New House

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We have actually done a lot, but we never seem to have the camera with us. Here are a few pics of our new house in Trinity:

We live on a cul-de-sac, but we are still the last house on the right(i.e. we have no neighbors on our left). The whole top circle of the street is just conservation area, which means they didn't build there, it just contains plants and trees and swamp area and possibly "gators"(Chris' biggest fear). It is beautifully landscaped, and very private. Butting right up to the trees, we have no homes behind us either. We haven't met our neighbor to the right, but they have a very high fence and except for seeing they're garage open from time to time, no one might as live on our right as well.

Our neighborhood is very nice. It is made up of a lot of older people, (but isn't most of Florida?) as there aren't many young children around. Our neighbors across the street have a little girl Miles age, unfortunately he prefers older women. We see egrets and cranes walking around our street everyday. They just wander around the lawn and up to the front door and hopefully any alligators will stay out of view. It is relatively peaceful. I see why people come here to retire, if you can stand the heat.

Here is our pool or as Chris likes to call it "the shower after his run every morning". I've only been in it once with Miles, because when it is 91 out everyday and the water is 82 degrees it feels much colder than it should. We have a pool heater, but our pool guy(not the typical cliche in a speedo) had to call in someone else to show me how to work it. He hasn't gotten in touch with me yet! So right now it is just in visual usage.

Here is a picture of Miles enjoying his new house:


When he was not sleeping, he would run to the patio door and says "poo........poo". I think the novelty has recently run out. He does like the water, but he scares me when he runs around the outside of the pool to jump in. I am always afraid he will fall and since he can't swim yet, I am twice as neurotic. I don't think we will be going in without his dad much. It's definitely a two person job and some swim lessons will soon be ordered.

As for the inside of the house I tried to take some pics, but the sun is rising and they keep coming out too dark. I will put some up when we have better light. We are almost unpacked and organized. Chris just ordered a big TV for our family room and we are still looking for a coffee table and end tables for the same room as well. But hopefully by the end of October everything will be back to normal.

We picked out Miles Halloween costume this weekend. He is going to be a giraffe although he thinks it's a horse. He really likes horses right now, and he can't say giraffe yet, so no harm done. It was between a dragon and a giraffe and even though daddy was partial to the dragon, the giraffe won out because it fit him better. We tried it on last night for nana and she got a big kick out of it. Miles actually doesn't mind wearing it, so if we can just get him to say "trick or treat" and understand that he is not going "into" all the houses he rings the bell on, I think it will be a fun time. We are looking forward to taking lots of pictures. Today we are off to furniture shop some more and then hang some of our larger art work during nap time. What a weekend!

Miles' Cookie Face

Miles after eating a chocolate cream cookie.......yuck! Yes, the shirt survived thanks to a lot of bleach.

Thanks

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. We had a very nice dinner at a small Greek restaurant in Tarpon and then we came back to our house for cake. It was a stressful day, but once I got to relax it was a great night. It was wonderful to be with family again for one of my birthdays.

Recent Pics

These were all taken on our third day on the road:

In Nashville at the Opryland Hotel

Strange tourist draw at a rest stop:

Being bad in the Nashville Guesthouse International Hotel:

We're Here!

We finally arrived in Florida this afternoon, after a very, very long trip. With that being said, Miles was great. He slept about five of the seven hours we would drive a day. He was a little rambunctious in the hotels when we would get there, but that was understandable after being in the car for hours at a time. On the second to last day, he started to get a cold, that kept us up almost the whole last night, but as far as the drive he really wasn't a problem. Our dogs on the other hand were an absolute nightmare. Sam refused to eat for five days and cried for the first two to three hours each day when we would start driving. Kobe was a little nuts for the whole trip, with his constant panting and crazed behavior at each hotel, he caused us to check often to make sure he was still alive. But now that we are here things seem to have calmed down a bit. We will never travel with them again without a lot of tranquilizers.

We got here at about 1:30 today and we are utterly exhausted. After a phone call yesterday from our moving company telling us our moving van was ready to deliver on Monday we are left with only tomorrow to rest up and recover. We went to the house today that we will be renting for the next year, and signed our contract and got our keys. Our landlord is a very nice older man from Connecticut, who lives a few miles away in Land O'Lakes. He and his wife own several investment properties that they were unable to sell due to Florida's poor market. Their loss was our gain. We get to rent a really beautiful home with a pool and in the meantime get to know the areas around us. My mom and I will be heading out there tomorrow to clean it up a bit before the furniture comes. We would have liked to have been closer to her, but it is hard to find anything affordable in her area. She lives in Clearwater and the house we rented is about 18 miles north in a town called Trinity, also known as New Port Richey. It is a newer area, but it remains to be seen if that is where we will want to buy when the time comes.

We took a lot of pictures on our trip across country, and even though it was a very difficult drive, we at least got to see Nashville, TN, which for a brief moment made it feel like a vacation. It is such a beautiful city, we can't wait to go back. We will post pictures from the whole drive as soon as we get them loaded. We will also post an address and pics of our new home once we get in and get settled, but for tonight we are just looking for a good night sleep. It is hard to believe we are finally here, but when the moving truck arrives, reality will set in real fast. Goodnight to all....