Everyone knows by now that we are moving to Orlando. I had all these thoughts in my head that I intended on blogging, but now it's such old news that nobody really will care! To sum it up in one word: Bittersweet. Dane and I will REALLY miss North Carolina. A lot! We have really come to love it here. Bottom line is that we want to start a family asap and want to be close to home when that happens. Orlando isn't exactly as close to home as I was hoping, but we're really excited about it. We will be almost 3 hours from my parents and 5 from Dane's parents. Heck of a lot better than 8-9 hours though! (And did I mention about 30-45 minutes from the beach)? :-)
We went on a house hunting trip down there this past weekend. I was SUPER DUPER stressed on our first day there because we peeped in some windows of houses that we had found (and liked) online. Needless to say they were NOT what I had anticipated seeing. Either the backyard backed up to a busy/noisy street and had a lovely view of several apartment/condo buildings or the living room was so small that our sectional wouldn't have even fit or they were just too outdated. I can handle a little outdated, but not to the extent of some of the places we saw. If we were buying that would have been a completely different story because we could remodel. But we're renting until we decide where it is we belong. Maybe we'll love Orlando and that's where we're meant to be! Time will only tell.
Alright, so about the house...it's not quite as nice as what we are in now, but it's more expensive down there and we have to live off of 1 salary until I find a job. This one was all about location, location, location. It's in Oviedo which borders Orlando to the NE side. Of all the time I have spent down there, I had never been to Oviedo, and I LOVED IT! It was such a homey place. When driving there, literally as soon as you cross over the county line into Oviedo's county there was more green and less concrete. We fell in love with the small town feel and couldn't believe how far removed from "the big city" that it felt. When leaving there (granted it was around 7ish at night, so very little traffic), it took us less than 20 minutes to get to downtown Orlando. It's a 10-15 minute drive to Dane's store. So yes, location, location, location. :-)
So the house: it's a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom with a 2 car garage. We're losing a living room (our current house has a living room and a family room), a 1/2 bath, and about 150 square feet. But it has a great split floorplan with a huge open great room. The kitchen and baths are outdated, but I can deal. And there's no fireplace!!! Where am I going to put up my fall and Christmas garland?! What we loved the most was the backyard. It's smaller than the one we have now (which is FINE with me since I do the mowing), but it feels like a little tropical oasis. :-) The back fense is lined with tropical plants and trees and even has a banana tree. Enough, blah, blah, here are some pics...
