Decision Time
When we last spoke we had headed down to sunny Orlando to make our final decision on a new and exciting adventure! Unfortunately when we arrived it was not so sunny. In fact it was pouring. We were sure it would be better by tomorrow. Not so much. Still pouring. Refusing to let it get us down we got up, had breakfast at the hotel and got dressed to go to the church we had found to be nearest the area we wanted to live. We had called ahead and spoken to some local people in the congregation who were super friendly and were looking for us to visit that day.
I should mention at this point that not everyone in the family is sure that moving to Florida is the right decision. I have a 15 year old son and a 12 year old daughter. When we first started seriously discussing Orlando back in the beginning of the year my son was on board but he’s had a change of heart since. He still sees the exciting things about moving but is reluctant to leave his friends and worried about finding new ones. A very understandable concern. My daughter is more excited and loves the idea of a new adventure. This is not surprising since having them agree on something would surely mean the world is ending because that NEVER happens. Of course no matter what we decide, we will be picking one child’s side over the other. Which you parents know is a lose/lose situation. But hey, parenting isn’t for wimps. If you don’t hear “you’re ruining my life!” at least occasionally you’re not doing your job. Right? Right? (This is what I tell myself to ease my guilt so please just agree with me on this. K,thanks.)
With everyone not totally convinced this is a good move, we had been praying for help in making the right decision on relocating or not. So here we are, in the pouring rain, about one mile from the church, when what can only be described as a “large piece of our car engine” falls out. Of our car. Which I’m pretty sure is not normal. The engine light immediately comes on, then everything starts powering down. We manage to pull over and pick up the “piece of our engine”, not entirely sure it came from our car- I mean, that’s just not supposed to happen. Of course my son is immediately “It’s a sign you guys. Let’s just fix the car and go back to Virginia.” My husband is freaking out that “we will have to buy a new car and that was not in the budget.” Needless to say, we were all a little stressed insane tense. Being that its a Sunday we will have to get the car towed to be repaired tomorrow and rent a car. But in the meantime, we came all this way to go visit this congregation and we were so close. If it hadn’t been raining (pouring) we could have possibly walked it. (Well I was in heels so probably not. But still.) Here’s the good news though- we called a local guy from the congregation thinking it was a long shot- and he says oh I live right around the corner from where you are- I’ll come pick you up and drop you off at church. What? So he does. And from there (after meeting lots of super nice people) we got offers to drive us back to our car, and help us get it repaired. We even got a tour of the area- he showed us where all the local spots were, where his family liked to shop and eat, and what some of the neighborhoods were like. It was so helpful. So, in the end, we felt like if we hadn’t had the car trouble, we wouldn’t have had that great experience. And isn’t that a sign? (Surprisingly my son did not agree with me.)
After that eventful day we postponed our house hunting until noon to take care of our car. It was able to be repaired in a few hours. Yay! Turns out, big metal things falling out of an engine aren’t as rare and hard to fix as you’d think. Who knew? We looked at houses the whole rest of the day. And found nothing. Ugh. That night we were tired and frustrated. At this point things feel a little split between the boys and the girls since my husband likes the idea of Orlando but is kind of 50/50 with it. Not finding a house isn’t helping him feel warm and fuzzy about the whole thing. If it wasn’t for me I don’t know that he would make the leap. My son is laying on a pretty big guilt trip and my daughter is all, “let’s do it!”. We weren’t really getting anywhere by continuing to talk so we decided to take a break and go out for the evening to Downtown Disney. Maybe remind ourselves why we want to be here in the first place. After walking around the stores (Art of Disney is my favorite!) and getting ice cream at Ghirardelli things were a little better. (Things are always better after ice cream.) When we are on a Disney vacation we typically would spend only one evening at Downtown Disney each trip. There is so much to do there that I never really scratch the surface. It is crazy to think we could actually come here to shop and browse and eat anytime we wanted.
The next day we are back to hitting it hard, trying to find a rental house that will work for us. It’s our last day people. Wouldn’t you know it was the very last house we looked at? Of course it was. We loved the house- it had what we were looking for and we loved the neighborhood too. About 10 minutes from Magic Kingdom in Windermere. (More about neighborhoods here.) It was available and after speaking to the property manager it looked like the timing would work for us as well.
Were we really going to do this? I’ve been uncomfortable saying “This is what I want.” I’m always scared that it will go bad and it will be ALL MY FAULT. And if my family has to suffer because of me I don’t know if I can handle that. But I really feel like this will be a good move for our family. I will just have to trust that I’m right about that. So we are moving to Florida. Yes. Yes we are. We’ve made our decision. Time to celebrate. With Cornbread from Boatwright’s Dining Hall at Port Orleans. (Doesn’t everyone celebrate with cornbread? Just me?) We will head back to Virginia tomorrow and start getting ready for the move.