We just had the extreme pleasure of attending a birthday party for Gus, a 24-year-old, 400-pound Galapagos tortoise—quite possibly the most fascinating party we've ever been to.
The party hosts (who are friends of my parents) have a whole herd of the massive reptiles at their house and have transformed the backyard into a tortoise paradise for their Galapagos, Aldabra, Sulcata, and Leopard tortoises. Many of these guys (and gals) respond to their names, and all have unique personalities with distinctive likes and dislikes. Gus's fave food is celery, while Al prefers bananas. Hee!
Gus welcomed everyone, lumbered around quite festively, and munched on large quantities of celery.
He had a very creative birthday cake that cracked us all up:
The girls were thrilled beyond belief that they got to feed the tortoises, pet them, and even sit on one.
Ro and Ree were so well-behaved we couldn't believe it (I think they were too stunned by the wonderfulness of it all to even think about misbehaving), and even wore their best turtle attire:
We all had a ball, except, possibly, for the one minute when we were standing in the balmy tortoise house and a tortoise named Mama bumped against my leg and pushed me aside. I'm sure no one heard my slightly hysterical scream or noticed that I tried to climb up the girl standing next to me (sorry Tina).
The full set of pictures, including one of the newly hatched baby tortoise, is here:
thumbnails,
captioned pics,
slideshow (click "show info" to turn on slideshow captions). And you can also check out this sign they made telling about the types of tortoises they have, where they came from, and what their personalities are like. (click to enlarge)
Crazy fun. If you ever get invited to a tortoise's birthday, GO!
The full set of pictures, including one of the newly hatched baby tortoise, is here: thumbnails, captioned pics, slideshow (click "show info" to turn on slideshow captions). And you can also check out this sign they made telling about the types of tortoises they have, where they came from, and what their personalities are like. (click to enlarge)
Crazy fun. If you ever get invited to a tortoise's birthday, GO!
Posts
That's about the coolest thing I've ever heard of!! Where did your parents get the turtles?
ReplyDeleteMiss Lila
Isn't it awesome?! Such a neat day. They're not my parents' tortoises, by the way, they belong to friends of my parents. They got them from all over, some were rescues, some came from zoos. I'll add a note on that to the post.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what kind of stories Gus could tell us about the last 400 years! How do they know how old he is? Do they have rings like a tree?
ReplyDeleteM3 - you are an amazing woman and mom. Ro and Ree are soo lucky to have you, tubadad, and all your friends and family in thier lives. That is really quite the experience you all got do have. I've never heard of a turtle party before, but I sure hope I get an invite to one someday! he he
ReplyDeleteI love following your blog. Thanks for sharing with all of us.
Mary in NE
I can honestly say that in all my 42 years of living, I've never been to a tortoise's birthday party. That is so cool!
ReplyDeleteI have been to the Galapagos Islands when I went on a canoe trip down the Amazon. I saw these turtles and a lot of unbelievable species of birds and lizards. How in the world does one get "permission" to keep these beautiful creatures in their yard?????
ReplyDeleteWow! What a fun way to spend a day! Love that your parent's friends share their love for their tortoises with others. You can see in the girl's eyes that they are totally fascinated by these amazing animals and what fun to be actually able to ride one! Cool!!
ReplyDeleteAs a child, my sibs and I rode an elephant. I remember it to this day and we still talk about it.
ReplyDeleteA tortoise party is soo uber cool. We have a llama farm on the way to my mom's. DS calls them 'animal crackers'. Too cute. These are the moments we'll pull from memory to relive again and again. Thanks for sharing your amazingly interesting and FUN life with us.
Jen
Never been to a turtle birthday party before but it sure does look like fun:)
ReplyDeleteTotally awesome, what a fun day!! Love the turtle wear on the girls, very cute.
ReplyDeletethe turtle looks older than his real age :)
ReplyDeleteI wish we knew someone with tortoises! They look so cool!
ReplyDeleteYour writing is so fun to read!
Glad you had a fun time! :)
That's something I'll have to put on my list of fun things to do. Great pictures, especially of the girls riding the tortoise. Cute post!
ReplyDeleteOops, the post above is from me, didn't know it was connected to my sons account. I thought some Nick guy stole my words :)
ReplyDelete:) LOL Tari has those jeans (but in the long style!)
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but the first tortoise pic looks like he's had a massive tortoise spew and didn't wipe his mouth!!!!
And... I was very shocked to read that you were "amazed" at your girl's good behaviour?!! What the? They're little angels ALL the time!!!