Wildlife Encounters

I am no stranger to wildlife, having grown up near forest preserves that are teeming with deer, foxes, raccoons, possums, and coyotes, as well as the traditional birds and squirrels. I own horses and love to ride on the wooded trails, so I've spotted plenty of critters in my time.

But Florida is home to some interesting fauna that I had never encountered before. Sure, there are plenty of familiar animals. I've come upon deer while biking in Aquila Reserve at night, and I've seen lots of turtles (mostly dead in the road) and possums (also mostly dead). But the notable new sightings are the aramdillos and the alligators, both of which can be found quite easily in Celebration if you have a little patience and very sharp eyes.

The first time I spotted an armadillo was while I was driving through town after a visit to the construction site of our new home. It was busily rooting away on someone's lawn, right next to the alley. I gleefully pointed it out to my husband; up until that time, I'd thought the little critters were found only out west. Shows you how much I know. Silly northerner!

We pulled into the alley and stopped (typical tourist behavior, but we were still officially tourists at the time). We both watched, fascinated, as the aramdillo totally ignored our proximity and continued its destruction of the lawn.

Not long after that, on our next trip to town, we spotted lots of wild turkeys strutting on the flattened areas of East Village that would soon be new homes. The poor things were probably confused as to why their habitat was rapidly disappearing and being turned into "human nests." Happily, they have stayed in the neighborhood, and I still see them in Aquila and even, occasionally, closer to my home.

My first gator encounter didn't come until later. I had a pretty good idea of where the scaly creatures were hanging out because of the photos on www.34747.org, an excellent site about Celebration that features an ever-changing array of photography. Many of the past photos are archived on Tom's neat site - click here to visit. In addition to gators, you can see armadillos. birds, and other Celebration wildlife. And contrary to popular rumor, they are not Audioanimatronic.

At any rate, I knew that a gator was hanging out in the lake by the East Village walkway. My husband and I bike there frequently, so we started watching out for the "East Village poodle snatcher," as he was dubbed in the 34747.org caption. Sure enough, one day we spotted him, looking for all the world like an innocent floating log. But when you looked closely, you could make out the cold, reptilian eyes and the little snout with nostrils protruding just above the water line. He was serenly floating around the lake, perhaps in search of unsuspecting prey or maybe just enjoying the cool water.

A few months later, there was a great photo of a gator sitting on the grass near a lake that we recognized as being pretty close to our house. The next time we were out biking, we stopped at the lake, and sure enough, there was Mr. Gator. But this one wasn't in the water. He was relaxing on the grass, just as he had been in the photo. Fortunately, he was the across the lake from us. He probably wouldn't be considered large by people who have grown up around gators, but to us greenhorn city folk he looked enormous! My husband was so thrilled that he'd seen his first gator. He didn't count the other one because it had been in the water; this one was much more up close and personal.

But more intimidating than the gators are the snakes. I know that there are poisonous snakes in Florida, and although I am not afraid of reptiles in general, I have a healthy respect for them when they might be venomous. I knew they were around, but I hadn't seen any in person. Then, one night, my husband and I were riding back from downtown on the trail that goes along the lake in East Village. I biked past some dark blobs in the path, and I could swear that one was shaped like a snake. I called back to hubby, "What was that?" He responded, "I think it was so garbage."

Not too much farther ahead, we encountered a woman and her dogs. She said, "Is the water moccasin still on the trail?" Yikes!! It turned out that what my husband thought was trash was actually doggy "potty" bags. The woman had been heading home with her dogs when a snake blocked her path. She tried to frighten it off the trail by tossing some bags at it, but it wouldn't budge. Finally, she gave up and started heading in the opposite direction. It was a longer way, but at least it was snake-free. I don't know for sure if it was a moccasin, but if it was, I shudder to think how close my husband and I both passed to it.

My second snake encounter was in Aquila Reserve. This time, I didn't even see the snake. I had biked over and stopped when I saw some people watching a gator that was swimming around the lake. We started chatting, and a man who was also gator-watching warned me that there was a water moccasin on the trail over on the other side of the lake. I quickly decided that I would return the way I had arrived, which was via the snake-free street.

We saw a jogger heading towards the area where the snake was supposed to be. Suddenly we saw him turn quite abruptly and come jogging back out way, and at a considerably faster pace! The man said, "I warned him that the snake was there." I guess he had to see for himself. Personally, I'll take someone else's word for it.

But although the snakes can be scary, they don't even begin to compare to the sinister turkey vultures. The vultures are the morticians of the animal kingdom. Every morning, if I'm out early enough, I see them cleaning up the remains of the previous night's road kill. And the turkey vultures and big and strong! I've seen a couple of them dragging a carcass nearly as big as they are, or even bigger, off to the side of the road so they can enjoy a leisurely meal without worrying about passing cars.

Other than that, most of the wildlife is fairly sedate. I've heard that there are still wild hogs, but I've never encountered one in person. Every now and then, I find a mini-frog attached by its sucker-toes to our back door, but they appear to be harmless. There are two dogs who live behind us who like to occasionally run over and run around my legs while yapping fiercely. But I know that they're all show, and they succumb pretty quickly to petting, so I guess they don't really count as "wildlife."

