House Hunting

I mentioned before that we are moving to North Carolina this summer.  Well we can say that is now official.  Vinny received his orders to report on or before July 11th at Camp Lejeune.  We spent last week's spring break in Emerald Isle, Jacksonville, and a ton of other towns in the area looking for housing and getting to know the area.

The big news is that we found a house!  And we're really excited about it.  We're going to be leasing this year but we really like it, so we're considering buying it eventually.  I'll be chronicling our home improvement projects and the move and such and asking for feedback and advice, so don't be afraid to speak up if you have ideas!  Here is a sneak peak at the front of the house:

Looks fairly unassuming from the front, you'd never guess it was hiding over 4000 square feet!  But what really won us over was the view from the back.  And these pictures really just don't do it justice:

That's the White Oak River and we even have our own boat ramp down to the water.  Boat dreams can commence now. 

The house is about 35 minutes from the base at Camp Lejeune.  What we realized in looking all around the base is that the commute is 30 minutes no matter whether you live a few miles from the base in Jacksonville or further away in Sneads Ferry or Emerald Isle.  The traffic in Jacksonville means it still takes 30 minutes.  So we decided we would rather live where the commute in is a bit easier.  

The school system in Carteret County is great too, so we're excited about that and I'm looking forward to knocking on all of our new neighbors doors and meeting everyone (probably bearing cookies).  Beware the over-enthusiastic new stay at home mom!

So, our trip to North Carolina was a great success.  I'll follow with a few stories from the trip itself soon!