Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Gator 911

We took our kids to the Gator 911 show. They were filming for their reality show that will air on CMT in April, I think. I don't remember the exact date. But if you have CMT, I'm sure you can find out. I don't know that our kids will actually be in any of the clips on the show, but we thought they would really enjoy seeing all the reptiles. Seven, especially...he LOVES alligators! Well, I don't want to disappoint or hurt anyone's feelings who may be reading this, but I know you all want to know what we thought. So, I am going to be honest and say that the actual show part, where the men were on stage talking about the reptiles, was not really meant for preschoolers. My kids wanted to see reptiles, not hear facts about them. So, I must say that part was a let down. But after the show, there was a "nature trail" that we walked through and got to touch many of the reptiles and other animals that they talked about. This part was very enjoyable to me and my children.


Piper petting a caymen. It looks like a baby alligator, but actually a caymen is a totally different reptile.
Seven wanted us to take his picture touching the tanned alligator hide. Seven petting a boa constrictor.
This yellow boa constrictor's name was banana. Can you guess why?
Next on the "nature trail" was a hedgehog.
Everytime one of us put our hand in to pet it, it would jump. This made it very hard to touch. When they get scared, their fur (if you wanna call it that) stands up and has sharp quills. So, each time the hedgehog jumped, his quills were up. Although, if you could get to its belly, it was really soft!
I bet you can't guess how old this tortoise is! Do you see how small it is? It is one of those tortoises that gets really big and weigh close to 150 pounds. They live for about 50 years. Do you want to take another guess at its age now? It is 2 years old.
Finn decided he wanted to hold the tiny tortoise.
The man that was sitting with the tortoises thought we needed a family picture. I didn't argue. Finn decided to be bashful and hide behind Piper. Wait, aren't we missing someone? Don't we have four children? Yes, in fact we do. Rilian got tired during the actual show and so Granny graciously came and got him. I think he would have enjoyed the "nature trail", but he couldn't wait until then. He actually took a four hour nap at Granny's! I guess he really was tired!
We moved on to a baby alligator.
And an alligator that was a little bigger.

And then back to a baby one. This one was smaller than the first baby alligator. Kinda cute! I guess he was small enough that if he bit someone, it wouldn't really hurt, so his mouth wasn't taped shut like the other ones.
This HUGE alligator was stuffed and mounted. We tried to get each of our children to put their heads in his mouth so we could get a picture. Well, none of them were very willing no matter how much we tried to convince them that it wasn't real and it wouldn't eat them. This was as close as we could get. Brave Finn! He wouldn't put his head all the way in.Finn, Piper, Seven, and me posed by the HUGE alligator, so you could get an idea of how big it actually was. Someone had put their wooden turtle on the alligator's snout. I didn't realize it until I put the picture on my blog. Oh well!

3 comments:

  1. Amy, your kids are just precious!!! Great photos of the reptiles...............Really!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amy, what a great blog....Your kids are precious....Thanks for coming to the show

    ReplyDelete
  3. The little alligator was born with a disjointed jaw. The poor fella can not close his mouth. He'll have to be hand fed for the rest of his life. This is why his mouth wasn't taped shut.

    ReplyDelete