Exploring Charlotte

Last week Mike found out that he got almost all A's on his midterms! I wanted to do something to celebrate and because that usually means an excuse to go out to eat I asked Mike where he wanted to go. He asked for Chinese food and for him that generally means Panda Express. Now, the closest one to us was in Charlotte which is about an hour away so we decided to make a day trip of it and so we packed a lunch and headed up to Charlotte on a Saturday. We decided that the best way to explore a new city is to walk. So we parked the car and picked a street to start on. I LOVE being back in a city. I love the sounds, the business, the people, and just the overall feeling of always having something to see and do. While we were exploring we found the Square which is just the center of the city. I guess we just have good timing cause they were about to film a commercial about Charlotte and so we were extras in a commercial. Their were people dancing in the street and they needed people to be standing on the sidewalks cheering. It was fun to be part of it.

Just to prove that Mike and I were there together since I didn't feel like asking someone to do it...Its a reflection in a window. Its a big disc sculpture that was pretty interesting.

The helicopter cam during the commercial.

Our view of the square...their are 4 statues. Each one has a name. They are industry, future, transportation and commerce.

Then we continued our journey around the city and decided to visit the Nascar Hall of Fame. But..once we found out it was $20 a person...we decided to look at the cars through the window and just take a picture outside.

Next we continued to wander and I just enjoyed taking pictures of the city. We actually went to the Discovery Museum but I took so many pictures and we did so much that I'll dedicate another post to that story but we did enjoy our time in Charlotte. The Panda Express but delicious and we finished our visit with a trip to the Cheesecake Factory and a slice of Caramel Turtle cheesecake! Yum!

Lions, Leopards and Giraffe's....Oh My!

A couple weekends ago Mike and I decided to take a little trip down to Greenville for a visit to the zoo. I was a little worried that we wouldn't see anything since it was August and if you've been in SC in August you know that its hot and very humid. But Mike assured me that since it was late morning and cloudy that we would probably see some animals. I'm glad we went cause it was great! It wasn't too crowded so we got to look at animals as long as we wanted and since its not a huge zoo we went around twice (their are some animals that were just too cute to not sneak a second peak) Now to address the title of this post. I know you're all thinking...wait...that's not how it goes but the saddest part of our trip was that we didn't get to see any tigers or bears but we did get to see some giraffe's and some adorable leopards :) Thus the name of the blog....maybe my new saying will catch on :)

We caught Mufasa....the king of the savannah and what was he doing??? Just typical cat stuff...gotta get those 20 hours in

Mike loved the giraffe's! Just look at that spine!!!

We loved the leopards! I just wanted to go hug one! Now onto Mike's favorite animal in the zoo....the red panda! Master Shifu!

Just look at that face! These pictures really don't show how adorable this little panda was. He was good at posing for the camera too :) Now for my favorite animal and surprise surprise...it's a member of the cat family...the ocelot!

Unfortunately, they did not want to cooperate with me so this was the best picture that I could get but they really were so cute. And now for some more highlights from the trip:

These two monkey's are howler monkeys. They were adorable on our first trip around but halfway through the second they started howling. I couldn't believe how loud they were! I was trying to imagine what the rainforest must sound like if this was just 2 monkeys! Needless to say that I got a headache but I felt better when I saw the leopards (in the cage across from them) pacing up and down. I was so close to letting them out and letting them devour those monkeys...I know they wanted to.

This is Ellie...ellie the elephant that is.

This little guy was far less annoying and sat there for a few minutes and let everyone take his picture. I think he liked the attention and he was pretty cute.

We had a great time at the zoo! We just love seeing all of the animals! Next we want to visit the Columbia zoo and then go down to Busch Gardens and go on the safari but in the meantime its nice to have a zoo close to our house.