Comparing locations

Since we are in the midst of Garrett's job interviews, I have been thinking a lot about things I value in the places we live.  We have always loved where we have lived, and it's always been for different reasons.  Mostly, though, it's been all about our friends and the relationships we have formed there.

We loved Provo because we were students, and we lived in the same house (tri-plex, essentially) as my sister and her husband, and as my brother and his wife (for a while).  So, we loved being students at BYU because of all that had to offer, and we loved living with/near family.  Endless fun.

We loved Georgia because we made some really great friends there, whom we are still very close to.  We got together with them often and I had a really strong support network during that time when Garrett studied non-stop.  Augusta itself isn't that special, but the friends we made there made it wonderful.  We also loved our ward.

We loved Virginia because some of our best friends from med school moved there with us.  Also, Garrett had an incredible schedule so we had lots of family time.  It was fun to live in a new place for a year and discover what the area has to offer. Garrett also caught a lot of delicious fish! Newport News as a place isn't great, though. In my opinion.

We loved Florida for many reasons too -- mostly our friends!!  I had 3 girlfriends there who I became very close to and we still have a group text going all the time (two of us moved away in June).  It was a great support network for me, especially when Garrett was working all the time and things were really stressful.  We also loved our house, our ward, our neighborhood.  We loved Disney, and the beach.  And besides those 3 close friends I had, we had tons of friends who we hung out with almost daily at the park, or neighbors who we went walking with almost every night after dinner.  It was awesome, and I'm sure that I will always look back at that time as being one of the highlights of our lives.

Wisconsin has been interesting.  Some good friends from Florida also moved here for a fellowship, but they don't live very close by so we don't see them as often as we would like. They aren't LDS so we don't see them at church regularly, either. So, it has been interesting trying to settle in.  No other kids live on our street, and we are the only ones in our ward (that I know of) whose kids go to the Madison school district, so our schedule is a bit "off" from everyone else's.  Also, we are some of the few who actually live in Madison, so we don't really live near anyone else in our ward.  However, I've been surprised with how fine I have been with all of that.  In Florida, we spent HOURS at the park with friends, nearly every day after school.  I thought I would really miss that.  Sometimes I do, but other times I'm just grateful for the time we have this year to be together, alone.  Frankly, I'm having a great time playing with the kids and checking out new playgrounds and trails - by ourselves.  We did get invited to someone's house in our ward for dinner once, and that was nice.  We will reciprocate soon, they are really nice and have a couple girls whose ages match up with ours.   But for the most part, I'm just really enjoying our time together as a family.  As for Madison itself (and Wisconsin in general)... I will have to write a post about my impressions soon, and how it compares to other places we have lived throughout our marriage.