How We Got Here

We've had several friends from Maryland visit Key West in the last few weeks. I swear I see more people here than I did in Frederick! It is always fun to spend an hour catching up over breakfast, or to meet for a drink and give KW newbies the scoop on what to see and where to eat. I feel like it's our duty as residents to make sure that everyone has a good time. We have extra bikes to loan, an extra car for a run to Publix if they got rid of the rental....stuff like that. We rarely have overnight guests here at the house, generally just family. Friends are going to have a much more relaxing vacation staying at their lodging of choice instead of at my crazy house with two kids, thousands of Legos, and our elderly dog. During these catch-up chats I've told the story of how we moved to Key West several times. I thought the tale would make a good blog post.

We first visited KW in 2003 for a friend's wedding. We stayed at The Reach, ate at Louie's Backyard, and enjoyed the wedding festivities on Sunset Key. It was fun! When it was time to plan our next vacation, we came back and stayed at Southernmost on the Beach. And then we did that again six months later. And then six months after that....each trip we liked it here more and more. When Mari joined our family, her first vacation was to Key West. A hotel wasn't the best situation for little ones, so after we brought Josie home, we started renting houses on the island. That was a turning point. It was like living here for a short time instead of being a tourist. There were many more trips from Maryland to Key West. We stayed in houses on Fleming Street, Amelia Street, Reynolds Street, and in the Windward Park townhomes on Truman Avenue. One week vacations turned into two week vacations. We visited during different months to see what it was like here in each season. And when we went home, we really just wanted to come back. Even though we had changed careers and could really work from any location, we stayed in Frederick because John's mother lived there and we kept an eye on her at 89 years old. When she passed away, we made the big move from urban dwellers, renting out our historic home in downtown Frederick, to suburban dwellers, moving into the home John grew up in. Nope. That SO didn't work. But it was a good experience in that it showed me that even though I had two little girls I did NOT want to live the suburban mom life. Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. It's just not me. Or us. So John suggested that we spend a month in Key West to see if we really wanted to make the move there. I went along for the ride, but I didn't really think he would make such a big move. Two weeks in we were both completely convinced that this is the place we wanted to be and where we wanted to raise our children. School, church, pediatrician, and everything else fell into place. We put a contract on a house that was a bank short sale, and during the several months it took to go to closing, we got buried in Maryland's biggest snow storm in years. 3 feet of snow followed by 2 feet of snow. I can't tell you how frustrating it was to ALMOST own a home in Key West while being snowed in. We closed in April 2010, so our four year anniversary as residents is coming up soon. No place is perfect, including Key West. But it is perfect for us at this point in time, and I've lived here just long enough that I'm not worrying about our next move......no hurries, no worries. :)