Bella is obsessed with animals. Always have been. For the longest time, she has told us that she wanted to work at the zoo, specifically with penguins. Those are, by far, her most favorite animal. Recently, she told us that she wanted to be a vet doctor. Though, when Bella came with me to take Roxie in for a check-up, she about passed out watching the tech give Roxie a shot!
My parents are always taking the kids somewhere in the summer. In fact, by January, they start asking where they are going. One year my parents took the kids to the African Safari in Ohio. Bella was in HEAVEN driving through the park and watching the animals come up to the car and sticking their heads inside. Apparently a certain water buffalo had a thing for my dad and she kept making eyes at him! Once you drove through the park, there was a place you could go that had camel rides and all kinds of things to do. One of which was to hold a ginormous snake…which, of course, Bella did…at three years old. Check it out:
She has now found the Animal Planet show, Gator Boys. Now if you are not familiar with Gator Boys, you need to tune in this Sunday at 10 pm on Animal Planet. On the show, Paul and Jimmy (along with volunteers at the Gator Ranch) go out and capture gators that are hanging around areas they don’t belong. They don’t hurt the gators in anyway. In fact, most of the time you can find Paul in the water with the gator. It’s nuts! Once they’ve captured the gator, they take it back to their ranch, rehabilitate it (if necessary) and then the gator either stays at their ranch or is relocated to a new area. But they are never released back in the wild.
Bella is OBSESSED with this show. We have Gator Boys marathons. She’s heard them reference Holiday Park so much on the show that she is begging me to take her to the Florida so she can go to Everglades Holiday Park and meet the Gator Boys. That’s right. She doesn’t want to just go and see what’s going on, she wants me to score an interview with the Gator Boys for her.
So…Paul and Jimmy, if you’re reading this…would you like to meet a six year old little girl who absolutely loves the two of you? She is all about alligators. In fact, our kitten was rolling back and forth on her back and Bella yells “look, Roxie’s doing a death roll”! She even wants to have a Gator Boys 7th Birthday in October!! If you have a kids Gator Boys t-shirt…let me know! That would be the ultimate present for her!
She is WAY braver than I ever would or could be. Snakes freak me out so there is no way I would be holding that snake like she is. She looks happy holding it to boot. LOL.
We’ve seen that show and those guys are great! I was the same way at her age, I loved to hold snakes and my mom has plenty of pictures of me that look just like this one. What a brave little girl.
I LOVE those guys! And love what they are doing. As a fellow Floridian I REALLY appreciate what they do and what it teaches! SO many gators are killed when they dont have to be – glad these guys are doing right by them.
Whoa look at that! Awesome picture!!
that is so fun! My little guy just really started to get into animals like that! Love the picture!
I have not heard of this show but Bella is so brave to hold a snake. No way would I do that unless A LOT of money was involved!
OMGosh – that photo is giving me to total creeps. What a brave girl.
I’d never heard of Gator Boys, but it sounds like something my animal-obsessed daughter would enjoy. I think a Gator Boys birthday would make you the coolest mom ever. I can already imagine the gator birthday cake served with mud (aka chocolate icecream).
Woah, that snake is trying to make her his next meal!