Valuable Insight Required! (Lexington, Louisville, Bowling Green: apartment, rent, day care)

[emeritus]

Hello,

I wonder if you might offer some advice...

We are in our early 30's and have a 1 year old daughter and have previously lived in Oregon and love the greenery (I am originally from England) but we are looking now for a more economical place to call home. We are Catholics who would like to find a good Catholic day care (private if necessary) and then later preschool and school for our daughter.

We would like to live in a beautiful area, hence our choice of Kentucky and we would also like to have access to good shopping, restaurants and hairdressers! We are not overtly Conservative, nor Liberal. Would Louisville or Lexington fit our criteria whilst we rent for 6 months whilst looking for a place to buy?

Thank you for your valuable insight!

[tomocox]

The Catholic community is alive in Louisville and Oldham County.

[FreeMarketSlave]

Depends if you like the big city life, or not! The older i get, the smaller the city, so it seems. I came out of the east end of Louisville in the early 80's to Bowling Green. That was a shock. Both have grown since then to the point of becoming unbearable for me now. I bought a place in the countryside last year, but haven't moved yet. I've known a few people that went to private Catholic schools in both Louisville and BG, you may want to consider homeschooling...hint, hint...
You should probably just come here and check out all the areas and then make a choice.
One thing i know, you will hate is the humidity around here. I grew up in N. Calif. and Alaska, so Ky. was quite the shock. After 28 years here, my body still screams.. GO NORTH!
Anyway, JMO.

[emeritus]

Which Catholic private schools are good? Home schooling is not something we would consider...

[traysea]

If you venture to Northern KY.. there are numerous good catholic schools.
Villa Madonna is excellent in Villa Hills, KY. That's exclusive a bit and goes from K- High school. The cost of living is fine in Villa Hills. It's the greater Cincinnati area.

We have a thriving Catholic area. (I like Louisville and Lexington too.. but used to live in Northern KY so can comment on this).

As far as private daycare.. you can find it but I chose Children Inc. However, I would only suggest either Treasure house in downtown Covington or the Park Hills school. My daughter went to Park Hills and it was superb. The lady that runs it takes 2 year olds and up.

MY other suggestion is get daycare, after you get to whereever your going and find a private sitter through the church you end up chosing.

Good luck.
Tracey

[emeritus]

Thank you for your responses. Maybe we will start in Louisville. The challenge will to be to find a new apartment. There does not seem to be a lot to choose from on apartmentguide.com. Maybe there is another site (apart from craigslist.org)?

[tomocox]

One can argue all day about schools and which offer the most to your children. I will not identify any particular school, but suffice it to say that the eastern schools typically have more money backing them. I raised to boys and a girl in Jefferson County. I will tell you that my stepsons went to Catholic Schools and my daughter went to public. If you are looking for best bang for your buck. I buy a home in Oldham County, send the kids to public. Point for point, your children will receive a solid education in a civil setting and then you can enroll them in Catholic religion courses at your chosen parish. I assure you this is a plan.