We wanted to share a picture of our new fur-baby! We adopted her from a local shelter, and after our home visit today she officially is ours. She is such a little sweetie, though still a little scared, but that’s understandable. She definitely is going to be spoiled!
This weekend we plan on attending Pig on the Pond; a local festival that we first discovered last year prior to our move, so we are excited to finally be able to attend. Watch for a blog post coming soon.
We passed the one year anniversary of our decision to move to Florida a couple of weeks ago, and it felt a little strange that we didn’t even think to recognize it. We now have been residents of Florida for six months, so in recognition of both anniversaries, we thought it a perfect time to update our readers on how life is progressing for us now.
We love the city of Clermont. It has everything we need within a five-to-ten minute drive, and the people here are very friendly and welcoming. I don’t believe we have encountered one rude person here yet. We love our apartment complex; it was a little unnerving when we first moved in, because we have always rented houses in Wisconsin, and were a little concerned about noise and privacy issues. However, we never hear our neighbors, so it’s totally not an issue at all. We really have embraced apartment living–we love not having the responsibility of lawn care and pool upkeep, and maintenance is extremely efficient when it comes to repair issues. The apartment is a little smaller than we’re used to, but we have plenty of room for the four of us, and when our lease is up in October, we plan to renew. We may consider purchasing a home in the future, but for the time being, we are content here.
A favorite saying of ours is “Toto, we’re not in Wisconsin anymore”. As much as we love the area, it becomes obvious that there are definitely different attitudes and experiences that are prevalent here. Some experiences are very good, such as 80 degree weather in January. What northerner wouldn’t absolutely love that! We’ve had a couple of chilly evenings (30s and 40s), and cooler days, but we’re proud to say that we have not yet turned the heat on, nor have we needed to use a winter coat.
Unfortunately, the middle school experience we have to put in the negative column of attitudes and experiences. The school Ben attended is very strict, and really not supportive of children with special needs. It was so detrimental to him that we made the decision to pull him out and homeschool him the rest of the year. It was very discouraging to us to think that all schools in Florida may be similar, but we recently learned of a middle school in Orlando that is autism-friendly, so it really gives us hope that not all schools are deficient in addressing the needs of students with special needs. We will not be able to send Ben to this school next year; it would require a three hour daily drive just to take him and pick him up, and that’s simply not feasible. We are in contact with another middle school in Clermont, and we are hopeful that it may give him a more positive school experience for seventh grade.
Another regional difference is the availability of our favorite foods. In Wisconsin we shopped at one store, Festival Foods. In Florida, we shop at five different stores: Publix, Sweetbay, Winn-Dixie, Super Target and Walmart. Each store offers something unique that the others don’t, in terms of products and specials. Prices on groceries do tend to be higher here than in Wisconsin. Our most-missed snack products from Wisconsin, apart from the variety of cheeses available in the dairy department, were bagel dip (from Festival), Baker string cheese and Johnsonville Summer Sausage. Festival Foods, bless their hearts, gave us the recipe for bagel dip, we’ve discovered certain brands of string cheese that are an acceptable substitute, and we believe we may have found a store that sells Johnsonville Summer Sausage. We will say that the Florida citrus is amazing! We’ve never cared for grapefruit, but when it’s fresh off the tree, it’s a whole new experience.
You may be wondering if we have any regrets. We need to be honest with our readers and say yes, there have been regrets. It was extremely hard to say good-bye to Nick at the airport after Christmas. We know that Ben would have had no issues with the middle school back in Wisconsin, and he would have been successful there. It’s very difficult to walk away from what is familiar, and it is very easy to look back and say “what if”.
However we wouldn’t trade the moving experience for anything in the world. Nothing can recreate the atmosphere in the car as we drove through the state of Florida towards Clermont. It was absolutely amazing. The kids are settled and happy, Ben a lot more so now that he is away from the negative school environment. Really, who suspends a child for being autistic? They have a lot more experiences here available to them: we’ve been to both the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean, Walt Disney World numerous times, a Disney Cruise is in the works, as are passes to Sea World and Lego Land. It’s been amazing to meet people we’ve known only from Facebook, but meets are so hard for our son Ben that we don’t make as many of them as we’d like.
Will we consider moving back? For us, it’s not an option. We believe that when you allow it to be a possibility in your mind, you always have one foot in the past and one foot in the present. You will not make a concerted effort to acclimate yourself totally, and eventually will rationalize the move back. Will we look back on Wisconsin? Of course, we have friends and family there, and it was our life for several years. However, we are Floridians now. We embrace the Floridian life, all that it has to offer or not offer. We hope our blog provides some insight and perhaps even wisdom as to what a relocation a thousand miles away looks like, and we hope our readers know that even though our posts are now infrequent, we still welcome any questions regarding the relocation process. Thanks y’all for reading and following along!
Welcome Fall! I love this picture, because it reminds me so much of the season of Fall in Wisconsin. At one of our houses we had huge trees just like this in our front yard, and when I say there were leaves to rake……..we had piles of leaves four feet high! I miss the smell of crunching leaves underfoot as you walk along, and the distinct fall aromas: the leaves, the cool crisp air, the bonfires at night, that if close enough, fills your house with a smoky smell. We always went to The Little Farmer at this time of year to pick out our pumpkins, apple butter, muffins and pies, and go on a hayride. I will definitely miss the hayrides through the woods, even though it seriously messed up my allergies. There is nothing like a fall forest hayride in Wisconsin.
