We have been slowly moving along, and just wanted to share our latest thoughts and activities.

We did hear back from The Gardens at Citrus Tower, and right now they remain our #1 choice.  As we mentioned before, we really cannot apply until mid-May, so we are kind of in a holding position until then.  Our original plan was to apply at all three complexes in May, visit them all once we arrive in Clermont on July 25th, and then make our final decision. However, all three complexes do require an application fee, as well as a deposit.  The deposit is non-refundable if we choose not to live there.  In the interest of not throwing money away, we have decided to make our decision here in Wisconsin, without physically viewing the apartment.  We realize this does pose some risks, but we feel we can get a fairly good feel from the websites, we have friends in Orlando who have promised to scope out the area for us, and we go with the realization that we can always move in twelve months if we’re not satisfied with either the neighborhood or the apartment.  We will feel more secure leaving Wisconsin knowing that we have an address we are moving to.   We will probably have to stay in a hotel in the Orlando area for a few days, if for no other reason then we have to wait to get beds delivered.  We are looking for feedback on the best place to buy beds in the Clermont area.

We are slowly packing up our belongings, and our new goal is to pack one box a day.  If we do more, great!, but the minimum is one box daily.  We average about one Goodwill trip per week now.  Downstairs we are pretty well at the point where most of what is left are things we are bringing with us.   Mark is working on moving our music CDs over to our external hard drive, and we are both trying to duplicate our videos to DVD.  Our Disney videos we will need to make a decision on, as they are write-protected.  We may look into re-purchasing them over the next four months, and only saving the ones that are currently not available on DVD.

Our second car is listed on Craigslist, and we have an interested party coming by to look at it this afternoon.  If all goes well, this will allow us to pay off the loan on our other car, plus have a little extra to bank.   We’ll go back to being a one-car family, but with Mark working at home full-time, it’s not too much of an inconvenience for us, and it will save us approximately $150 per month.  It will also save us on our renewal fees for AAA, coming up in June.

It really is amazing to see how God is blessing our family with every aspect of this move. It’s exciting to see how all the details are coming together nicely, and at times even better than we expected.  We really feel Florida is where we are meant to be, and while we will miss certain aspects of Wisconsin, we are so looking forward to creating new memories and experiences in Florida.  In some aspects, it’s difficult to believe that two months have passed since we first made the decision to move.  It’s hard to wait four more months, but we both feel it will be here before we know it.

Thanks for following along,

Mark and Jen