As we were sitting by the pool writing up a new blog post, we received a message from our friends wanting to know if we were going to Magic Kingdom today, and if so, could we meet up. Of course we took them up on their offer, and we had a wonderful visit. We have been friends with Judy and Stephen Demeritt on Facebook for quite awhile, and it was so awesome to be able to finally meet up with them in person:
They are as wonderful in real life as they are on Facebook, and we hope to be able to see them on a regular basis. It was hard to believe that we were actually meeting up with them, as we’ve talked about it for so long. It was sort of a “pinch me I’m dreaming” moment. 🙂
Prior to our meet, we had time to explore the Magic Kingdom, and of course we had to bring Ben to see his buddy, Mickey. Here he is in a hug:
We came out just as the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade passed by and got some great pictures:
And of course, our favorite: Prince Naveen and Princess Tiana
As theirs was the last, we followed the parade down Main Street and it was just so awesome to have Prince Naveen waving down at us!
We left the Magic Kingdom early as the movers are coming at 8am tomorrow so it couldn’t be a late night for us. We’re hoping to get caught up on some blog posts in the morning while the boxes are being moved in.
We hope all our readers have a blessed and magical weekend!
Last week we received a call from our landlord, stating he was going to send us a checklist of things we need to complete if we want to receive our security deposit back. He called this morning to check to see if we received it, and as of yet, we haven’t. He then stated he would get it to us soon, but we’re not overly concerned with what’s on it. This will be the fifth time we’ve moved in thirteen years, and we know what needs to be done, and are working on completing it. It’s exhausting to say the least, but we are thankful the end is in sight.
Today we pulled all items off Craigslist, except for the lawnmower, and will donate them to Goodwill. The kids’ mattresses were picked up today, and the television armoire was also picked up today. Yeah! Our garbage can and recycle bin are overflowing, as we tried to dispose of as much as we possibly could, so as not to leave the cans full when we leave. (Pick up is Wednesday morning)
Today was Ben’s last day with Ray* (*name changed to protect privacy). Ray has been Ben’s therapist since Kindergarten, and he has really helped Ben to grow and mature, and understand his autism. We have had several therapists come and go in our household, but Ray has always been there for Ben; he has been his steady rock in a world that seemed always changing and unfamiliar at times. Ben knew that no matter what happened; Ray would always be there for him. Over the years Ray went from being a therapist to one of the family, and really provided that Grandfather presence that Ben lacks. We are so appreciative of Ray’s devotion to our son; there is no way we could ever express how much it means to us. And so today, we said good-bye to Ray; there were tears, but Ben handled it really well. God bless you, Ray, for making a difference in the life of our child. ♥
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. ♥
It’s hard to believe looking back, now that we’re at 32 days, but we began this journey with a decision way back on January 1st, 2008 after our Christmas season visit to WDW. Then came our next decision, where to live.
We started by deciding that we wanted to be no further away than a 20-30 minute drive. Then by reading through the blogs of people we knew online who lived in various areas of Central FL we had many ideas as to which areas we’d like to make our new home. We then made a list of all of the cities we had found from that reading as well as those we knew of from past visits. Then using Google Maps we scouted other cities within that 20-30 minute ‘zone’. That gave us our original search areas of NW Osceola County, NE Polk County, S Orange County and S Lake County.
With the areas “narrowed down”, our plan was then to visit as many of these areas as we could on our 2009 Disney trip (our first time driving down); with our primary focus being the areas just south of WDW. We were able to drive through several places and stop in a few stores (to gauge prices, etc.) and made some notes to take back home with us. The drive-through was cut short by a FL rainstorm, but we did come away with a new perspective.
At this point I want to say that where you choose to live will depend a lot on your personal feelings, choices and lifestyle. And keep in mind that when choosing a new home in the WDW area you will need to make some trade-offs. From many months of research online and from having mailings sent from many different commerce groups, I did learn several things. As an example, the closer you live to WDW property, the higher the prices tend to be in the local grocery stores; but further away you’ll have a longer drive to WDW but the grocery prices are lower. This is especially true in the “tourist corridor” to the immediate south of Disney property where many stores raise their prices to catch the tourist dollars from those staying in Vacation Homes and/or Suite Resorts. So you’ll want to keep things like this in mind when you start your adventure, and everyone’s choice is theirs, there is no “right or wrong’ choice…just the choice that is best for you.
Once we narrowed our choices to Clermont, Windermere, Winter Garden, Reunion, Groveland and Minneola we started “visiting” these cities virtually using Google Maps, Google Images, YouTube videos, blogs and also through the help of local friends who live in these areas or who would visit for us. This helped us to ‘see’ what areas looked like and to learn what shops, restaurants, etc. were in each area. We also learned at this point that apartment and home rental costs were very similar. Sites such as www.rent.com, www.rentalhouses.com, www.apartments.com, www.forrent.com, www.trulia.com and www.realtor.com are excellent resources for viewing apartments and rental homes. The last two are great if home-buying. We also read the online versions of all the local newspapers.
