It seems wild to us to think we only have sixteen days left in Wisconsin. When we made our decision back in January to move , it certainly was an easy one to make, given the blowing snow and bitterly cold temperatures, and of course our love for Disney. In the past six months we have overcome obstacles; we share this bit of information because we want to let you know that it is impossible to plan a move across several states without hitting at least one or two roadblocks along the way. Things will not always go as you plan, you will have bad days and moments of “why did I ever decide to do this?” pop into your head. We’re here to let you know it’s okay, keep moving forward with your dream, and deal with the obstacles as they occur.
One such obstacle is our car. We brought it in to the shop in March for $700 worth of repairs, $900 in June, and yes, we are bringing it in again in July (tomorrow). As we mentioned earlier, the check engine light came on and while that didn’t necessarily alarm us too much, the large puddle of coolant on our garage floor that leaked after we drove around for a couple of hours did. We are hoping it’s nothing serious, and we would appreciate prayers on this issue, because we really don’t want to pour more money into repairs, as this is money that is not buying furniture for us when we move.
One of the things we are most looking forward to once we are in Clermont and inside our apartment, is to just enjoy the moment, knowing there are no boxes to pack, no rooms to clean, no furniture to unload, and nothing to do except realize that we did it. That is the moment that we hold on to now, that helps us to get us through these next two weeks, whatever they may bring.
When we started our blog, it was mainly for our own purposes, to keep track of different aspects of our move. We feel honored that so many of our readers follow us regularly, and some readers aspire to follow in our footsteps and make their own journey to Florida to be closer to the Mouse. 🙂 In response to that, we attempt to post regularly, and to provide more informational blog posts that may help you with some of the major decision making that goes into a multi-state move. There are times that we share a blog post, and think “Really? No one is going to want to read that, it’s boring!”, and then we receive a few comments that encourage us that yes, you really want to hear about it! Today we wanted to share with you what our day looks like three weeks before our move, to give you a feel of perhaps what to expect when you experience your relocation.
Saturday is typically a very routine day in the Vitek household. We always begin with a trip to the library to return and check out different materials. We are very heavy users of the public library, it’s not very often we miss a visit, and we intend to keep up the routine once we make the move. We have two libraries in which to choose from in Clermont: Cooper Memorial and Cagan Crossings: we will most likely select Cooper Memorial as the library we most often frequent as it is closer to us than Cagan Crossings. Library cards must be applied for online, so we will do that the week of our move, so that they will be ready for us the following Saturday.
After the library we came home for lunch, and waited for a Craigslist exchange, twenty more dollars earned for our piggy! We then went to our oldest son’s apartment again, then off to Festival Foods to do some grocery shopping. We’ve been researching grocery stores in the Clermont area, and we do believe Publix will probably end up being our store of choice, although we’ve heard some good things about Sweetbay, so we may check that out as well. We pulled up the advertisement on the internet and the prices are quite comparable with what we are currently paying in Wisconsin.
We came home and unloaded our groceries, and went through the kitchen cabinets to see what else we could offer to Nick, and it ended up being quite a nice pile. He will get more once we are down to our last couple of days, but it felt good to be able to clean out items and not have to pack them! Saturday is also pizza night, and the big decision of where to order ensued. We want to make sure that we have our favorites one last time, and tonight we chose Rocky Rococo, a large sausage pizza with breadsticks. We waited to order until after 5:00, because we drive to pick it up, and we had another Craigslist transaction that netted an additional ten dollars. We always watch a movie with our pizza, and tonight’s selection was Cars. We still have yet to see Cars 2 in the theatre, but we plan to do that soon.
We did have a couple of minor *bad* things happen today. One, the check engine light came on in the car. We are hoping it’s just a glitch, as we just had the car undergo a 30 point inspection for the trip, including an oil change, and really can’t afford to put more money into the car at this point. The second thing involved an accident with a glass of soda and our external hard drive. At this point we’re not certain if any data is lost or if the device works. The cord did get severely bent, however. This is also another item that is not in the budget to replace.
