Where we ended up.....

After staying a couple days in Naples and finding out our only real options for renting there was an apartment.......... with 3 kids and a dog, we really didn't have peace about signing a one year lease, which is standard and required for most places, for something that really wouldn't be a good situation for a John on graveyard! We therefore began looking closer to John's work in the most affordable & safe city, which was Cape Coral. This city is much closer to John's work and with him being on shift work for quite a few years it would be best if he was getting enough sleep as well as NOT driving 40 miles away at 5am after a 12 hour long shift.
Cape Coral was developed around Huge waterways that run in the backyards of many of the homes here. When it was first explained to me that these were considered water front properties it made me laugh as I figured these were much like out irrigation canals back home.......... until I realized how big they were and that people actually boat through them. We opted not to have one since Ben would probably try to jump in! Where we live, in the county, the waterways are more woodsy and unkept much like that of wider irrigation canals. You might be able to run a fan boat through them but they are'nt really deep enough to dock a boat. You shouldn't really swim in them either since alligators are known to live in them as other wildlife like snapping turtles, frogs & other fish.

Here is a picture of the ones by us so you can get an idea:

Due to the housing crisis there are a lot of forclosed properties out here that investors have bargained with the bank to get a steal of a deal. The owner of our home offered the bank 100,000 for this one and they took it out of desperation! Unfortunately some people pose as owners of these forclosed homes they are trying to rent out, but after you move in you cant contact them & they just take your money and run. We had one guy that was trying to get us to rent 'his home' but there was just a lot of red flags in dealing with him. When we looked up the property address on-line we found that it was still owned by the bank........

The place we got is a pretty nice place and will be very nice once we get it all painted inside! It is called a 3/2/2 and is 1700 sq feet with 3 bedrooms + den & 2 bathrooms. It is only 2 years old, however the previous owners either sabatoged the place before they lost it or they just didn't treat their stuff well. The carpet was a mess so the owner replaced it 2 days after we moved in. In exchange for not having to pay the last months rent up front I will be painting the place (the owner will pay for the paint and I get to pick the colors)...... Kinda funny that it took me 2 years to paint the house we owned, but I am immediately painting the house I don't own! Crazy but it really needs it!!

Unfortunately, on Monday the septic system backed up into the house. Luckily it wasn't too bad and it didn't get into the new carpet, but it left quite a mess for me to clean up. What is it with me and flooding? When the septic guy came out and fixed it he unclogged a ton of grease from the pipes in the house. Either the previous owners didn't know not to put grease down the drain of a septic system or they did it because they were losing the house? Who knows but now it is working just fine.

Here is the Welcome to Cape Coral sign on the way into our housing developement. Very excentric/eclectic if you ask me? John says it looks like something out of the middle east.

Here are some pictures of the waterways in the city. I can't even fathom how much their home owners association fees are to keep these in good condition? The picture doesn't even give you a good idea how beautiful they are!

We visited the Calvary here in the Cape. The church is for the area of Fort Meyers and Cape Coral but it is located on the Cape. It is fairly small but very welcoming. They have about 30 regulars but in the seasonal time I guess their numbers go up. They actually just moved to their first building in a strip mall. Before this time there were meeting at a school, but when we were first trying to find the place, we passed by it several times because of what was next door. Right next door, there is a Castle superstore, no joke! It is much smaller than the one back in Kennewick but when I asked about it, I guess they moved in AFTER Calvary was there and within a month it closed. GOD IS SO GOOD!

The pastor & his wife have a daughter in between Michaela & Abby so the girls made fast friends. Ben is just very excited to be 'big enough' to be in class with his big sisters and all the other kids up to 5th grade. WE haven't quite made it to Wednesday nights yet because last week we were moving into this place and this week time just slipped away from us!

I will blog more about John's new job later...... the quick version is he is loving it! Gotta get to bed so I can take John to work in the morning...... tomorrow they are doing DT's so I am sure he will be very sore!