Mendezes on the Move

So, for some reason, there are still some of you out there that have missed the big announcement.

We're moving. (I know, shocker.)

We're moving this summer to the Philadelphia, PA area, and plan to be there 2-3 years.

Yes, Joel got lucky with a state-side tour this time, and we are very excited and happy. Not quite as happy as we might be on the beach in Tahiti, but oh well!

(To answer a couple of questions - yes, we're quite happy about the move. As much as we love our friends here, and have enjoyed homeschooling in this area, it's just time for us to go. The cost of living, the traffic, the stressful pace of life, and the ALLERGIES are all telling us DC is not the place for us like we thought. And no, we have no idea what will happen or where we will be after this assignment. We learned last time to not assume God's plans.)

We went up this past week for a "neighborhood-hunting" trip - as it's still a bit too early to actually find a house available to rent, even though we looked at a few. (The results weren't very promising right now.) We did meet up with a promising realtor, and hope to go back and see more next month.

We have essentially narrowed it down to the Bucks County area of PA, and are hoping to stick close to Doylestown or one of the surrounding townships. (No, I have not yet figured out what a township is vs. just a regular town.) We also wanted to do some research on the area - homeschool groups, churches, American Heritage Girls troops, etc.

We made quite a bit of progress during the week, even though it didn't really feel like it with all the driving around involved. Besides looking at a ton of random houses and driving around looking at neighborhoods and spending excessive amounts of time in the car, we visited a homeschool group "park day" (basically a big kid play date at a park), a homeschool co-op, a church that also does Upward Sports, and a local American Heritage Girls troop that really isn't that local. We have a possible church home - we visited twice and really got a good "vibe" from the church and the people there. Joel visited his office and met the gal he's replacing. I made notes of grocery stores, Costco, Sams, Target, and Walmart in the area. So, quite a bit of progress, really.

Finally toward the end of the week, we did some sight-seeing and touristy stuff. We ended up doing a double-decker tour bus thing.

That would be Independence Hall and the building with the Liberty Bell in the background.

Lunch Stop - We ate some pretty fabulous New Orleans cajun food. Served by Amish.

A shot of the inside of the market. This was the least crowded spot I saw the entire time we were there.

The Zoo - where we promptly turned around and got back on the tour bus - it was almost $100 for our family to enter! Gotta look up a Groupon deal for that one.

The Rocky Steps. Of course.

But before we could get started with any of that, I got stopped by a newsperson to be interviewed for a segment on the local news. Who ELSE in the entire world would they want to interview on allergies? They didn't even use my best quips. The camerawoman said - "You are the perfect allergy sufferer." Ummm, thanks??

 

And here is the actual video, if I can get this to work.

Our upcoming schedule for the next few months is insane. We plan to go back in May for a few weeks, me doing another round of house hunting while Joel does some work-stuff there before our big move in July. And in between all of that, is the girls' birthday parties (I'm already planning them), homeschool convention weekend, VBS, Math Camp, our packout and hopefully a bit of homeschool and work for me as well. We can sleep come August, I guess.

So, that's the biggest Mendez news.