Tomorrow we hope to finish up Ben’s room and make some progress in Catie’s. The kids are a little nervous that their belongings will not be packed in time, but we keep reassuring them, that yes they will. No toy gets left behind. LOL Nick is coming over on Monday to get some more of his things, and we plan to move the unwanted furniture into the garage, so we can Freecycle them. We have a lot of odds and ends in the garage, and are going to be letting people come and take what they want. Kind of like a free yard sale. 🙂
So that’s our day. We didn’t get a huge amount accomplished today in terms of packing, but some days are like that. We really like the fact that we’ve had plenty of time to sort through our belongings, so that we are not feeling hurried and rushed right now. Six months notice was perfect for us; it was far enough away to not feel pressured to do everything at once, but close enough that we weren’t discouraged that it was so far away We do better with short term goals, but that’s just us. You may find that a longer time period works best for you.
We wish all our American readers a very Happy Independence Day Weekend and please stay safe! We’re planning a new blog post for Monday which highlights our local haunts, so please watch for that. Mark is also working on a post that highlights a favorite Walt Disney World resort hotel, hoping to put that out later this week.
The evening star is shinin’ bright. So make a wish and hold on tight. There’s magic in the air tonight, and anything can happen.
Tiana– Princess and The Frog
It has been 1, 276 days since we first dared to dream the dream of moving to the Walt Disney World area, and with only 21 days to go, we can honestly say that we have no regrets. We can only imagine how incredibly difficult it will be to leave our son behind; it’s a parent’s mission to protect and care for their children, and even though he is nineteen years old and a sophomore in college, it still seems wrong to not bring him with us. We are reassured that he does have a solid plan in place, and in fact he signed the lease papers today on his new apartment.
We have been busy scheduling our disconnects in Wisconsin, and arranging our utilities and cable hook-ups for Florida. The comment that we have been hearing a lot refers to the fact that we’re moving at the wrong time of the year. 🙂 Yes, granted, July is not an ideal time of year to be moving to hot and humid Florida, but we wanted the kids to finish out the year at their respective schools, and would rather not have them join a new school in Florida after the start date. The first day of school in Florida is August 22, which gives us less than a month of summer vacation left after we arrive in Clermont.
Wednesday we went down to the AAA office and ordered our Trip Tix and picked up a complimentary guidebook for Tennessee. Silly us, forgot to get the Florida book, but we will make sure to get that when we pick up the Trip Tix in a couple of weeks.
We are pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive the utilities and cable bill are projected to be compared to Wisconsin. We didn’t realize the extent to how much more we are paying here, and it definitely is one of the perks of moving to Florida. Our rent will be $286 more than we are currently paying, but our bills will probably go down by an equivalent amount, more or less. Of course, there is the monthly payment plan to Disney that we add on 😉
The Florida Department of Education released today its school grades based on the FCAT results, and we are very pleased to see that the middle school the kids will be attending received an A for the third year in a row. Click here to access the database.
We are still packing boxes and listing items on Craigslist, and we have lists all around of what we need to do yet. We titled this blog post “Hold On Tight”, because we feel like we are in a queue area, waiting to experience the attraction. It’s like packing and planning for the ultimate Disney trip, afraid we’re going to forget to plan for something, but uber-excited about the final destination. It is going to be so weird driving through Wisconsin for the final time, and knowing we won’t be returning.
Happy July 1st to all our readers~may all your dreams come true.
It is incredible to believe that we are down to our final three-and-a-half weeks, after years of dreaming and months of planning. Our house doesn’t really resemble our home anymore; it is more of a loading area for our boxes, and the kitchen breakfast counter resembles a command center for organizing our move. As soon as it gets cleaned off, the piles reappear again. There are days this seems so surreal, like we’re going to wake up any minute and find this to be a huge dream. 🙂
Our original plan involved staying in a hotel the night before the movers arrived, as our beds will be gone and we’re not ones for sleeping on the floor. Our love for Walt Disney World precipitated our move, so we intended to stay at Port Orleans Riverside for our night of arrival, this being the first (and only) resort hotel we have stayed at, and have mattresses delivered on Tuesday. As the weeks passed we realized this strategy was full of sinkholes and probably needed to be revised. A one-night stay at the resort for our family of four would run $208. Ok, we reasoned. Let’s get our driver’s licenses right away and be eligible for the Florida rate. This brought the cost down to $167. Still, it seemed too high for one night’s stay, and we didn’t really want the hassle of rushing to arrive in Clermont so that we could fit in all our appointments necessary for obtaining our driver’s license. We drove constantly when we went to Disney in 2009, and we vowed this time it will be different. It also wasn’t realistic to expect mattresses to be delivered the next day; while it could happen, it’s not likely.
