Living Room Revamp

I didn't have my digital camera at the start of our living room/dining room project, so I can't show before and after shots. I can show you some nice after pictures, though! The furniture is not all back yet (obviously), and we will be getting an area rug for the living room, hopefully soon. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what our new rooms look like.

Here is our dining room, aka our school room. We do just about all of our writing and other seatwork right here, so this room got finished first. We still have to work on pictures for the walls, but I'm waiting until all the the furniture is in place in the living room before I try to decide what goes where.


Here is our living room, complete with one VERY spoiled dog.


Our entryway. Didn't Jason do a great job with the floor?

My Little Zoo Animals

Kathryn and Daniel really enjoyed their trip to the zoo. Between the animals, the bug play area, the carousel, and our yummy picnic lunch, it was a great day. Field trips like this are the icing on the homeschool cake!

The carousel is fairly new, and it has plenty of exotic zoo animals to ride. Kathryn chose this zebra, and Daniel rode on a dolphin next to her.




Kathryn likes to pretend she's a spider.


This is safer than riding the real thing...


Daniel enjoyed being a spider on the climbing ropes. He can get all the way to the top easily these days.



A bumblebee makes a great seat.




The rhinos have been off exhibit while they have been renovating and expanding their habitat. It doesn't officially open until next spring, but we got a sneak preview this visit. Only two of the rhinos were there, but there will be 8-9 when the habitat is complete, including some young rhinos. In the meantime, we got to enjoy the rhino statue.

Zoo trip

I love our zoo! We manage to get there a few times each year, and I love seeing the beauty of the zoo and the diversity of the animals there. Friday it was on the cool side (low 50's all day), and it was a perfect day to enjoy fall outside. The leaves were turing and were much more colorful than at our house. They do such a nice job keeping up the grounds at the zoo, it feels almost more like a walk in the woods than a managed facility.

Anyway, on to the pictures! I think I've figured out how to get pictures on this blog, so here are a few of my favorite animal shots:

The elephants have been off exhibit for almost two years, so it was a real treat to see them up close again!

This grizzly bear decided it was time to cool off in his pool, despite the cool weather.

Up and running!

I've finally taken the plunge -- I'm starting a blog! There are several blogs I read daily (or at least as often as they post new entries), and I always thought I might try my hand at one. There were only two small problems that I could see:

1) I didn't have a digital camera. Yes, this is a pretty sorry excuse, but if I ever did this, I would want it to be a place to keep family up-to-date with how the kids were growing, so as long as I didn't have a digital camera I didn't have a good way to get my pictures onto the computer. Well, Jason got me a camera for my birthday! I now have a camera that can fit in my pocket (that's a change from my last one!) and can get my pictures quickly and easily onto my brand-spanking-new blog. Of course, I haven't tried it yet, but the directions look easy. I mean, how hard could it be, right? Right?

2) How on earth will I find neat and clever things to write about on a regular basis? That problem's still there, but I guess whoever reads this will just have to live with it.

Yesterday was a fabulous day for a trip to the NC Zoo. We had a blast! It was really busy (apparently a lot of school groups thought the same thing we did), but it was great nonetheless. I'll try to upload some pictures in the next few days.