So Al and I spent the day after New Year's Day just relaxing and chilling out and what happened? Florida chilled out, too! The last two nights here in the RV Park in Summerfield have dropped down into the 20s!!! Yeow! Hey, I'm a spoiled southern Californean - I haven't seen a 20 degree night in decades! And it's interesting to note that Florida is at a latitude closer to the equator than southern California. It's just that it's also in a position to "enjoy" the arctic air swirling down from Canada via the Jet Stream once in a while! Ouch! Well, all ended happily once the sun came up and melted the water that had frozen in the hoses. We're told we're now in a warming trend!
So the exciting news is that yesterday Al and I finally saw our new house!! The realtor who's been working with my sister picked us up at 1 o'clock and took us to the development, which is called Spruce Creek South. This is a very pleasant, gated community for people over 50. It's very quiet and serene-looking and we had quite a pleasant time driving through the labyrinthine streets getting lost and trying in vain to find the street the house is on. See, in Summerfield there's not only a 104th Terrace, there's also a 104th Street, 104th Place, 104th Avenue, and 104th Way. There might be a 104th Road and a 104th Blvd as well but I'm too new around here to guarantee that sort of thing. To make things more amusing, the streets are not numbered consecutively, so though you might think you'd go from 105th Place to 106th, no, that's not how the game works. I haven't figured out how the systems does work but I have a sneaking suspicion that the person who actually laid out the street names was on some SERIOUS medication at the time!
Luckily, we had the Garmin with us, and after pleasantly poking around for a while we turned it on and found the house right away. And what a lovely house it is! Heather had taken over 130 photos of it so we certainly had a great idea of what it looked like but seeing it in person was a whole different experience! The coupling selling it have kept it in PRISTINE condition - the walls look like they were painted last week and the carpet like it was installed maybe a month ago! We had had some concerns about our dining room and our office furniture not fitting comfortably into their respectively designated rooms but those concerns were put to rest. The house was originally about 1550 square feet but the open lanai was enclosed, adding another 200 feet to the dimensions. The layout is very open and airy, and is more or less an "L" with the kitchen and dining area in the shorter section and the living room leading to the lanai the long section. The Master B/R is just off the living room, and the two additional bedrooms are on a wing behind the living room. The garage has additional storage space and a nice work area, plus a golf cart (a ubiquitous vehicle around this part of Florida) is included with the house. I think our stuff will fit pretty well in the place; especially since we disposed of so much during the last month before the closing of the house in California.
One thing we do have is a room set aside as a Guest Bedroom, so consider yourselves invited to come check it out! Do give us a month or two to unpack and get our bearings in our new neighborhood but think about making plans to visit central Florida!
In the meantime, today we're starting to do all the stuff one needs to do - having the electricity and water turned on in our name, trying to rent a car so I can get some other errands done, and of course, trying to get together with my sister and brother in law, who have just returned from a holiday trip to see relatives and friends.
SO many details! I've got lists of them! Pages and pages of things to do, people to call, places to locate, tasks to perform! I'll tell ya - this moving business is NOT for the faint of heart!
The closing on the house is scheduled to take place early on Friday morning - and the movers are scheduled to deliver our belongings the next day. I'll certainly keep you posted!
Congratulations, guys!!! I'm happy for you! You did it!
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