By this time Clermont had risen to the top of our list and we do have friends living there who were able to give us great info on the city in general. Then it was a house-search. We decided mid-way along that we wanted to rent an apartment to start so that we could personally learn about the communities and neighborhoods. Using the apartment search sites above we narrowed our search to 3 apartment complexes. Our preference was to have a first floor apartment and we needed 3 bedrooms, so this narrowed the search to 2. At this time an ‘outside contender’ popped up unexpectedly. There was a house for rent in the city which had topped our list early on. The house seemed great; a pool and yard (lawn care and pool maintenance included), a nice sized house and the price was right. But the owners couldn’t get licensed to rent and so we dropped this house from the list and we had our final contenders: Village at East Lake and The Gardens at Citrus Tower.
We spoke and emailed with leasing reps at both apartments and Carrie at The Gardens just really sold us on them. She took the time to answer all our questions and we came away from our calls knowing everything about The Gardens and only half as much about Village at East Lake. The rest is history.
Summer in Wisconsin can be described as fickle. At any given point you can be sweltering in 105 degree temperatures, or needing to bring sweatshirts, jackets and fleece blankets to soccer games. Today was a sweatshirt day, though thankfully Catie plays soccer on Monday nights, so we were at least spared the indignity of hauling along gear to brave the elements.
One thing we’ve noticed about Wisconsin since we’ve made the decision to move, is that people who live here like to complain about the weather. And we’re no exception. It probably has to do with the fact that Wisconsin weather is less than desirable (was actually thinking of a different word to use here but we like to keep this blog family friendly). When asked why we are relocating to Florida, all we have to say is two words: “Wisconsin winters”, and immediately everyone understands. We realize some of our readers may not understand, and think, “well how bad can it be?” Until you’ve experienced four to five feet high snowdrifts (and those are just the ones at the end of your driveway courtesy of the snowplow), or driving in blizzard conditions, or having to leave the house when the wind chill is thirty below zero in the morning to take the kids to school, well, you get the picture.
But by surviving a Wisconsin winter, you have earned the right to call yourself a Wisconsinite, whether that is a title you want or not is irrelevant. 🙂 You may now laugh among yourselves when the southern cities on the news shut down over an inch of snow. (No offense meant to our southern readers; it’s a Wisconsin thing, we have to find some way to amuse ourselves in the dead of winter).
This blog post does have a point outside of rambling on about the weather. We’ve reached the point in our move where we like to have everything in its place, and no surprise phone calls letting us know the apartment we were told was ours is no longer ours because the people who live there have decided to renew their lease. Augh! Really?
The good news is that there currently are three other apartments available, but the building they wish to put us in is completely opposite where we were originally supposed to be. The thing is, we really liked the location of our first apartment. One of the available apartments is located across the street from this one, and is the one we’d like to move into, but they are hesitant on that because they don’t want to leave it vacant for a month until we arrive. We were asked if we could move up our move-in date. As much as we would absolutely love to do that, Mark has work commitments, we don’t know if we’d be able to alter the date for the moving company, and we’d still be responsible for July rent on our current home, and all these factors combined just make it an impossible occurrence.
We are waiting to hear back to see if they will give us the apartment we want. We believe that it shouldn’t matter, because either way whatever apartment we choose will be empty for a month until we arrive. We’re thankful that we have not yet set up utilities or cable, though we have given out our new address to friends and the school in Clermont, so that will be a minor inconvenience to have to deal with.
We want to thank all of you who showed an outpouring of love to us, either on FB or privately, when we made the post this afternoon on our Facebook account. We truly appreciate the support and friendship you showed us, and we apologize if we made it seem like we lost the apartment. We’re kind of stressed out at the moment–all the little details seem to be sneaking up on us and the last thing we needed was a change in living arrangements. As you know, The Princess and The Frog is one of our favorite Disney movies, and when Prince Naveen says, “If you are going to let every little thing bother you, it is going to be a very long night”, it’s kind of where we are right now. We’re down to 36 days, and we’re trying not to let the little things get to us.
Thanks for spreading the pixie dust and sunshine to us 🙂
They are as wonderful in real life as they are on Facebook, and we hope to be able to see them on a regular basis. It was hard to believe that we were actually meeting up with them, as we’ve talked about it for so long. It was sort of a “pinch me I’m dreaming” moment. 🙂
We came out just as the Celebrate a Dream Come True Parade passed by and got some great pictures:
Wishes And Pixie Dust 