Hunting trip!

New College

Sunny Florida. To all my friends in the frozen North.... :p   (I'm sticking my tongue out at you). It's been a BUSY week, but now it's time to return to Winter. Although next week will be warm (above 10C) in Montreal, I'm still not looking forward to going back. None of us are...except Ellie, who stayed behind in a kennel for the first time since joining our family a year and a half ago. We're pretty sure she's going to be a puddle of nerves upon her return home....or just make puddles.

The weather here has been beautiful. We managed an afternoon at the beach in Sarasota, after visiting New College with Maddie. Both the college and the beach were beautiful. I'm not sure that anyone should be allowed to go to college near a beach like that.

Living in Florida will take some adjusting. Will I get used to winters without snow-pants and boots? Absolutely. Will I get used to the summer heat? This remains to be seen. There are a few other things I will have to get used to. The drivers here SUCK. Keep in mind that I'm used to driving in Montreal where the drivers SUCK. I can't imagine what would happen here with 1/8 inch of ice on the roads.

As many of you know, my career of choice involves tromping around in streams and ponds. As many of you also know, Alligators have big teeth. Nuff said. We've been asking everyone and their brother where we should live/play in the Tampa area, including cyclists and kayakers that we met while visiting a nearby park. They all said that the gators aren't bad as long as you're not drunk and trying to swim with them. Oh, except that one time when the kayak was capsized via alligator collision. And on the bike trail a cottonmouth snapped at the cyclist's ankle. Yup, alligators in the stormwater ponds in the neighborhoods too. When I said it would be good for me to get out of my comfort zone, I'm not sure that's what I had in mind...it certainly did not involve any large teeth.

The main focus of our trip to Tampa was to find a neighborhood that fit our needs/wants. Since we have a realtor, we looked at some houses too, even though we're not moving until June. Each one was L's favorite...no, THIS one's my favorite. His grandparents gave him a camera for Christmas, so he was in charge of taking pictures of the houses so we could compare later. Mostly he took pictures of flowers and a few coffee pots. Here's what we got:

We weren't planning to buy a house on this trip, since when we got here we didn't even know where to start looking. In six days, we visited 2 colleges, 3 elementary schools, 7 houses (2 twice), 1 church, and countless playgrounds. Like any good liberal UUs (or yuppies), we wanted a walkable, older neighborhood in the city close to everything, including a decent elementary school (within walking distance, of course). Where did we end up choosing a house? In a planned community North of Tampa which was actually annexed by the city for the tax revenue. Yes, a planned community. We spent a lot of time there trying to determine if it was real. It felt somewhere between the "Truman Show" and "The Village" from the '60s TV show The Prisoner, although I think Nick's hoping for something more like Stepford. There were many reasons we chose the area, and the more time we spent there, the more comfortable we felt. We spent two evenings at two different playgrounds (which we were technically not allowed because it's the HOA's playground). L played for hours with kids at both parks. HALLELUJAH! A neighborhood with kids! Where do I sign up?

We're not excited to go back to finish the rest of the school year in Montreal.  But for now, we're getting our long pants and sweatshirts out of our suitcases and heading to the airport in the morning.

"Be seeing you......"