Week 90: Paco-less Graduation, AKA: IT'S OVER!

Coming home felt great after two weeks away. I had to kill time at the zoo again this week, and there was still a whole lot of nothing for me to do! The first years will be fine and I feel OK with leaving them now. We did learn that Ghost will have a new plan for the rest of his life. He is no longer being manned and will have a new outdoor extension of his mew built so he has free access to outside. From there they will work on re-training him to function without equipment and be more of a free-working bird, which will be really neat for the public to see as well, so I expect great things for him in the future. I also learned that Paco, the white nosed coati, passed on the week before as well. Very sad, but she was also on the edge of her life-span. On Thursday, I had family come in for my graduation including my mom, one sister, and the in-laws. We had a great time together and they all really enjoyed seeing the zoo and all the festivities! Friday starts off with "family circus", a show where we can show off to all our friends and family all the cool animals we've worked with that come out to do shows. It was a few hours long, but we managed to keep everyone's attention just fine! After that you are free to do what you want until the ceremony. The ceremony its self was wonderful! There were lots of tears, but what do you expect? In addition to ending the best two years of your life (so far), we had to remember all we had lost this year too. All the speeches were wonderful and better than I could have hoped for. I was proud and happy when Dr. S called my name to receive my certificate. Hubby thinks I got one of the best compliments given when she called me. It was an emotional day, but it was also an emotional two years, so it was fitting! Another class of 50 is graduated and off into the world from EATM! (Pics: Paco in my lap, family circus [me with Nuez], graduation)