On Tuesday, August 11, the stuffies of Marion and the surrounding area embarked on the adventure of a lifetime at the Elizabeth Taber Library stuffed animal sleepover. Throughout the day, our owners dropped us off at the Library. We met new friends and waited for the Library to close so we could start our slumber party!
Bunny, Hoppy, Carly, and Bunny found lots of fresh produce in the Library’s children’s garden. Inside, Rainbow, Piglet, Black Panther, Stingy, and Trash Truck found that Miss Macy had their favorite foods waiting for them. They dined on apples, strawberries, ice cream, and trash! Some friends had very specific dinner requests like jelly fish and seaweed with a side of french fries or skulls and wings with a side of chips, but Miss Macy made sure that everyone was well fed!
After dinner, it was time to play until bedtime. The Library has so many fun activities for kids and stuffies. George, Holy Bear, Lilly, Panda, and Ellie had a great time finding all of the farm animals on the scavenger hunt.
Ellie, T-Rex, Mr. Cake, Ember, and Bonesy made a climbing gym out of the couches. They performed incredible tricks! Twinkle and Wolf, on the other hand, were feeling shy and looking for something calm to do. They asked Herman, the Library book worm for help finding a book to read. He recommended Hippos Remain Calm by Sandra Boynton. Twinkle gave the book two fins up!
Turtle and Tiger started getting sleepy, luckily, they had each brought their own bed! So they found a quiet spot to settle in and talk to each other. We were all so surprised when Miss Macy told us that it was time for bed! We didn’t realize it had gotten that late. She had prepared a cozy spot for us to sleep in the children’s room. We all snuggled in and Miss Macy read us a bedtime story. She read, What do you do if you Work at the Zoo, by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Then, she told us that the next day, we would be going to Buttonwood Park Zoo! Miss Macy kissed us goodnight and tucked us in. We were all so excited about going to the zoo that it took us a long time to fall asleep.
The next morning, Miss Macy woke us up and fed us a nice breakfast of cereal and fruit! Then, we got to go to the zoo. It was a warm morning, and we knew there would be a lot of walking, but Miss Macy came prepared with water and snacks for everyone.
We started our trip to the zoo by meeting Kelsey Sanders, the School & Community Programs Coordinator for the Buttonwood Park Zoo. Kelsey told us that the Buttonwood Park Zoo opened in 1894, 132 years ago. Buttonwood Park Zoo is one of only 240 American Zoo and Aquarium Association Accredited Zoos in the United States.
Kelsey gave us a guided tour of the zoo! She had so many incredible fun facts to share with us about all the animals. We started our day by viewing the American bison. T-Rex was so excited to see an animal as strong as he was.
Mr. Cake checked out the Storywalk®. It was a lot of fun to read a story in Spanish and English. After we passed the Storywalk®, we arrived at the playground. Then we found the playground! Rainbow, Twinkle, and Stingy had a great time playing on the boat together. It was almost like being back in the ocean or river. Piglet found a pig statue to sit on, and Kelsey told her that later on our tour of the zoo we’d be able to see a real pig! Hoppy and Bunny enjoyed playing on the train. We saw the real zoo train drive by several times on our trip.
We continued on our way and saw our first big cat of the day! We saw Sylvie the Canada lynx. Lilly and Tiger were excited to take a look at one of their wild relatives. Unfortunately, Sylvie’s cub, Hudson, was hiding, so we didn’t get to see him on this trip to the zoo.
Our next stop was a trip to the animal ambassador center! Animal ambassadors meet lots of people (and stuffies) and help kids and adults learn about conservation. In the Animal Ambassador center, Kelsey introduced us to Ginny and Delphi, two Virginia opossums. opossums are North America’s only marsupial, which means they have a pouch! We got to watch Kelsey target train Ginny and Delphi, which is part of their animal ambassador work. If each possum touched a target with her nose, they got a snack!
