Wishes And Pixie Dust

Follow the journey of a Wisconsin family of 4 who relocated to the Walt Disney World area in July 2011

Category Archives: Disney


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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


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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!

 


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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!


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Go The Distance

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.


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Saturday Doings :)

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.