July | 2011 | Wishes And Pixie Dust

July 17, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 3 Comments

Planning For The Last Week

We went to Fleet Farm today to pick up a couple of items to get the house ready for the next set of renters, and as we pulled in to the parking lot, we saw this vehicle. We immediately thought of Fillmore, from Cars:

“I’m tellin’ you, man, every third blink is slower”

We have yet to see Cars 2 in the theatre; we may take it in this week once everything slows down a little… but perhaps we’re misguided thinking things will slow down! 🙂 We’re finished packing in the kitchen except for a few last minute items. An unexpected expense we hadn’t considered is the meals out we’ll be eating this week; plus the purchase of the disposable plates and bowls, which granted, isn’t a huge expense but it’s still one, nonetheless. Wednesday we plan to eat at Tucker’s, a family and local favorite:

They have the absolute best popcorn, second only to Walt Disney World, of course.

Thursday we plan to eat at Pizza Ranch, one last time with Nick; he called it a last meal, but that just sounds so final, as we know we’ll be back to visit:

In our opinion they have the absolute best fried chicken that you can find. The pizza is good, too, but definitely go for the chicken.

Friday, of course, is our departure date, and we plan to have our dinner in the hotel room. For road trips we always pack ham sandwiches from Festival Foods, and other assorted goodies for a picnic lunch; so we plan to do this again. It’s tradition, and you don’t mess with tradition. LOL

Right now our plan is to leave here by 3:15pm on Friday. We anticipate that the movers will be done by noon, and our landlord comes at 3:00 to check us out. We hope to be in Pleasant Prairie by 6:00, which will allow us to eat and perhaps check out the outlet mall as well. We will have internet access all the way down, thanks to the hotspot activation on the cell phone, so we will be able to post blogs nightly and keep you updated. We will also be posting updates using Twitter and Facebook along the way.

Enjoy your Sunday ♥

July 15, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 2 Comments

Thoughts.

I am excited for what the future will bring. It continues to amaze me that one man’s vision could possibly impact so many people in the world. Thank you, Walt Disney! As you know our son Ben is autistic, but he has possibly the greatest imagination of any child or adult I know. He is constantly designing concepts for new worlds, new cities and infrastructures and it makes me wonder: what if he had the foresight to create Ben Vitek World? What would it be like? Ben is our “imagineer” and absolutely loves to draw. I can’t even begin to count how many reams of paper we have gone through over the years, but art has given him the ability to understand and make sense of his world through his drawings.

Confession time. We have never been to The Magic of Disney Animation at the Studios. It didn’t make our list during any of the three trips, and I think back as to why, and I’m sure time was the primary reason. When you vacation, you are limited in what you can experience, and unfortunately some attractions never made the cut. However, as interested as Ben is in drawing, you would think it would have entered our minds at one point! One of the joys of living so close to Walt Disney World is we will have the opportunity to do all the things we never had time for before. Ben is so looking forward to participating in this at the Studios.

It makes me think of all the different career opportunities that will be available to the kids in Florida that are simply not an option in Wisconsin. Walt Disney World in itself offers a multitude of employment opportunities, but even if you look beyond the world of the mouse, careers in zoology or marine biology are a feasible option for Catie to pursue, as she is quite the animal lover. For sixth grade Catie attended a virtual school, and I could only help but think how much more varied and enriched the experience would have been if we had lived in Florida, and had the opportunity to experience more science field trips and hands-on learning.

We are fortunate and blessed to have the children attending a public school that is A rated; moving into a city and neighborhood we don’t know is always a gamble, but we feel secure in the path we have chosen for this year. Catie will be in high school next year, and the particular high school she is on track to attend doesn’t rate as high, so we will need to examine the best option for her.

Both kids are really excited about the move next week, and we are so thankful for that as well. If we had to do it over, we would choose to move earlier in the summer, as they will have less than a month of summer vacation left once we arrive; school starts August 22. It’s wild to believe it’s already mid-July; school supplies are out in full force here and it’s a little odd not to be buying them or even thinking about what might be needed.

As I close my thoughts, it is my hope and prayer that friends in our Disney community recognize that we are not infringing on other blogs, and that our content is unique to our family. We believe this is in the spirit of what Walt Disney would want. We intend to keep this blog active, but it will remain a blog dedicated to the ins and outs of moving to a new city, and the challenges and joys we face there.

Sending pixie dust to all our readers,

Jen

July 14, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 4 Comments

Moo-ving along!

We’re from Wisconsin–we had to include a pic of a cow somehow! 😉

We have reached a point in our move where we need to examine what we will need for the next few days, and pack the rest away. It’s very refreshing not to be hassled at the last minute, as we have been on all our other moves. Instead of being in major packing mode, these past days have, for the most part, been pretty routine. Catie’s room is done, except for the last minute necessities that need to be packed up, and the kitchen is slowly getting packed away, as we decide on whether to keep certain items or give them to Nick.