Our next door neighbor has a dog and a cat. The cat loves to come over to visit, and she'll even slip inside if you're not watching. She's a very social creature, and she loves to make the rounds of all the neighbors to receive her daily dose of admiration.

One night, I was sitting out on my porch swing when I heard a rustling in the bushes. I didn't see anything, so I decided that it must be my imagination. Then, all of a sudden, I heard the rustling again and a big, white creature leaped onto the porch! Just as I was about to panic and flee into the house, I realized that it was my kitty friend. She was out making her night rounds and must have noticed that I was sitting outside. Of course, that meant she had to stop by for a little visit. She curled up on the swing with me for 15 minutes of petting before continuing her prowl.

Interestingly enough, I never see birds or squirrels around our house. My neighbor put out a bird feeder, and the seed has remained completely untouched. In the midwest, we've got all sorts of feathered friends, like robins, sparrows, and mourning doves, flocking in the yards and christening our cars. And there is always a squirrel or two skittering across the lawns or up the trees. In Celebration, that's curiously absent, at least in our neighborhood.

But there is plenty of bird life once you venture off into the wooded areas. I am continually fascinated by all the new and interesting kinds of feathered friends that I've spotted. One of these days I'm going to have to get a book on Florida's native birds so I can put a name to them.

Animals are not the only creatures that fascinate me in my adopted home state. Florida has opened up a whole new world of amazing (and annoying) insects. The summer invasion of love bugs drove me crazy for a month. They seemed to be especially attracted to the color of our house, and they invaded our porch in renewed waves as fast as I could sweep them away.

I had encountered fire ants on previous visits as a tourist and had learned how badly they can bite, so I had our yard treated proactively. Thankfully, I've never seen any of the little buggers around there, and I hope I never will. I also never want to see "saw palmetto bugs," which I've been told is Florida-speak for roaches. I know that they are very common, but in the midwest you only get them in your home if it's very dirty. Having roaches there is a sure sign that you're a slovenly housekeeper. Quarterly treatments have kept them out of our Florida house so far, and I hope that it continues that way.

Of course, there's no way to ward off the mosquitos, despite the best efforts of the abatement team. I keep a steady supply of "Off" spray in the medicine cabinet, but I always forget to put it on before I go out on the porch. Interestingly enough, my husband can come out and sit with me in the same spot for the same length of time, and they never bite him one. He goes inside with pristine skin, while I have itchy lumps and bumps and welts on every exposed patch.

I'm sure my fascination with Florida wildlife sounds silly to natives who have grown up with it all their lives. But to me it's a whole new habitat to discover, and I'm enjoying every minute of the experience.

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Founders Day Festivities

After closing on our home in August, we were anxious for our first Founders Day, which is celebrated in mid-September. It is a real, honest-to-goodness hometown holiay, commemorating the founding of Celebration. I'm not sure which "founding," since there have been a lot of milestones (the day the homes went up for sale, the initial groundbreaking, the day the first resident moved in, etc.), but it doesn't matter. To me, any reason is good enough to have a town-wide party.

The biggest item on my Founders Day agenda was to get in the town photo. It's an amazing feat, as the idea is to get a photo of every Celebration resident gathered all at once in Lakeside Park. Of course, not everyone shows up, but there is a respectable number. This year, there was even a carrot on a stick to help entice the reluctant people: a free raffle for everyone who participated, with prizes donated by the local businesses. The photographer goes up on a crane, everyone says "Cheese," and voila! Another year in Celebration's history is commemorated for the ages.

My husband could have cared less about the photo, but he knew that the local restaurants would have booths set up. That meant he could indulge in some sangria from the Columbia. Also, both he and I were looking forward to the unveiling of the bricks. Each year, at the base of the flagpole on Celebration Avenue, near the school, bricks are inscribed with the names of all the people who purchased new houses in the past year. We couldn't wait to see "our" brick, immortalizing our dream home. The unveiling was set for shortly before the town photo, so we figured we'd find our brick and then mosey over to Lakeside Park, a short walk away.

At the brick unveiling, we were as excited as kids at an Easter egg hunt, searching with all the other enthusiastic newcomers for our own little piece of immortality, Celebration-style. My husband searched in one area while I scoped out another, but we were having no luck. Our next door neighbors were there, too, so I told him to look for their brick as well. Someone heard me say their name and shouted, "Their brick is right here!" Sure enough, there it was. That gave me renewed hope that ours would eventually turn up.

We searched and searched, and photo time was rapidly approaching. Just when I was about to lose hope, we finally located our brick. Of course, we had to act like tourists and take a bunch of photos. In pondering the length of our search, I realized that the bricks could be used as an initiation rite for newbies, sort of like a fraternity initiation.

I can just picture it now: Tell all the new residents that there is a brick in their name, but of course there are NO new bricks. Have a few shills planted among the crowd to occasionally yell out, "I found mine!" so the newbies won't get suspicious too quickly. Finally, after they are ready to go crazy from fruitless searching, let them in on the joke. Perhaps the last person to give up the search could even win some sort of prize. I know, I know, I have a cruel sense of humor!

