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Thursday, September 27, 2012

So excited about moving to Virginia!

I've spent the past 2 hours playing with Google Maps. Graham finally received orders, and we're moving to Virginia in June! We'll be at Langley Air Force Base, which is in between Virginia Beach & Williamsburg.

To say we're excited is the understatement of the century. We're both so close to our families, and now we're a seven hour drive as opposed to a 12 hour drive. That's huge. Not to mention all of the other perks:

  • DC, one of my favorite cities EVER: less than three hours.
  • NYC: Seven hours.
  • We can freaking go to Canada in less time than it currently takes to get to NC.
  • And last but not least... Boston. Boston will be a shorter drive once we live in VA than Charlotte is currently. And considering how many times I've made the drive from Little Rock to Charlotte, you better believe I'm going to make the drive from Virginia to Boston just as many times =) 
There is so much to do in the area. And not even stuff that requires multiple tanks of gas. I started my little quest this morning just looking up how many Targets are in the area and got excited by our proximity to beaches in four states (NC, VA, Maryland & Delaware) as well as all of the exciting cities within a few hours away. Do you have any idea how complicated it is to plan a weekend trip from Little Rock? Chicago was the only interesting place we could think of to go, and it was 10 hours away!

Look at all the blue!

The stars are all places of interest that I've missed since moving to Little Rock. The stars consist of Harris Teeter, Trader Joe's, Nordstom, J Crew, Target, etc. We do have Target & J Crew here, but there are 4 Targets in the area, no super Targets and one J Crew which is 30 minutes away. I know this map shows a pretty broad area, but nothing is more than 40 miles away.

We're wanting to buy a home in Yorktown, Poquoson, or near Williamsburg. Graham isn't willing to go any further than Williamsburg, and isn't crazy about going that far, but we're going to have to reach some kind of compromise. The base is in Hampton, VA and I've read some bad stuff about that area & Newport News. I know we don't have kids, but the schools are abysmal and when the schools are bad, it typically means the area is bad. Feeling safe is more important to me than it would be if Graham wasn't in the Air Force, but since I'm pretty much guaranteed to soend 4-6 months a year alone, I need to be in an area where I fee safe. Personally, negative publicity about the area aside,

I'd love to live as close to Williamsburg as possible, because it's a shorter drive to Richmond, and hello; it's Williamsburg. As a history nerd, I am beyond excited that I am going to be living in one of the most historic areas in the country. I have a BA in History from UNC-Charlotte (go Niners!) and my area is colonial & pre-revolutionary American history. Other than Boston, could there possibly be a more perfect place for me to live? The pink triangle on the map makes up the Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown & Jamestown. I am pretty much hypervenilating just thinking about it.


Living in a landlocked state has not been a whole lot of fun....
And we have our general area in Arkansas. We live in Jacksonville (where the "A" is) and pretty much the only thing here is the Air Force base. I won't say anything bad about Arkansas, because other than the mind blowing heat, and the lack of decent thai restaurants and high end retail, I've enjoyed living here. I love the company I work for, I love our home, I love our proximity to base (most perfect place ever to walk Hermione), there are some really fantastic restaurants, I've met some great people and this has been our first home together, so it will always be significant to me. But through & through, I'm an east coast girl. I like having the ocean on one side, and the mountains on the other. We drove up to Eureka Springs for our anniversary weekend, and while it was pretty, Arkansas just can not offer anything like this:

Grandfather Mountain, May 2010

The only part that sucks is the price of real estate. This is our house... cute, right?



Decent size. It's 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1500 square feet, "two" car garage (there is no way two cars could actually fit there unless they were smart cars or mini coopers), fenced in backyard, huge front yard, smallish backyard. The inside is being updated as we speak. This house is about $100,000. Our budget in Virginia will be twice that, in order to get a nice home in a nice area.


Other than the much higher cost of living, we are both so excited about this new chapter in our lives together!

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