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Aww, thank you. But after spending time at CHOP I realize how lucky my son is since his issues are treatable. It is so sad to see the kids who are fighting such scary illnesses. Now that I am a parent, it really breaks my heart. Six months in the hospital is rough! I hope she is doing much better now!
I am a NE Philly girl relocated to the suburbs. You didn't live in WW did you? We had a summer house there growing up. Such great memories!!
Our daughter is doing remarkable, she was born with the top half of her heart missing, she had an open heart surgery at birth, followed by another this past October.
She will have more surgeries as she grows, but unless you saw the scars on her chest, you would never know. She is a typical 4 yr old otherwise.
I lived in OC, but spent many a night in Wildwood. Where in the great NE did you live? I have relatives all over the place up there. I actually have relatives in Blue Bell too.
Of course it was hard, and people were sad that we were leaving, but we had to do what was in our hearts. We still get to see people a lot. Lots of airline choices :-)
Your mother and sister are surely upset, but I hope that they are supportive of your decision and not being nasty about it. That would just be selfish of them. Tell them they have a free place to visit when it's 30 degrees up there
Well, my family is Italian so of course there is an ample amount of guilt! Other than food, guilt is an Italian speciality!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DennisDaMenace
Our daughter is doing remarkable, she was born with the top half of her heart missing, she had an open heart surgery at birth, followed by another this past October.
She will have more surgeries as she grows, but unless you saw the scars on her chest, you would never know. She is a typical 4 yr old otherwise.
I lived in OC, but spent many a night in Wildwood. Where in the great NE did you live? I have relatives all over the place up there. I actually have relatives in Blue Bell too.
That is so great that she is doing so well!!! Kids are resilient. I am sure you and your wife were so terrified through all of that. My son's issues were never life threatening and we are really grateful for that. It was still hard watching him have to go through so many procedures but I cannot imagine how hard the surgeries are for you both!
I used to live in the Rhawnhurst section of the NE. And I love OC! That is where we go for vacation now that we are older
We relocated here from Arizona and had to leave our grandkids behind. Yes, it's hard but we haven't regretted it. We love life here and like HH said, it gives our families a FL vacation home for life. Keep that in mind when you do chose a home to rent or buy...have a dedicated guest room because it will be used in winter! Giving your son a childhood home near beaches, boats and world class fishing is a great life for any kid. Think of how important it is to get kids outside and away from video games/social media. PS - only Aug/Sept are really miserable humid months to me.
There are more young families in Charlotte County than you might think. Englewood is a nice little town that I would definitely recommend. Not sure what rents/sales prices are there but the agents on the board can help you with that.
We live in Port Charlotte and got a lot for our money here; Gulf access canal home with a dock/boat lift for under 200k in 2008. You can get that now for about 150k in PC. Punta Gorda is even nicer than PC but about 100k more for the same house features.
As far as sex offenders, don't use a search feature that's more than 1 mile radius or you will just needlessly scare yourself. When looking at results, be more concerned with an individual who is tagged as a Predator. They have more heinous crimes as opposed to one who is just classified as an offender. I'm a retired law enforcement officer and spent the last few years of my AZ career supervising paroled sex offenders. The nice thing about the data base is that you know who's out there and where they live. You will know who to avoid and if they are on community supervision, like parole or probation, there's someone you can call if you have reason. Like the others said, they are in every community and they always have been. We just do a better job at exposing them now than ever before. I would avoid areas where they are "clustered" like more than 20 in a one mile radius because that's a sign of a lower level neighborhood. The closer you live to a neighborhood school, the less S/O's you will find because the law in FL says they can't live within 1000 feet of a school, park or playground. That's about 2/10s of a mile.
Okay, lastly the hurricanes. Historically this area has been hit once every 40 years or so. We were hit by Charley in 2004, Donna in the 60's and some unnamed storm in the 20's. The way I see it, your son will be your age before we get our next major. (fingers crossed) Seriously, hurricane season is a combination of nerves and excitement. I love the sometimes daily downpours we get here. Tracking storms coming off of the coast of Africa, for weeks at a time, is very interesting to me. In 4 years here we've only covered our windows 3 times and each time was a false alarm. Only last year did we buy a generator when Irene had her early sights on us. Turns out she stayed 200 miles away from us and chose the mid-Atlantic instead.
Just get a block constructed home that's not in a FEMA flood plane, with a hip roof (looks like a pyramid, as opposed to the side of a barn), attend one of the free yearly hurricane preparedness seminars that Charlotte County puts on, put your hurricane plan in place every season and don't plan on evacuating unless the storm is a Cat 4 or higher. We also go under tornado watch/warning each summer too, so don't let that freak you out. The weather here is gorgeous most of the time. No place is perfect but you have to figure there's a good reason why 19 million people chose to live here, right?
Good luck with your future, your family and let us know where you land.