Outside of the Animal Ambassador Center, Piglet met one of the Zoo’s guinea hogs. They had fun oinking back and forth at each other. While Piglet was busy oinking, the rest of us took the opportunity to play at Charlie’s Nature Play. From climbing and digging to playing music, we had a ball!
As we continued around the Zoo, we found even more animals to meet. Tiger, Ember, Black Panther, and Lilly saw another wild relative of theirs, the cougar. There were two cougars in the exhibit and we even got to watch the cougar drink water and walk through a log tunnel
Bonesy and Wolf took the opportunity to meet one of their wild relatives – the coyote. However, because it was hot, Molly wasn’t outside. So instead, Bonesy and Wolf decided to learn more about coyotes. It was a surprise to everyone to see a coyote cross 195 on our drive back to Marion after the trip to the Zoo. So, we got to see a coyote after all!
George had been patient the whole trip, but he finally let his curiosity get the better of him, and he moved close to the outdoor monkey enclosures to see who he might find. Right next to the fence was a bearded emperor tamarin. The bearded emperor tamarin family’s names are Pepper, Jack, Nacho, and Velveeta.
While we couldn’t go into the Rainforest, Rivers, and Reefs exhibit because it was closed for maintenance on the day of our trip, we were still glad to see some of the friends from that building in their outdoor enclosures. Turtle got to see two yellow-spotted amazon river turtles and Basil the caiman lizard.
One of the most anticipated stops of the day for all the stuffies was to visit Emily, the Asian Elephant. Emily has lived at the Buttonwood Park Zoo since 1968. Ellie and Ellie were so excited to spend time watching Emily in her enclosure.
At this point in our visit, it was time for a break! We visited the Bear’s Den Cafe in the Wildlife Education Center. Even as we were resting, there was still plenty to see. Trash Truck learned all about composting, while Stingy enjoyed the saltwater fish tank. T-Rex and Panda took turns trying to find everything in the beautiful mural.
Fully refreshed, we continued on our adventure around the zoo. Bunny and Holy Bear were excited to see the bears. Holy Bear flew up higher to get a better look, she noticed that these sleeping bears didn’t have wings like she does.
We also stopped to visit the harbor seals, Conway and Luna. Twinkle, Rainbow, and Stingy wished that they could have joined in the swim on such a hot afternoon.
We also saw the river otters, Danny, Dunkin, and Donut! They were crawling on the log in their enclosure and even swimming. There were so many kids who joined us to watch the otters swim.
Panda was excited to meet Jacob the red panda! He was sleeping up high in his enclosure. Kelsey told us that the Zoo has a live red panda cam where people can watch Jacob online. Although she told us that his favorite place to nap is on top of the camera, where people can’t see him! Kelsey also told us that the name “panda” comes from Nepalese and means “bamboo eater.” She also told us that red pandas were given that name before giant pandas
While the zoo doesn’t have any rabbits, the four rabbits on our sleepover asked Miss Macy to take their picture with these bunny topiary!
Ember thought the red-crowned cranes Obi and Zelda were beautiful and entrancing to watch. Both cranes came to the fence, and Kelsey told us how to tell them apart. Obi is bigger, and Zelda has a slightly misshapen beak
Just as we were coming to the end of our trip, Carly remembered that we hadn’t seen the beavers yet! We saw one beaver having a snack and the other beaver swimming in the water. After seeing the beaver, we had officially finished our trip to the Zoo. But before we left, Kelsey suggested this frog topiary as a good place to take a group picture! We smiled big for our picture, and then gave Kelsey a big “Thank You!” for all she did on our trip to the zoo.
With that, we traveled back to the Library. Many of us took a small nap on the drive back, because we were sleepy after such an exciting day. I even brought a little treat back for you from the zoo. I missed you while I was gone, but I had such a fun time meeting new friends and going to the zoo. Thanks so much for letting us sleepover at the Library with all the other stuffies, we can’t wait for next summer’s sleepover!