Casual Fridays

So remember way back when Cody and I were going to Busch Gardens like, every two seconds and hanging out in the Animal Care Center 'cause we're major nerds and love stuff like that, and I told you that Busch Gardens had two pregnant sloths and we got to see them do an ultrasound on one of them? Oh you don't remember? Click here.

Ok, now that you're caught up: we went back to Busch Gardens on Wednesday after not going at all in the months of February and March (because moving, duh), and we found out that both sloths had their babies! 

And not only that, they brought Grizzly's baby into the Animal Care Center for a little check-up because apparently he's been gassy and starting to reject some of his food. TMI? Sorry, but I find this stuff fascinating, and I'm about to tell you all about it. So here's a collage of our latest visit:

I think if you click on the collage, you might be able to make it bigger and be able to see just how stinkin' cute that teeny tiny baby sloth is. 

Okay, now stay with me. Busch Gardens had two pregnant sloths: Daisy and Grizzly. Back in January, we got to watch the vets do an ultrasound on Grizzly. Now Grizzly's pregnancy was kind of a surprise so they had not been training her to do these ultrasounds so she wasn't particularly cooperative. They HAD been training Daisy and monitoring her pregnancy very closely because apparently sloth pregnancies are kind of rare and not a lot is known about the gestation period of a sloth and yada, yada, yada. Anyway, Grizzly had her baby March 24th, and Daisy had her baby April 2nd (while I was in Miami). When we got to Busch Gardens on Wednesday, we went immediately to the Animal Care Center (where they were checking up on the swollen knee of a muntjac) and found out they were about to bring Grizzly's baby in for a check-up. Turns out, Grizzly rejected him so now they are hand-raising him. If you look up to that collage, you can see pictures of baby Kota in the top left and top right corners. They keep him on a fuzzy stuffed toy sloth to simulate him clinging to his mother. Now, I don't particularly care for adult sloths or think they're in any way attractive, but that tiny little guy was adorable. The middle picture at the top of the collage was the announcement for Daisy's baby. We tried to get a peek at her, but apparently, Daisy is Little Miss Perfect Sloth Mama and had her offspring all wrapped up tight out of view. They haven't named Daisy's baby yet, but apparently she is thriving and was born weighing twice as much as Grizzly's baby, and she's already starting to eat leaves which I guess is a big deal. I'm #teamkota just because come on, we got to see an ultrasound of him before he was born and then we got to see him! (Not to mention, I kindof have a soft spot in my heart--read: my whole heart--for the orphaned and abandoned, and apparently, that extends to animal babies as well.) Are you so bored with all this? Well, I just think it's amazingly cool, and Cody and I hung out in the Animal Care Center for like an hour and a half before we even went to do anything else in the park. It's just too crazy that we saw Grizzly's ultrasound and then more than two months later, got to see her baby totally coincidentally! We weren't even sure if the baby sloths would be born while we still had our passes. So cool.

Moving on.

It was time for another round of haircuts for the four-legged members of our family, and this time around, they did a much better job with Colonel. (Probably because I got a bit obsessively specific when they asked how I wanted things done.)

Here's a photo I snapped of them being sweet and snuggly with each other on Tuesday night. Don't they look like a couple of rugs?

And here's their after picture from yesterday afternoon. Aren't they the best? (The answer to that is, of course they are!) As you can see, Major isn't quite as filled out as Colonel, but he is every bit as tall and will probably keep getting taller. We finally upgraded him to a big-boy crate because he could barely fit in his puppy one anymore. 

And if you've kept reading all the way to this point and you're wondering why in the world you did and you were hoping to get to something more interesting or at least something about a book for crying out loud....I'm sorry. This is the end. Here's another picture of my cute, freshly-groomed dogs:

I know my brothers and sister will appreciate this post even if no one else does. And if you're really here to read something about books, check out yesterday's post where I recapped Sense & Sensibility by my favorite authoress Miss Jane Austen. 

Word to your mother.