The Great Vehicle Adventure - It was great :)

Thank you for everyone that came out to The Great Vehicle Adventure today. It was really nice to see and meet so many people. I hope that we'll be seeing all of your again! :)

The kids - at least my kids - really liked seeing and getting in and on all sorts of really neat vehicles. I liked the free Wheatabix (sp) cereal and Kawartha Dairy Company ice cream. It was also great to meet some of our friends in uniform - first responders and armed forces.

Fun event. If you didn't check it out this year, you should definitely come out next year.

Yolanta

The Great Vehicle Adventure TODAY

9 am to 6 pm at the Toronto Congress Centre
$10 admission (cash) at the door or print off 2 for 1 tickets from www.Toronto4Kids.com in their events section.

Lots and lots of exhibitors! Will be great fun for the whole family. Bring a camera!

Yolanta

The Great Vehicle Adventure Count Down

2 days until The Great Vehicle Adventure!

We feverishly getting everything together. I hope everyone comes out to this fun event!

Yolanta

Creature Camp 2009 Registration is Up :)

Yippi! Camp registration forms are now avaliable on our website!

We'll be having SO much fun this summer. Oh, I can't wait. :)

Yolanta

Creature Camp 2009 Registration Is ALMOST Here

More information and registration forms should be posted on our website, http://www.creaturequest.ca/, in the next few hours. Register early as space is limited.

Camp will be based out of Wedgewood JS in Etobicoke.

Yolanta

Getting Things Organized

We have so much on the go lately that sometimes it's hard to figure out where to start.

The Great Vehicle Adventure is coming up next week and despite a few last minute hiccups (and major hair pulling) we should be prepared for the day.

Next week we will also have a few of our new staff come in to get them ready for next Sunday's shows. We'll be doing a more formal training with the lot of them the following week that will be more complete... I have LOTS to get ready for this................

We're SO happy to have a summer camp this year BUT as of right now have a world of work getting it organized. We're hoping to have things up on the website Monday or Tuesday next week.

The website.... yikes.... with the addition of our new summer camps we have decided to make a few changes to the site to make it easier to navigate through. Let's just say that is taking a little longer than I hoped that it would take.

I love having so many new and exciting things happening. It simply gives me butterflies in my stomach watching Creature Quest grow and having so many wonderful opportunities coming to me. But with all of this work (70 hour plus work weeks), I really appreciate slipping away for an hour here or there to get to explore a local park or clean up the garden so my animals can roam... Speaking of which we do need to build some outdoor enclosures this year......

Yolanta

New Staff At Creature Quest

We are very happy to welcome on board three new members to our team, Nin, Nate and Allison.

Nin comes to us with lots of enthusiasm and wonder for the natural world. She's a brave gal that has been interested in animals from a very young age. Her excitement is very contagious.

Nate lists animals, geography and earth sciences as some of his interests and admits that he is simply obsessed with animals. He will be fine tuning his passion at Guelph University in the fall.

Allison has a flair for working with children and a keen interest in working with our creatures. This former snake sitter has been fascinated and enthusiastic about the animal world since childhood.

We hope that everyone enjoys meeting the fab three as much as we can't wait to work with them. They will be starting in May.

Yolanta

Creature Quest Creature Camp Summer 2009 - Part 1

We just received a notice that we will have Wedgewood JS in Toronto to run our summer camp. We're very, very excited to be able to run a nature and animal summer camp. More information on the camp and registration forms will be added to our website, www.CreatureQuest.ca, late this week or early next week.

Yolanta

Easter at Sick Kids

We would like to thank Sick Kids for allowing us to be a part of their Easter Sunday and Passover celebration and share our natural artifacts and make crafts with the children at the hospital, their families and hospital staff. We really enjoyed ourselves and I hope that everyone that visited us did too.

So from Duane, Dylan, Jerad and I - Thank you!

Yolanta

Getting Ready for Easter at Sick Kids

We are very happy to have been invited to be a part of Sick Kids' Hospitals Easter/Passover event. This event is for the children that will be spending the holiday at the hospital and their families.

We are busily getting our crafts ready for this event. We will also have a display with some animal artifacts (no living animals though) and we will be selling some merchandise too and donating some of the proceeds Nova's Ark (www.NovasArk.ca).

Our eldest sons will be helping us run our crafts table. I am hoping that this event will not only make them appreciate what they have but also teach them that by donating a little bit of their Easter can make a huge impact on many lives.

It's off to work now. Tomorrow REALLY counts and we want it to run perfectly!

Yolanta

Interviews Part Two

We held one interview yesterday morning. It was really great getting a chance to talk to and learn about someone so excited about animals. We're slowly starting to get ready for tonight's interviews. All the paper work is organized but we need to freshen up before we go out into people! We really are looking forward to meeting up with the people we have currently lined up. It should be a great evening.

Once our interviews are over, we'll be letting the candidates and you know by the end of the week. It's all very wonderful!

Yolanta

Job Interview - Part 1

We'll be holding our first job interview today! It's very exciting stuff and I can't wait to meet and learn more about the people that we've chosen to come out. Everyone one we've requested interviews has a keen interest in working with a variety of exotic animals and several all ready have some experience. We're looking to find people that would fit into our team, uphold our company's philosophy and make our company stronger. I can't wait to introduce these new people to everyone!

I would like to thank EVERYONE that applied for the position of Assistant Animal Handler.

As an aside, the child care centre presentations at Peek-a-Boo went well. Although I wasn't the craziest or loudest presenter, I think that I gave the participants a good idea about what our company is about. Everyone also got a chance to meet three of our stars: Ashleigh the chinchilla, Mocha the calabar python and Sky the blue tongue skink.

Yolanta

Peek-A-Boo Daycare Informational

We are very happy to have been invited to Peek-A-Boo Child Care Centre's meeting tomorrow morning to present information about our animal shows. This is a great opportunity to showcase the wonderful animal shows that we offer child care centres.

I am busily getting ready for my two time slots. We're expecting 100 child care providers from the various Peek-A-Boo centres from around Ontario over our two presentation slots. To say that I'm a little nervous would be fibbing. I haven't had to prepare for this kind of show in quite some time so I'll be a little out of my element.

I'll be off to Staples soon to get my printing down and then I have to think more about my speech... I've changed it a few time all ready. I still need to pick the animals that I'll be bringing and then trouble shooting any last minute ideas/changes.

This certainly will be a change from my regular routine of birthday parties all Saturday and although it will be an interesting break.... I do have a few butterflies!

Duane and Stephanie will be hitting several parties tomorrow and are both pretty excited to introduce the animals to everyone.

Yolanta

Loot Bag Party

We're having a loot bag party today! Very exciting to put all these cute toys into bags and make them look pretty.... Okay who am I kidding I'm wishing that I could play with all of the toys - torture!

I hope everyone enjoys their bags this week!

Yolanta