Our New House in North Carolina

We absolutely loved North Carolina from the moment we arrived. We saw 22 houses in two days, but in the end this house stood out clearly from all others. I call it my "Thomas Kinkade" house because it looks just like some of the homes in his paintings. We couldn't be happier with this home and the town it's in, Holly Springs.

Here are pictures of the house from the day we made an offer on it, September 14th. All items in the pictures stayed with the home.

Front of House

204 Blooming Meadows Road

Master Bedroom

The Master bedroom is on the first floor to the left when you enter the front door.

Master bath

Living Room

Window seat

The view of the living room from upstairs

Above the front door

Kitchen

They left this chair for us since it matches the kitchen.

The washer and dryer closet are past the frig where Sead is standing.

I love the kitchen window, such a great view.

The pantry is the first door on the left and the half bath is the second door on the left. The door at the end leads to the garage.

Screened Porch

Looking back toward the dining room from the screened porch

Backyard

They left us the gas grill

There's a wood swing in the backyard that they also left for us.

You can see some neighboring houses from the backyard, but the trees make it very private.

There's a storage shed attached to the back of the house. We plan to make it a cat space so that the cats can be outdoor cats here, but still have a warm dry place to sleep and eat. 

Upstairs - "Guest Bedroom"

This is the bedroom to the right upstairs. We're setting it up as a guest room.

Girls' Bathroom

The girls' bathroom upstairs has two entrances, one from the "guest room" and one from the "girls' room". It's in between the two rooms.

I'll be changing the theme from monkeys to mermaids.

Girls' Bedroom

This will be the girls' bedroom. We'll paint it pink and decorate it in a Disney princess theme.

The view from their room

There's a double doored closet and the other door leads to the attic space.

Girls' Playroom

This room will be the girls' playroom. We'll paint it lavendar for a Tinkerbell Fairy theme.

Ella loves this window seat and there's additional storage in the seat.

These playroom shelves are built in and the previous owners left us the toy bins.

Neighborhood

 This is a view of our mailbox and the street in front of our house.

The other side of the street, lots of green!

Looking back at the house from the side 

This pool for those who live in the Valleyfield community is just one block from our house.

This playground is right next to the pool.

First Flight

The girls took their first flight out to North Carolina to house shop with us. We flew out on September 11th and returned to San Jose on September 17th. I got a few shots in the airport before our flight out, but we had too much to juggle to take shots on the plane. :-) Ella was very excited about the flight and mostly had fun on the plane. Emma did really well too, but took a lot of juggling and passing back and forth to keep happy during the flight. Fortunately, we flew a one-stop, no-plane-change Southwest flight to Raleigh.

 At the drop off curb at San Jose International waiting for daddy to park the car and head inside the airport with us.

I packed a few surprises for Ella. These are the Smurf figurines. She was so thrilled to discover them.

 Emma just wanted to run around the whole airport. It was good that she got to stretch her legs before we got on the plane.

Posting Intermission

Sorry about the lack of posts recently. We've been really busy! Expecting to start posting here again by mid October. :-)

Super Fun Day at Gilroy Gardens

We had a great time at Gilroy Gardens on Sunday. Emma got to ride the Goldfish for the first time and experience her first Petting Zoo. Ella got to hold a bunny and ride a pony.

 On the Goldfish for the first time

 Ella kept looking back to make sure Emma was having a good time. :-)

 Emma loved her first time in a petting zoo!







 The bunny loved Ella and while all the other bunnies jumped off the kids' laps, Ella's stayed on her the whole time and even closed its eyes. :-)





 Pony ride time!