Living in WI

Basically, I love living here. I LOVE it.  As I experience things, I compare it to our experiences in other places and 9 times out of 10, it's better here.  Some examples:

It's so beautiful here.  Like, gorgeous.  The summer has been beautiful, and now that it's Fall the leaves are looking glorious.  I love being in a city that has so much to offer, but only having to drive 5 minutes from my house to see cornfields and red barns.  I love cornfields, and I LOVE barns/farms.  Sure, sometimes I go outside in the morning and it smells like manure, but it's a fair trade-off in my opinion. Haha.

People are really good drivers here.  It seems like every time we move, we would complain about how awful the drivers were -- it always seemed to be worse than the last place we lived.  However, the people here are just really good drivers!  No one has ever driven super close behind me, people always let me over when I need so switch lanes, no one speeds.  Seriously.  There are main roads that are 30mph (seriously), and people actually go 30 (some even go a little slower).  I rarely see people pulled over, and I never see cops hiding out waiting to catch someone speeding.  It's crazy.

Along those same lines.... the traffic here never seems to be that bad.  Of course, I don't drive downtown much, but over where we live it never seems to be bad.  It only takes Garrett about 10 minutes to get to the hospital or the other location he works, even at peak traffic times of the day.  It's certainly not as crazy as Gainesville, or Augusta, or Newport News. Or Utah Valley, for that matter.

Pumpkin patches, apple orchards, farms.... we are loving them.

The shopping here is great.  They have a lot of places that some of my friends in FL used to drive 1.5 - 2 hours for... Costco, Nordstrom Rack, Homegoods.  There's a Cheesecake Factory opening next month (I've never loved dinner there but I do love cheesecake!).  Small local shops, a fabric shop, more than one mall.  I love having so many options.  I've never been a huge shopper but I have enjoyed going to Nordstrom Rack and browsing around (and finding shoes for the kids for under $10 on sale).  Oh and there's a really great consignment shop about a quarter mile from my house.  I got some snowpants for the girls there, and I'm hoping that soon I will be able to find some boots for all of us there (they get them often, but not the sizes I need).

There are lots of fun playgrounds here.  My personal favorite is a little one that's very close to our house (we used to have lots of picnics there in the summer), and it's right on the lake.  I just never get tired of looking out over the lake! The girls love a different park across the street from there, which has 2 playgrounds that are much bigger (they were donated by American Girl so we call it the American Girl park).  There's also a splash pad there during the summer, which we went to once.

The library is awesome.  It's big (compared to any other library we've been a member of), and they always have fun activities going on.  I take Olivia to story time 1-2 times a week, and the lady who does it is fantastic.  She reads books, sings songs, plays the guitar, and is just so engaging.  Abbie is part of a book club where they meet once per month and have dinner provided, and they discuss the book.  She also is taking a cross stitch class there once a week this month.  There are also a bunch of other activities we are planning to participate in there in the upcoming weeks and months.

We joined a gym that we LOVE.  Like, seriously LOVE.  I will have to do an entire post about it.

I LOVE the girls' school.  It's a million times better than the school they attended in Florida.  It's not overcrowded, they have 3 playgrounds and a huge field.  They have P.E. 2x per week, art once a week, and music once a week.  Abbie has already been on 2 field trips and her third is next week.  Ellie has been on one so far.  Their teachers are amazing, their principal is great.  I love it.  (But for the record I still don't love going to school lunch and eating in the cafeteria.  Not sure if that will ever change, haha.)

I love all the walking trails here. We've checked out a ton so far, and I've loved every single one.  I especially love the ones by Lake Mendota.

I love the variety of homes here.  In Florida, all the houses were in a style that I don't really love (stucco, mostly.  Or they all just looked the same).  Here, though, there's tons of variety and I love that.

The wildflowers!  I feel like there were wildflowers everywhere over the summer!  The last of them are finally dying out but I loved them soo much this summer.

I love living at the end of a dead end street.

I love having a finished basement.  It literally doubles the size of our house and it's awesome.

I love having a sewing room (the second bedroom upstairs).

I love my kitchen.  I love having a big island with a 5-burner gas stove.  I love the stainless steel appliances, even if they do have fingerprints on them most of the time.  I love having a dishwasher that I can set to go on a few hours late, after we are asleep.

I love our backyard with the fire pit and rope swing.

I love the cool nights and mornings.  The crispness in the air when I walk the girls to the school bus.

I love our neighbors.  They are all older (mostly retired) and very friendly.  Last week I got invited to a coffee shop with a few of the ladies in the neighborhood.  It was on a Saturday morning, and Garrett was out of town, but I went anyway because I hadn't met many of the ladies yet and I didn't want to turn down the invitation.  Thankfully, my threats to the kids as we drove over there worked, because they sat nicely at the table and let me visit for a bit.  One of the ladies bought huge cookies for the kids, which was so nice, and they were all just so welcoming and kind.  I hope to be able to go again sometime (hopefully when Garrett is home, though).

As a whole, the people here are very, very nice.  That midwestern kindness is a real thing, that's for sure.  People here are nicer than even Georgia, which had that Southern charm.

I really, really love it here.  To be honest, if there was a job here I would highly encourage Garrett to apply for it (actually, there IS a job opening at UW, and there's a good chance he would get it, but he doesn't want to do academics unfortunately).

Of course, we haven't experienced a winter here yet, which could change my mind entirely.  Maybe a few months from now, I will take all of that back.  And laugh at my naive self.  But right now, in this moment, I could totally see myself staying here for another couple of years, even in this house.  I think I even know where I would want to move if we stayed here more long term (there's a neighborhood that Olivia and I go walking through often during the day, just near our house.  It's so pretty.).

Of course, it's not perfect.  The roads are terrible.  I spend way too much money at Costco (but that's my own fault of course, ha!).  We haven't found a sushi place as good as we had in Gainesville.  I still haven't quite figured out where to grocery shop, either.  In Florida, Target was the cheapest place to shop (because we only had Publix's everywhere), but I just found out recently that's it's NOT the cheapest place here (I'd been shopping there, besides Costco).  I tried out a place the other day called Woodmans, but it was kinda ghetto and I waited in line for probably 20 minutes, which was a drag and made me not want to go back.  Also I never know if I can trust store brands, especially at that place since it seemed weird, and the produce was hit or miss.  But, it was cheap, and I do LOVE cheap, and it had pretty much everything, so I might try the pick-up service next time so I don't have to go inside (you order everything online and it's ready when you go to the drive in).  They also just started a delivery service so I may try that out too, especially when it's freezing cold outside, haha.  There's also a grocery store that always has lots of samples around, and I love trying the cheeses and other local fares.  But, it's pretty pricey (the good places always are).  Hopefully I will figure out a grocery shopping routine soon.  I will have to give Woodmans another try pretty soon.  I need to start budgeting our groceries better.

So anyway, long post I know, but that pretty much sums it up.  We love it here. A lot. I'm so happy that we are here.  We knew without a doubt that this was where the Lord wanted us to be for this year, and so far it's been fantastic.  Now here's hoping we can find some warm coats before the cold sets in...