Park) for the opening day of the Butterfly Jungle exhibit. We went to this exhibit for the first time last year, and I just thought it was totally awesome! The butterfly exhibit only comes around once a year, for two weeks only. Since Madi is totally in love with all things animals and nature, I figured she would thoroughly enjoy the experience this year (especially since she's been stalking about 15 caterpillars in our backyard who made their way on our house and spun themselves into cocoons).

We paid the lorikeets a visit first. Madi loves birds (what furry or feathered thing doesn't she love?), so we thought she would love to feed the birds some nectar and get a close look at them. And when I say "close," I mean CLOSE! These lorikeets are NOT shy! If the birds are hungry, they will land directly on your head, your arms, your shoulders, or whatever body part they can find, just so they can get first dibs on drinking that delicious nectar (in a cup) from your hands.

Here's Madi and Daddy with a curious little lorikeet. No nectar yet...

Bring on the nectar! Bring on the lorikeets! Madi had a blast holding the cup of nectar for the birds to drink out of... That is... Until one lorikeet accidentally nipped her finger haha. And she won't let that incident go. Every time we ask her if she had fun feeding the birds, she holds up her pointer finger and says, "hurt." And then she scrunches up her face like she's in pain. Such a drama queen...

We visited the lions, the giraffes and rhinos, and the elephants before making our way to Butterfly Jungle. Here's Madi being silly in front of the expansive giraffe/rhino/antelope look out area:

Well... This is the only picture we got from Butterfly Jungle, as we didn't stay in the exhibit long, due to a VERY tired, cranky, and semi-sick toddler. She was interested and said "oooohhh!!!" for about 10 seconds into the exhibit, until she decided to just bury her head into daddy's chest... Ah well... Better luck next time...

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So after a 45 minute nap in the car ride home, Madi was off to another exciting animal adventure. We went to celebrate Max's 6th birthday. Max had a reptile themed birthday party, and had a reptile guy come and show off numerous reptiles that the kids got to see and touch. There were tarantulas, all sorts of lizards, an alligator, turtles, frogs, a tortoise, snakes, and a gigantic python! Madi didn't participate in touching most of those, although she did fall in love with giving a tortoise a bath with a squirt gun and a toothbrush (so random!).

She did play with tiny turtles and frogs, AND she also played with a little snake!

And what's a birthday party without cake and ice cream?

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Madi's animal weekend ended off with going back to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park with just me, first thing in the morning. We went to the safari park WAY too late on Saturday, so I figured that she would enjoy herself much more on Sunday if we went earlier. And she did! She had a blast seeing more animals, and running around the park like a crazy woman. We waited in a small line for Butterfly Jungle, and she just danced the whole time while waiting. She was excited! She said so herself that she wanted to see the butterflies. This was it! I knew for sure she would enjoy seeing all the beautiful butterflies fluttering around. We hoped for the best that at least one butterfly would land on her (or me)...

We got into the exhibit and Madi was squealing with excitement, seeing all of the different butterflies flying all over the place. She kept pointing at all of the butterflies that she saw. She was having a great time until the most unthinkable thing happened... A butterfly landed on her chest! Ahhhh!!!! Exciting, right? Well... I don't know what happened, but Madi looked down on her shirt, and then just started to cry her eyes out. She said she was scared of the butterfly! What!?!?! How are you scared of a butterfly? This is what we wanted right? We wanted butterflies to land all over us, and now that you've got one... Two... Three butterflies on you (not all at once, just one at a time at different times), you're gonna cry your eyes out? How do you have no fear of large and in charge animals, and then turn around and freak out at a beautiful, delicate butterfly? Oh Madi... Sorry for traumatizing you. I thought you would enjoy the experience... Here's Madi crying her eyes out with a butterfly on her shoulder. :)