Are we really going to be residents of California?
Well, as you can see, our apartment hunting trip the past three days ended in us signing a lease. It may not look like much, but we're pretty optimistic. It's a 2 bedroom 2 bath place with a large kitchen and decent sized living room. The neighborhood is SO nice, has a great reputation for safety and being family friendly. We have heard a million great things about the public education here (which is promising for the future), and we'll have access to the community lakes, fishing, pools, parks, and lagoon (a man made beach next to each of the two lakes in the community) which require a card key to use. It is 5 miles away from work which will make it possible for Derek to ride his bike and he won't get caught in a bumper to bumper commute each day.
This is a side view of our place, (which I'm not sure whether to call a condo or attached house) where you can barely see the pathetic little patio behind the overgrown bushes. The lady who lived there before was about 80 years old and died recently leaving the property to her daughter. The daughter was planning on selling it but her real estate agent (who happened to be OUR real estate agent) convinced her to rent it out to us instead for a while. She has to do some renovations before we move in (new carpets, painting, new blinds, etc) but we might have the option to buy at some point in the future if we decide that we are so inclined.
The lack of backyard is no problem when you consider that this is our view from the patio. The wall is about 4 ft high and then we have this great big grassy park, which will serve as a fine backyard if you ask me.
We have an attached garage as well and there are a bunch of kids in our neighborhood. Hopefully it turns out as well as we expect it to. We're crossing our fingers that the renovations will be done by September 15th when we will be moving out there.
I thought it would be fun to get a little tactile experience so we went to the dollar store and got a can of shaving cream. Joe gave him the shaving cream helmet, and helped out a little with the beard as well. After making a great mess of the highchair he got the hose and washed everything off and had a grand time. Ahh, good clean fun.
Well, as you can see, our apartment hunting trip the past three days ended in us signing a lease. It may not look like much, but we're pretty optimistic. It's a 2 bedroom 2 bath place with a large kitchen and decent sized living room. The neighborhood is SO nice, has a great reputation for safety and being family friendly. We have heard a million great things about the public education here (which is promising for the future), and we'll have access to the community lakes, fishing, pools, parks, and lagoon (a man made beach next to each of the two lakes in the community) which require a card key to use. It is 5 miles away from work which will make it possible for Derek to ride his bike and he won't get caught in a bumper to bumper commute each day. 
This is a side view of our place, (which I'm not sure whether to call a condo or attached house) where you can barely see the pathetic little patio behind the overgrown bushes. The lady who lived there before was about 80 years old and died recently leaving the property to her daughter. The daughter was planning on selling it but her real estate agent (who happened to be OUR real estate agent) convinced her to rent it out to us instead for a while. She has to do some renovations before we move in (new carpets, painting, new blinds, etc) but we might have the option to buy at some point in the future if we decide that we are so inclined. 
