"Soooo, How's Arizona???"

Since everyone has been asking....so, how's Arizona? I thought I'd let you all know how we've adjusted during the past 3 months. Basically all I can say is it went soooo much smoother than we could of hoped for! Some of you know that Rory had asked the boys to give it a try for 6 months and if they didn't like it here that we'd move back to Illinois. Trust me, that wasn't really going to happen, but thankfully they all agreed! So, after only 6 weeks we were all having dinner one night and we took a vote...."who wants to stay here and who wants to go back?" It was unanimous....STAY HERE! After only 6 weeks!!! I think if we would of asked sooner it would of gotten the same response. It definitely helped that they started school right away and plus the boys really enjoyed it the last time we lived here. But this time we're here for good! We live on a very quiet street in a really nice neighborhood of all ranch homes. We are 3 houses from the end of the culdesac where there is a bike path that leads right to the school. You can see the school from our house and also soccer and baseball fields, a beautiful lake where we can fish, the neighborhood clubhouse and a huge park. It's all very green and reminds us of Illinois. The boys all have met a bunch of friends through school and their sports teams, had no problems adjusting to the new school and they all love the Arizona weather! Will we miss the seasons? Maybe, but we can always drive up to northern Arizona to see snow or Fall colors. Do we mind the 100+ temps? Not as much as we minded the cold Chicago temps! I've tried to explain to some of you already....110-120 is very hot, low 100's are hot, 90's are comfortable, 80's are perfect and 70's are a tiny bit chilly. It does make a HUGE difference when you don't have the humidity. I'll take the dry heat over that humidity any day....definitely makes for much better hair days! Summers here are like winters there....you just basically spend most of your time indoors....except at night we'd swim every night after dinner....with NO MOSQUITOES! When we first got here in the middle of summer we thought we'd never meet any neighbors, but then once the weather cools down, everyone is outside every night just hanging out. We couldn't of gotten any luckier with our neighbors....they're all really nice and most don't have family here either. And whose the most neighborly??? Okay, sit down for this.....it's Rory!!!! OMG! One night I asked him to go get Kyle from a neighbors house and he came back home 2 hours later. So, all in all, we miss EVERYONE back in Illinois, but we couldn't of made a better decision for our family by moving here. Sure we (or I should just say "I") have days where it's hard to adjust, but we really feel at home here. So, come for a visit and see for yourselves! Oh yeah, I wanted to mention that you can also see the girls softball fields from our house (P and Haley are you listening?) And lastly, it is soooo much nicer to be able to drive into California, Nevada or even Mexico for the weekend instead of going to Wisconsin!!! Just thought a few of you (I won't mention names) should know that!