On Monday we received 25 boxes from a fellow Freecycler, sturdy boxes from a moving company, and we were so grateful to get them! We are currently trying to dispose of the rest of our furniture, and will have to decide soon when the break point is when we pull everything off Craigslist and donate it to Goodwill. We also have a lawnmower, which is less than a year old, and a weed whacker, which is less than a month old; if these do not sell before next Friday, then we will give these items to Nick to try to sell for us.

We’ve finalized the payment for Mayflower, and are really excited to see that part of our journey unfold, as we’ve never used professional movers before. We’ve learned so much about the “right” way to pack, which is really a consideration if you are moving such a long distance. Please see our earlier post ‘Packing Those Boxes’, published in March, if you are looking for more detailed information.

Thank you for following us along on our journey!

July 13, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 7 Comments

Interesting.

We love getting comments and feedback from our readers on the blog; most are very informative, supportive and help us to make choices that impact our move. Today, however, we received our first negative comment that suggested we are in copyright violation of a similar blog, The Relocated Tourist. I quote: “your blog, the format, the widgets, the posts are almost exactly like <it>”.

We will not be posting the comment on our blog, nor identifying the person who left the comment, as we refuse to participate in the drama he or she is attempting to pull us into. It is natural that two families from Wisconsin, moving to the Walt Disney World area would have similar posts in nature, and being that both blogs are hosted by WordPress, the blogs may appear alike in design.

If you are a regular follower of both The Relocated Tourist and Wishes And Pixie Dust, you will recognize that there is no truth to this claim. We are very cognizant of the fact that our blog is similar, and from the start we have made a concerted effort to keep our content and design original. We consider Amy and Craig Petermann our friends, and have, in fact, consulted Craig on different aspects of the blog development, and he was more than happy to help out.

This reader has threatened to file complaints with WordPress regarding this matter. Our response is to do what you feel you must, but first do your research. The Relocated Tourist documents a family who moved from Wisconsin to Kissimmee, Florida and the blog has a decidedly Disney slant to it, with a focus on the emotional aspects of moving. Our blog documents our family moving from Wisconsin to Clermont, FL and we intend to keep it focused on pre-move, actual move and post-move experiences we go through, and more informational in nature. Yes, there are and will be Disney experiences posted about, but it will not focus primarily on this.

Kudos to all our readers who acknowledge this and support us in our blog and with our move. We know who our true friends are and we love you all. ♥

July 12, 2011
by wishesandpixiedust 4 Comments

To Dream Is To Believe

A common theme in our blog posts have referred to how brutal Wisconsin winters can be; we won’t revisit that topic, but reference it in the fact many Wisconsinites dream of moving to Florida, especially in the months November through March. To us Florida is an exotic location, with sunny skies and palm trees, while we sit with piles of snow and sub-zero temperatures. As we finalize our move, a recurrent comment we hear from people is: “I’m jealous”, mainly made in reference to not having to survive another winter.

It’s easy enough to observe us and feel like we have it made; to feel jealousy over the fact our winters in Florida will be spring weather in Wisconsin, and that we’ll never have to shovel again. The truth is, we consciously made the decision to make this our reality, and we have worked hard to make it happen. It has not been an easy road for any of us, but we feel the effort is well worth any sacrifices we have to make in the meantime.

One thousand, two hundred and eighty seven days ago we first dreamed the dream, of relocating to Florida close to Walt Disney World. We write out that number in words because it really seems surreal right now that we are only ten days away from realizing our dream. There were many moments of doubt that we experienced. The first twelve to twenty months it was merely a dream that we talked about; something that would occur in the future but we had no idea when, and we did nothing towards making it a reality. It seemed so far away in the future that it seemed pointless to expend energy at that point in time. The basement boxes and just the accumulation of possessions that we owned really overwhelmed us as where to start, so we did nothing. After our Disney trip in 2009, we were more enthusiastic than ever about moving to Florida and this is when we let the kids in on our dream, that someday we would move to Florida.

The dream first became real to us last summer, in June 2010, when we first set a date of September 2012 and started the blog. Even though we now had a date, it still seemed like it would never happen; and we didn’t really believe it would happen. How much difference a year makes! Since that time we backed the date to September 2013, and then in January of this year, we decided to take the plunge and move this summer. “Do you really think we can do it this summer?” is the question that propelled us forward.

We can’t say how many times we doubted ourselves, but it was a lot. Over the past six months since we made the final decision, we haven’t doubted our choice, but there have been moments of fear: fear of the unknown, fear that what we are doing is not in the best interests of our children, and fear that we will fail.

We are now ten days away from leaving Wisconsin. We can honestly say that this is the best decision we could have made for our family; our kids are uber-excited about moving to Florida, and while we won’t be traveling with as much money as we’d like (thanks to car repairs); we are very thankful we were able to take care of the repairs now and not have them happen along the way. We won’t be able to purchase as much furniture right away as we had previously planned, but we’ll make it work. An empty, unfurnished apartment in Florida is way better than our current home in Wisconsin, and because it is an apartment our expenses will be less than if we rented a house: we won’t need to do lawn care, maintain a pool, or spray for bugs; and we will have access to a business lanai (with wireless internet and printers) and fitness center, should be choose to utilize these amenities.

Thanks for following along~ we appreciate your comments and feedback!