Safari

There is this drive through safari thing that we have seen signs for every time we have driven to any of D's family events as it is just down 81 from us.  But it is 3 1/2 hours away which is clearly too far for a day trip.  So this time as we were driving back from Charlotte, which is only 6 hours away and practically a short drive, we finally decided to do it.  Especially since this was probably the last time we'd be driving that.

D and I loved it!  Brooke liked it..  Audrey was not a fan and spent a lot of the time hiding on the floor behind my seat.  They both may have been a little hesitant because one of our first animal encounters was a very aggressive ostrich who was basically in our car.  Picture food flying everywhere as he was pecking into a very full bucket of food while I am simultaneously yelling that we need to get him out of our car (I have a slight phobia regarding birds) while the girls are in shock with all that is going on.  Simultaneously on my side of the car we had a giant bull whose horns were dangerously close to entering our car and me yelling about how to get the food away from him.   D pretty much just started driving which made the ostrich bonk his head on our car which made me disturbed which created more drama.  So that may have had something to do with their hesitation.

Here are the pics:

 Seriously a giant set of horns! No zoom was used...he was this close to us

 Brooke petting the Alpaca

Here is where I lost the first bucket of food

Not the aggressive crazy ostrich!

D loved the zebras

The girls loved seeing the animals fight!

I love the furry little cows!

Where I lost my second bucket of food

Audrey petting the Alpaca (that's what I am calling it)

And here is where I lost our final two buckets of food!!

New House

To begin our house hunting trip we left the Saturday before Easter and drove to Charlotte (where we stayed in a hotel - a very important point for the girls as they LOVE hotels...especially the pool and jumping from bed to bed)  We met up with D's dad Pappa and his wife Weecie.  They took the girls back to their house in SC and we flew out to find our new home .

We looked at all of the houses that met our criteria (which really was not that strict) on Monday, made an offer on Tuesday, accepted their counter on Tuesday (and simultaneously we accepted an offer on our house back in VA on Tuesday too), did the home inspection on Wednesday, made our list of repair requests on Thursday, and got it all worked out on Friday.  So we are set to go on the new home!  We are pretty close on this end too.  Just had the inspection done yesterday and are waiting to hear back from it....I am nervous about that cause you just never know what's up in these older houses. (UPDATE: minor issues and the buyers accepted our cash in lieu of repairs!! Whew!)

Here are some pictures of our new house.  It is just over 2600 square feet and yes we realize that it looks like a castle.  All of the houses on this one street look like castles.  This was D's main complaint about the house...that and the fact that the front door is actually on the side of the house.  But after seeing all the houses in (and out) of our budget, it was the clear winner.

Front of the house.

Back of the house.  The one thing that we are going to do asap is put up a fence so that I can release the girls into the backyard with minimal supervision.  Apparently we have to get that approved by the HOA.

Kitchen

Dining area

Den looking back toward the kitchen.  Only complaint is that we wished this room were just a bit bigger.

My mom office - which is just off the kitchen and right where you come in from the garage.

Speaking of - we have a garage again!!  What a treat!

Winery

One of D's favorite things to do around here when the weather is nice is to go to wineries.  I think this is one of the things that he is going to miss most about the upcoming move.

We went with our friends the Envalls -photo credit to Brooke

 

Miss Erica entertaining the kids with trains.  It was a little chillier than we thought it was going to be so we were all bundled up.  Though we stayed for long enough that we all got sunburned

 

 The boys living it up at the tasting...and the numerous bottles that followed

The girls living it up a little less though still having fun

Miscellaneous Pictures

 Audrey is so cute with her doggie guys

 Brooke always gets so excited when Audrey will wear matching clothes

 With their friend Lorelei at her rainbow birthday party

 The girls still love to have themselves traced.  They have certainly gotten better at then coloring themselves.  This was done at the party and you can see that their outfits are pretty close to what they are wearing above.  Audrey explained that she had to use blue for her pants rather than black since it was on the black ground.

 Getting ready to paint the sidewalk using our chalk paint.

 Me and Audrey looking at the clouds.  Photo credit to Brooke

 Me and Brooke looking at the clouds.  Photo credit to Audrey

The girls playing soccer with their new neighbor friends Jordie and Ray.  (the picture is a little fuzzy cause I was trying to take a picture without looking stalkerish) The girls LOVE them.  It is a little odd as they are much older but they are good at playing with them. 

Princesses

In early March the girls went to their friend Olivia's birthday party.  It was a princess theme which is always so adorable to see all of the girls all dressed up. I was telling my sister (mom of only boys) about the party and she naively asked "but what if you don't have a princess outfit."  Clearly a mom whose life is not ruled by pink and princesses.  After laughing for quite a while, I explained that ALL little girls have some type of princess dress up costumes and the real issue is deciding which princess they want to be that day.

 Here they are making crowns with the birthday girl.  Brooke was Snow White and Audrey was Belle.  Olivia was Rapunzel (which was the theme of the party and the special guest)

 It was so exciting that the girls were not scared of the Real Rapunzel....at past parties they a have been less than thrilled with the idea.

 And the always popular face painting.  This time both girls decided that they wanted to be kitties.