City vs. the suburbs....

My husband and I bought a house a few months ago in University Place. He grew up in Steilacoom and I grew up on Anderson Island. So we lived in pretty quiet neighborhoods as kids. Prior to purchasing our home we were living in the N end of Tacoma... "Proctor district" and loved it!It was the closest to "city living" I have ever been. I know it was no Seattle or anything but it was more urban than where I grew up. You could walk to the grocery store, farmers market, starbucks, a number of parks, restaurants and little shops. We loved the style of homes in that area and felt each one told a different story. I always told myself id never move to the burbs or drive a mini-van. (I also wasn't a parent when I was saying that!) At our old place you could look out of the front window at 9am and see parents walking their kids to school, and 12 you could see moms walking with strollers, by 3 kids were coming home from school and during the evening youd see the family dog getting its walk for the day. However, at night you could look out the same window and see cars pulling up to the house across the street to buy drugs (which always freaked me out even though they were some of the quietest neighbors we ever had...go figure!)Some of your neighbors were nice, some kept to themselves, some had one to many beers on the weekend and would turn up the Dave Matthews a bit to loud to jam out while they worked in the yard. There were a lot of barking dogs and we lived near a fire station so we always heard sirens. For the most part it was fairly quiet and nice but I saw something different everyday when I looked out that front window.

Enter suburbs... when we were looking at houses UP wasn't even an option for us, it was too expensive and we were set on either living where we grew up or staying in the N end. Our realtor urged us to look at this house since it had been on the market for awhile. We looked at it once and weren't feeling it. (I also had the flu and was downing anti-nausea meds while driving to each house) My day was cut short due to the flu and we picked the search back up a few days later. He brought us back to this house again and we just LOVED it! The yard is HUGE!!!! the house is modest but is twice the size of our old little place. As we were walking around we could see this wasn't just a house, it was a home. So we bit the bullet and moved to the burbs.

My oh my what a different world this is!! Some of the neighbors were outside right after we pulled up with our first load when moving in. It took months for me to meet the neighbors at the old place! We meet half the culdesac within the first week! Im quickly learning that things work differently here in the suburbs..You can't walk to anything but the golf course or schools. People park their cars in the garage, not on the street. In the afternoon (weather permitting) you play with your kids outside. Moms must wear yoga pants at least 3 times a week( ok thats a joke!) On the weekends you work in your yard, nobody has company over too late and around 5:30 during the week you see the garage doors open and the husbands come home from work. Most moms here drive minivans. (I have not broken and I still have my Jeep!) You always say hello when you see people. If there is any crime in your area you get a phone call! I mean a for real phone call! We have some of the GREATEST neighbors! They have 2 boys, Kaelyn adores them! Aaron has recently been playing catch with them in the evening and took the oldest one to his baseball practice last night. You have a total sense of community here. I feel at 26 we are a little on the young side for where we live but I know we will grow into it. I may not see anything too interesting when I look out the front window at the new place and the day to day life may be a little boring here but I think it was the right move.