Moving to Wisconson, but where to settle?? (Milwaukee, Madison: homes, theater)

[mamasweetk13]

I am currently looking at moving to Wisconsin from Illinois. My husband and I have 4 children, ages 1-9. Schools need to be decent and there needs to be plenty of activities for the kids to enjoy. My boys also like riding 4-wheelers, so trails or riding places nearby would be great. We would like to eventually get a place with a small amount of land, so the potential needs to be there. I have a Bachelor's in Accounting and would like to find an accounting or auditing job, maybe within 20 minutes or so from my home. My husband works at a tire shop right now, and has worked some factory jobs. He should be easy to place in a job I would imagine. I have been doing research on the Appleton area. But, I'm wondering what other nice areas there are in Wisconsin, especially with atv riding in mind. My kids are used to racing every summer. Do they have races up there? What towns have the job potential for accounting? I would like to stay in a smaller town. The town we live in now and have all of our lives has about 15, 000 people I think. So, even smaller then that would be nice. Open to any opinions. I would like to have an idea of where to visit in late March so we can find the right place to fall in love with and hopefully move to by this coming summer!

[JDCATONSVILLE]

My family and I moved to Merrill, Wisconsin in November of 07. We relocated here from Catonsville, Maryland and are really happy with our decision. My wife and I both work in Wausau, which is about 20-25 miles from our house, so that comute is a heck of a lot better then the one I was used to back in Baltimore. We have two children one in elementary school and one in middle school and both really like their schools. The school system seems to be top notch as well so far. Merrill has a population of about 9,500. and it is relativley quite (very quite compared to Baltimore. There is plenty of outdoor activities including snow mobile riding, atv riding, horse back riding, hiking and biking trails, snow shoeing, sking in Rib Mountian, plenty of parks, fishing and boating and canoing. We have deer, rabbitts, foxes, bald eagles all from our back yard. We can hear cayotes at night in the summer,there are bear and wolfs up here as well. We have an acre but there are plenty of listings that have much more if you are interested in that. What ever you choose I wish you good luck and hopefully your experience will turn out as good as ours.

[yo vanilla]

You can search my user name for posts I've made about the Appleton area. If you want to live in a smaller town, look at Neenah. About 25K people and still within easy driving distance of jobs, shopping, etc. My wife is an accountant as well. There's enough corporations around here that you should find something.

[paddock_laker]

I live in Paddock Lake WI (about 4000 people) which is down south in Kenosha County near the border. There is a great local coffeeshop (Brewed Beginnings) which is both better and cheaper than Starbucks. It is close to both Burlington (about 20,000 i think) and Kenosha (4th-largest in WI, 100,000 ish)

I don't know about accounting jobs, but there are a few accounting offices in nearby Salem, including Parrish and Freitag, and there are plenty of companies in Kenosha and Burlington. Schools in this area are good, especially Westosha Central in Paddock Lake, which is consistently on newsweek's best schools list. I like Kenosha too, but the schools suck. There is school choice though, and there are several good schools in the Kenosha County area, (elem.: Brighton, Bristol, Paris) as long as you're willing to drive. Maybe drop them at school on your way to your new job in Burlington :also a nice city:

[paddock_laker]

Brewed Beginnings

[mrcoolmrcool28]

If you really want a SMALL town, why not look outside of Madison? There's a motocross or ATV something track outside of Lake Mills, right on I-94 towards Milwaukee. Deerfield, Lake Mills, Marshall, Waterloo, all east of Madison are nice small towns, and close to the Aztalan race track.

[slamont61]

Originally Posted by mrcoolmrcool28

If you really want a SMALL town, why not look outside of Madison? There's a motocross or ATV something track outside of Lake Mills, right on I-94 towards Milwaukee. Deerfield, Lake Mills, Marshall, Waterloo, all east of Madison are nice small towns, and close to the Aztalan race track.

This town looks like it's right out of Mayberry RFD. A moment off of 94 midway between Milwaukee and Madison, Lake Mills appears to be the "Model" of a small town. Something that could be used in filming movies from another time period.

[slamont61]

Another area to consider, Lake Country in Waukesha County. Several small towns with excellent schools and great restaurants and LAKES!!!

Now another area I've only passed through is Jefferson WI. South of an Outlet Mall area outside of Waukesha County (West from Milwaukee by 40 minutes) It's a small town and the Taxes seemed to be lower there. My family's favorite evening destination is the Highway 18 Drive-in Theater. It's a couple minutes out of Jefferson (towards the west) They show first run features all summer long at a classy family oriented theater. An all grass parking area makes for comfortable viewing. I believe a Drive-in is a must for ANY family when looking into an area.

[nugla13]

I lived in Eau Claire all of my childhood and it was wonderful. I moved away and moved back and am a public school teacher here. Unfortunately, we are locating due to my husband's job.....but it is a wonderful place to raise a family. It may be 60,000+ but it feels like a really small town with a very friendly atmosphere. Plus you have the university, the children's museum and great public schools.

I know you have 4 children, but we are selling our home
www.HomesByOwner.com/94788
and you could check it out if you would like.....it is only a couple of blocks from a really well respected elementary school and walkable to both the middle and high schools.....(your kids would never need a car)
It only has two bedrooms, but you could add on to the back quite a bit or finish the other side of the basement with another bedroom.

Apart from our house, it is a really beautiful area and safe place to live.

[Great Joy]

Since you and your family love ATVing, I would search WI internet websites for ATV trails to find out where they all are. There are many nice small towns in WI, but I don't know how close they all are to ATV trails. One place I know there are hundreds of miles of ATV trails is in the Mountain, WI area because quite a few of our relatives own land and cottages up in that area. They can ride their ATVs directly onto the trails from their land. I don't know that I would live in Mountain because it is a really small town, but maybe you might like it. One small/medium size town I like near there is Shawano. I've never lived there, so I'm unable to help with school, work, etc info about it, but it is a very nice city and it's next to the beautiful Shawano Lake. Best wishes!