Awesome, Possum, Orange Blossom

So, exactly how awesome has my birthday been? Very!
After a "celebrating the last hours of my twenties with me" party Saturday night, Ant and I went on a little adventure. Where to? The Wildlife Learning Center in Sylmar! And we had a private tour. Our guide Jen was super charming, and answered a lot of questions (see, I was trying to be a smart-a** and come up with good ones. That didn't always work). We also got to hang out, hold and pet some of the animals, which was totally nuts. And no, these guys are not trained, don't do tricks or anything like that. Most of them friendly/tolerated us because they were either used to people or are just very social animals. Here are our favorites:

The porcupine family were the most friendly, laid back gang. What do they really need to worry about anyway?


We got to hold a Tawny Owl, they're more feathers than bird, actually! Super light and fluffy.


The sloth was super funny. Every time she yawned she stuck her (long) tongue out, we just didn't catch it on film. And she yawned a lot.


Yes, I can hear you going "awwww!" all the way over here! I got to hold him too, but Ant's photos were better.


One of my all time faves - the Armadillo! These are not scales, BTW, it's hardened skin.


Kitty paws (on a seventy-five-pound Lynx)... And we got to touch them. Carefully.


I can't remember the scientific name of this guy, but it's a super cool dragon like monitor (that should be it's name, though)


Cool, ha? More pictures here.
But the coolness doesn't end here! Oh no. Check out what I unwrapped when we came home!

A pile of presents from my family and friends. Including a Shinzi Katoh teapot set, books galore, Ice-Bat, cute mushroom salt and pepper shakers, bath goodies... My friends and family are the best.

And then...

I got to bite into this red velvet raspberry cakewich from Cakemonkey. Yum!


There's one more thing I got for my birthday that I need to show you, but I need to take a picture first.
Find it on my Flickr stream in the next few days (let's see if you paid attention). Let's see if you can tell what it is. Special prize for the correct guess!