We then made the decision to purchase airbeds once we arrive in Clermont and sleep on those until the mattresses arrive. This was kind of our holding-thought pattern until this weekend, when we decided why not buy them now? It would allow us to cancel the reservation we have for the hotel on July 21st, it would save the time and hassle of having to shop for them on our first night in Clermont, and chances are it would be more cost efficient to buy them now in Wisconsin as opposed to Florida. It helped that a few local stores had airbeds on sale, and we spent Sunday afternoon checking them out. We decided on a queen mattress for ourselves ($45), and two twin mattresses for the kids ($10 each). We also bought a pump for $20. (Just as a side note, the airbeds at Target got horrible reviews–we passed them by, went to Fleet Farm and selected Coleman brand instead). We felt the investment of $85 was well worth saving on three (possibly four) nights in a hotel. This eliminates the pressure of finding mattresses immediately, and it will also allow us to spend our last night in our home together. The airbeds will be put to use later for sleepovers or when Nick visits us during the holidays.
We’ve updated the website with a new “Schools” tab, that contains links to all the resources we’ve utilized in the process of getting the kids registered for school. A physical examination and up-to-date immunizations are required for all students entering the Florida school system, and immunizations must be put on a Florida Certification of Immunization Form DH 680 (aka the Blue Form). Only Florida providers or the Health Department have access to this form, so please be sure to bring an updated copy of your child’s immunizations to have them transferred to this form.
Ben and Catie both had their physicals completed today, and Catie was identified as having a possible vision problem in her left eye. Thanks to a cancellation, she is scheduled to see an optometrist tomorrow afternoon already, and we are thankful that we made the doctor appointment early enough before our move that we are able to see our own eye doctor before we leave. In your relocation efforts, plan to complete your medical appointments at least a month before your final move to allow for any surprises that may pop up.
There are times lately where life is routine as usual, and then there are those moments where you think: OMG we’re moving to Florida and Walt Disney World will be part of our regular lives. It kind of takes your breath away when you stop to think. It reminds us of the Disney song from Aladdin “A Whole New World”, where Ali instructs Princess Jasmine “don’t you dare close your eyes”. Yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at.
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As I sit here writing this blog post, the piles of boxes in our home surrounds my view. This, of course, is not a bad thing. It means that we are inching closer to living our dream of moving to Florida. We moved to using the large boxes recently, and I wanted to share a picture I took of Ben:
We are pleased to announce that we packed up the sunroom yesterday, so that is another room ready to go.
Before:
After:
I will say, out of all the rooms in the house, this room I will miss the most. I love how the sunshine comes in through the windows in the later afternoon/early evening; it’s my happy place to be while I work on my scrapbooks or other assorted projects. I will not, however, miss the frigid cold of this room in the winter: it is not insulated nor is there central heating in this room, so there are certain days (weeks, even) when I cannot be in this room and must keep the door closed. The joy of living in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin!
In the mail Tuesday we received our SunPass unit, so we are set for tolls at least in Florida. There are two different units that are available for purchase: a portable transponder which moves from car to car (it attaches with suction cups), and a mini-sticker which, once you place it on your car, it cannot be removed. You do not need to be a Florida resident to purchase SunPass, which can be purchased online at http://www.sunpass.com, Publix, CVS, and at all Turnpike service Plazas and Turnpike gas stations. The portable transponder is $25, and the mini-sticker is $4.99, but you will receive a rebate of $4.99 in toll credits, so it is essentially free. We chose the portable transponder unit mainly for personal preference reasons, and we like the convenience of not having to worry about having change when we travel into Orlando or take day trips around the area.
We are very much on schedule as far as packing boxes is concerned, if not ahead of schedule. 🙂 I would much rather be bored the last week before we move, than to be rushing frantically around trying to pack boxes. I don’t think I’ll be bored, though. 🙂 I’m looking forward to having a lot of quality time with the children before we leave, playing games, trips to the park, etcetera. The games are packed but the box is not sealed, so we can grab them as we want. The kids have their physicals on Monday, and God willing, that will be the last doctor appointment we have in Wisconsin. I’ve talked with the special education specialist, and I have to say I am impressed with how willing they are to make this transition as smooth as possible for Ben, and I am reassured that they will do everything they can to make this a good school experience for him. This only reinforces that Clermont is the city we are meant to be in, and we simply cannot wait to come home.
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Wishing all our readers a magical and pixie-dust filled weekend!
Wishes And Pixie Dust 