First Trip to the North Carolina Zoo

We made our first trip to the North Carolina Zoo today. The zoo covers 500 acres and has animals from two continents, North America and Africa. We spent almost 3 hours there and only covered the North American side this time. On our next visit we'll explore the African side.

The girls loved the playground!

Adorable River Otters

Bobcat!

This is what the paths of the zoo look like. It's a beautiful walk.

A man-made geyser

 Okay, he wasn't part of an "official" exhibit, but fun to find all the same. :-)

Looking forward to visiting the African animals on our next trip to the zoo!

Two More Finished Rooms

The girls' bathroom and the guest room are now finished.

Girls' Bathroom (upstairs)

Ella asked for a Little Mermaid and seahorse bathroom. I based the color theme on a beautiful shower curtain I found for them.

We'll eventually rotate the plug that their seahorse night light is plugged into so their seahorse will sit upright.

Their bathroom sits between their bedroom and the "guest" room and has two entrances.

This little figurine is the perfect link between the mermaids and seahorses in their bathroom. :-)

Here's the shower curtain. The colors are beautiful. I actually took it to Lowes and matched the paint color for the walls to some of the blue flowers.

I just love the tub! There are no pointed or hard edges and the bottom is truly slip proof.

Seahorses and Ariel above the girls' toilet

Guest Room (upstairs)

The guest room also holds Sead's and my book shelves with our extensive collection of books. :-)

There's a beautiful, green view through the window. Our elliptical machine is in the guest room facing the window.

I embroidered and put this cat quilt together when I was 12 or so. It finally has a bed to lay on. :-)

The open door leads to the staircase and the closed door leads to the girls' bathroom.

Downtown Wake Forest

We made a trip up to Wake Forest today to explore the downtown area. We really enjoyed it, but Sunday isn't the day to go because most of the town is closed. We're planning to make another trip soon on a Saturday.

The Cotton Company was open and Ella found a special necklace.

 Looking at a stuffed fox in the front window of a hardware store

Ella loves to smell flowers. Actually, she's been smelling flowers since she was about 18 months old. :-)

Southeastern Baptist Seminary

Outside Storytellers Books

A snack at Wake Forest Coffee Company

We can't wait to visit again.

One Month in Our New Home

We've been in our home for one month as of today. All of our boxes are unpacked and most of the house is looking pretty good. I took these pictures of the rooms that are completely finished and the others won't be far behind.

The Girls' Playroom (upstairs)

This is the girls' Tinkerbell playroom. They both play in here and absolutely love it! Emma still has to be supervised in here, but I do keep Ella's "small toys" up high unless Ella is playing alone in the room.

This large Tinkerbell greets the girls when they enter the room. :-)

The girls' hardly have anything to play with! ;-)

I picked up extra flower lights and these canopy leaves at Ikea before we moved. I thought they'd fit in well with the fairly theme and let the girls feel like little fairies themselves.

They both like to get under the leaves to play and Ella changes dress-up clothes under them as if they were little dressing rooms.

The much loved window seat!

The Girls' Bedroom (upstairs)

The girls' bedroom is also upstairs right next to their playroom. Ella is so happy with her princess bedroom! We even found official Disney Princess furniture for her! Emma has a matching bed in the attic waiting for her transition to it next year.

Their bedroom is also connected to the upstairs bathroom. Their bathroom is almost finished, so I should be able to take pictures of it next week to post.

A view of their bedroom looking into the playroom

Half Bath (down stairs)

This is our half bath just past the kitchen across from the washer/dryer closet.

I love what they did with the walls in here. It was apparently painted white, sponged over with a warm yellow paint and then stamped with a green leaf pattern.

I updated the flowers hanging in the wire basket above the toilet to emphasize the green in the bathroom and add burgundy.

Not much to show in here, but it is a finished space. :-)

Master Bath (down stairs)

Our Master bedroom is almost finished (just waiting on lamps to be delivered), so I'll be able to post pictures of it next week, but the Master bath is finished.

I framed several pictures of the girls and us at Carmel to go with our "ocean" themed bathroom. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but the colors are beige and blue.

Details... :-)

To the right is our bath tub, etc...

This is what we hung above the toilet. :-)

Living Room

The living room is shaping up well. We have a few more details to finish in this room, so I'll post more pictures of it later.

They left us the valance and window seat cushion and they're perfect colors for us (a deep red, green, and gold). I found a couple of red pillows at Costco that match the window seat cushion perfectly. The window seat cushion needed a little refreshing so I washed it last night and replaced the foam inside it. It looks perfect now.

The rest is the house is coming along very quickly and I can't wait to take more pictures and post them!