Messing About, thank you for the detailed and informative reply. I will def be referring to your post if he gets the job and we head down there. We are in the process of selling our house up here in PA and are living in a temporary apartment until we figure out our next move. I am finding it very difficult to want to stay in this area despite being near family. When I think of where I want to raise my son, this is not it. But is Port Charlotte the right place? I guess we will never really know unless we take a leap of faith...if he gets the job
We relocated here from Arizona and had to leave our grandkids behind. Yes, it's hard but we haven't regretted it. We love life here and like HH said, it gives our families a FL vacation home for life. Keep that in mind when you do chose a home to rent or buy...have a dedicated guest room because it will be used in winter! Giving your son a childhood home near beaches, boats and world class fishing is a great life for any kid. Think of how important it is to get kids outside and away from video games/social media. PS - only Aug/Sept are really miserable humid months to me.
There are more young families in Charlotte County than you might think. Englewood is a nice little town that I would definitely recommend. Not sure what rents/sales prices are there but the agents on the board can help you with that.
We live in Port Charlotte and got a lot for our money here; Gulf access canal home with a dock/boat lift for under 200k in 2008. You can get that now for about 150k in PC. Punta Gorda is even nicer than PC but about 100k more for the same house features.
As far as sex offenders, don't use a search feature that's more than 1 mile radius or you will just needlessly scare yourself. When looking at results, be more concerned with an individual who is tagged as a Predator. They have more heinous crimes as opposed to one who is just classified as an offender. I'm a retired law enforcement officer and spent the last few years of my AZ career supervising paroled sex offenders. The nice thing about the data base is that you know who's out there and where they live. You will know who to avoid and if they are on community supervision, like parole or probation, there's someone you can call if you have reason. Like the others said, they are in every community and they always have been. We just do a better job at exposing them now than ever before. I would avoid areas where they are "clustered" like more than 20 in a one mile radius because that's a sign of a lower level neighborhood. The closer you live to a neighborhood school, the less S/O's you will find because the law in FL says they can't live within 1000 feet of a school, park or playground. That's about 2/10s of a mile.
Okay, lastly the hurricanes. Historically this area has been hit once every 40 years or so. We were hit by Charley in 2004, Donna in the 60's and some unnamed storm in the 20's. The way I see it, your son will be your age before we get our next major. (fingers crossed) Seriously, hurricane season is a combination of nerves and excitement. I love the sometimes daily downpours we get here. Tracking storms coming off of the coast of Africa, for weeks at a time, is very interesting to me. In 4 years here we've only covered our windows 3 times and each time was a false alarm. Only last year did we buy a generator when Irene had her early sights on us. Turns out she stayed 200 miles away from us and chose the mid-Atlantic instead.
Just get a block constructed home that's not in a FEMA flood plane, with a hip roof (looks like a pyramid, as opposed to the side of a barn), attend one of the free yearly hurricane preparedness seminars that Charlotte County puts on, put your hurricane plan in place every season and don't plan on evacuating unless the storm is a Cat 4 or higher. We also go under tornado watch/warning each summer too, so don't let that freak you out. The weather here is gorgeous most of the time. No place is perfect but you have to figure there's a good reason why 19 million people chose to live here, right?
Good luck with your future, your family and let us know where you land.
Hi Messing around,
Thank you for your very informative reply to Deeni. We have just recently purchased a house in the Port Charlotte area, and I find this forum extremely useful and plan to contribute once in a while.
We have been looking for a second home in Florida for years, and found the Port Charlotte area to be just right for us. We like the laid back style, as well as closeness to beaches and shopping. Not to mention fishing!!
As a navigational officer and ships captain I enjoyed your comments on hurricanes. When I sailed the cruise ships in the Caribbean we had something called Pilot Charts that somehow predicted the routes of hurricanes - this was the days before GPS`s were available.
In the old days they also called the hurricanes "West African Storms" since they originate from West Africa.
Thank you for your very informative reply to Deeni. We have just recently purchased a house in the Port Charlotte area, and I find this forum extremely useful and plan to contribute once in a while.
We have been looking for a second home in Florida for years, and found the Port Charlotte area to be just right for us. We like the laid back style, as well as closeness to beaches and shopping. Not to mention fishing!!
As a navigational officer and ships captain I enjoyed your comments on hurricanes. When I sailed the cruise ships in the Caribbean we had something called Pilot Charts that somehow predicted the routes of hurricanes - this was the days before GPS`s were available.
In the old days they also called the hurricanes "West African Storms" since they originate from West Africa.
Welcome to the board. If you like fishing you should enjoy the fishing thread we have here!
Welcome to the board. If you like fishing you should enjoy the fishing thread we have here!
Hi Big House,
Many thanks, being from NW Norway we have a totally different variety of species to fish, I can in due time tell you stories of how we fish 1000 lbs halibut...it will be up to you if you believe them or not
Many thanks, being from NW Norway we have a totally different variety of species to fish, I can in due time tell you stories of how we fish 1000 lbs halibut...it will be up to you if you believe them or not
Do they eat shrimp?
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