This picture was taken last fall, before we knew we were moving. Little did we know it would be our last trip there:
If you are fortunate enough to live in an area where you can witness the fall colors, enjoy it a little extra for me 🙂
There are several different farms/orchards in Lake County that appear somewhat similar to The Little Farmer, which I’ll list here:
Long & Scott Farms in Mount Dora
Santa’s Christmas Tree Forest in Eustis
Stanley Pond Adventure Pond in Astatula
Uncle Donald’s Farm in Lady Lake
Right now Santa’s Christmas Tree Forest in Eustis seems to be the best option to try.
We’re not sure what we plan to do for the day of Halloween this year, even though it is only a couple of weeks away. We’ll do the traditional pumpkins, of course, but I’m not sure if we’ll participate in trick-or-treating. We have discovered that there is no set time or day for trick or treating in Clermont. In Wisconsin, we always had trick or treating the Sunday before Halloween, from 3:30 to 5:30, followed by pizza and hot chocolate (because it was always invariably cold outside). We will buy a couple of bags of candy to give out to our neighbors’ children, but I think this year we’re going to be winging it. Our original plan was to attend Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party, but due to unforeseen circumstances, our budget will not allow for that extra expense this year. I did win an Event Party Music CD from the Disney Planning Blog, so at least we’ll have the music to listen to! Walt Disney World is not going anywhere, and neither are we; while we would have liked to attend, there also isn’t an urgency to do everything as soon as we possibly can. There’s always next year, and we’re fine with that.
As always, thank you for following us. We do plan to put out an update post soon describing what Florida life looks like to us three months after the move.
~♥~ Jen~♥~
When we were planning our move to Florida, we were excited at the possibility of our expenses being lower than in Wisconsin. Now that we’ve been here for over six weeks, we thought we would take a look at our actual expenses and share them with our readers. For a reference point, our apartment is 1,389 sq feet.
Relocation to a new state requires perseverance, determination and courage. When you decide to follow your dream, you are also agreeing to take along your “friends” doubt, discouragement and fear. We have friends who intend to follow in our footsteps and recently asked us about the different range of emotions we have undergone. We gave a brief answer, but after taking time to think about it, we thought it might be appropriate to address it here for all to see.
So what does moving feel like? You can do all the research in the world but nothing can really prepare you for what you will be feeling. When we made the decision to move, we knew that our oldest son would not be coming with us. His life is in Wisconsin, and he had no desire to leave his world behind. As a parent, it is a hard choice to make: by leaving, we knew that essentially he had no home to come back to. Of course he is welcome to come to Florida at any time, but with the separation of 1, 287 miles between us, it does not make it an easy endeavor. But on the opposite side of the equation, how long do we put our own lives on hold? This, of course, is a personal decision dependent on your child’s maturity level and your own comfort zone. We felt our son had the maturity level that would enable him to live on his own and be successful. We want to make it clear that if we felt he was not able to handle it, we would not have moved. Our children have always been, and will always be, our first priority in our lives.
After we crossed the state line and left the Florida Welcome Center, we cranked up The Princess and The Frog soundtrack and we were really on cloud nine. We don’t believe we’ve felt as much joy as a family as those couple of hours driving through the state of Florida. The children were screaming with excitement when they saw the Clermont city limits sign, and again when we reached the apartment complex. After years of dreaming and months of planning, we really were on an emotional high to see our dreams being realized.
At first we felt like we were on vacation, and do we really need to laundry already?! It was also overwhelming to walk into Target that first afternoon–without a list–and try to determine what needs to be bought for the first couple of days. We highly recommend making lists of things you decide not to move, so that you know what it is you will need to buy. Even if the list seems long and you think you will never be able to buy it all back, it will prove invaluable to you those first few days.
We have been blessed by having the opportunity to meet Facebook friends at the Disney Parks, and discover that they are just as wonderful face to face as they are in the internet world. We are looking forward to developing these relationships and meeting more friends as the opportunity arises.
We are slowly learning how to navigate our way around Clermont. It is kind of unsettling moving to a new area and not knowing where anything is, and having to rely on GPS. We find ourselves comparing Clermont to Fond du Lac a lot, and noticing the differences; liking some of them, and not liking others at all. (We suspect there is a hidden sensor in our license plate that alerts all the traffic signals to turn red as we approach).
We have discovered that at first, we liked to spend time at Disney; not only because it was Disney, but because it was familiar, and wonderful, and it provided an escape away from the huge changes our lives were undergoing. It’s part of the reason we went to the Magic Kingdom today– both kids started school on Monday and they needed to experience the magic of Disney, to help ease the transition of summer vacation to a new school year.
Moving to a new city and state requires a huge leap of faith; but if you plan for it and try to anticipate potential roadblocks, it will help the transition to progress smoothly. It’s a huge part of why we started our blog, to help other families in their process of relocation. If we help only one family in achieving their goals and dreams of relocating to Florida, then we consider our blog a success. Its not about attracting a huge readership but helping out those who do find us. We firmly believe that Disney is a huge part of what made it work for us. As much as we dislike Wisconsin winters, we would not have moved on that reason alone. Yes, it’s a very nice perk that we will love come December, but it’s also a huge undertaking to uproot your family, and you really need to have a motivating reason besides weather conditions. For us, (and for many other people, no doubt) Walt Disney World is that reason.
Wishes And Pixie Dust 