At any rate, we found our brick in time to head over to Lakeside Park for the raffle and photo. As you headed to the photo area, you received your free raffle ticket. Then you staked out your spot among the others who were rapidly gathering to be a part of the 2003 town picture. There was an area marked off on the grass with tape in which we were all supposed to position ourselves.

I noticed that several people had interesting strategies for standing out in the crowd. Loud clothing seemed to be the most common (myself, I was wearing my yellow Celebration shirt), but one enterprising woman was wearing a set of rabbit ears. I've seen "Stitch ears" at one of the Disney stores, so maybe I'll make my own fashion statement next year.

My personal strategy for easy location was to choose an end spot. Hubby and I jockeyed for position as the crowd continued to swell. Finally, it was photo time, and the photographer on the crane somehow managed to get us all in the picture. Of course, we didn't get to see the results right away, but the print showed up in the next issue of Celebration News (the official Town Hall newsletter), and copies were available for purchase. Since it was our first year, I had to buy one. I went all out and purchased a large copy, despite an obscene price, that is now framed and hanging in our hall.

I highly recommend displaying your Founders Day photo if you have one. We quickly learned that guests love to play "Where's Waldo?" and try to find us among the crowd. Surprisingly, many of them don't ever manage to locate us; I thought we were pretty easy to spot, since we're right on the end. Maybe that's a bit too obvious, and they're thinking it will be more of a challenge.

After the photo, everyone crowded around to see if they were holding a lucky raffle ticket. But in order to see if you were a winner, you had to pay a bit of "tribute" by sticking around for the award presentations that came first. Various people were honored for their community service, and a number of new rocking chairs were dedicated. Everyone waited politely, if a bit impatiently, and soon enough it was time for the part that everyone was waiting for: PRIZES!

The grand prize was an overnight stay and dinner at the Celebration Hotel. There were also two first prizes of golf at the Celebration Golf Club. In addition, there were dozens of other items such as gift certificates from various local restaurants and shops like Barnie's, Herman's, and Seito.

As we waited for the numbers to be called, I nudged hubby and said, "Just you watch. I bet I'll win the golf!" I firmly believe that God has a sense of humor; I have never golfed in my life, and neither has my husband, unless you count the miniature variety. So I figured it would be a good divine joke if I won the one prize that I would have no real use for.

The winner of the hotel package was announced, and then came the first golf award. The number was announced, I looked at the ticket in my hand...and, lo and behold, I had won!! I was totally in shock. As I walked up to get my award, I just kept mumbling to myself, "But I don't golf! I don't golf!" I'm not familiar with golfing prices, but apparently I had just one a relatively valuable award.

My husband and I are much more into fine dining than learning to play to new game, so I stuck around while the rest of the prizes were awarded and traded with someone who'd won a Seito gift certificate. It was worth considerably less than the golf, but it didn't matter to me. I just wanted something we could use, and the golf went to someone who would appreciate it properly. My nephew, who is a golfer, would have probably loved to play on the Celebration course, but unfortunately he wasn't coming to visit until the following summer, when the certificate would be expired.

Founders Day festivities continue throughout the day, and the big capper is a fireworks display over the lake. This year, it was sponsored by the developer of Artisan Park, and we were optimistic that they'd put on an impressive show.

After bumming around town until early evening, we headed home for a while, planning to return for the spectacular in the sky. That night, we decided to walk back to town. It's a good way to avoid traffic, and the walking paths that wind throughout most of Celebration make it easy to get downtown. There is a path in East Village that starts near the pool, heads past Lake Evalyn, and takes you right into the downtown area. It's only a few minutes by bike and about 20 minutes on foot. We had recently purchased some collapsible camp chairs, so we decided to bring those along.

When we reached the path, we found that many others had the same idea. Despite the darkness, we encountered lots of people heading in the same direction. We arrived downtown shortly before the fireworks were slated to being. The crowd had grown substantially, but for some reason most of the tourists hadn't wandered onto the grass around the lake. They were clustered in the downtown area, which was fine with me. I don't know if the "Residents Only" sign at the entrance to Lakeside Park's parking lot had intimidated them, but I seriously doubt it. I think they were doing the usual "human sheep" behavior and sticking with the rest of the crowd.

We set up our camp chairs and settled in. The fireworks show began with a loud bang, and suddenly the sky was alight with color. We had an almost perfect view, and we really enjoyed the dazzling show. It was well worth the 20 minute walk and a perfect capper to our very first Founders Day.

All too soon, the fireworks were over. We figured that the party would wind down soon, and we were worn out from a long day of fun, so we packed up our chairs and headed home. There were a lot of people on the walking path between downtown and Lake Evalyn, but they thinned out considerably as we neared East Village.

I don't know if there will be another Founders Day in 2004. Since Disney sold the downtown area, it has been nearly impossible to find firm information on which special events will remain. Hopefully this event has become a tradition that will last as long as Celebration, but even if it's gone, at least we got to celebrate once. The photo in our hallway brings back lots of fond memories of those first wonderful weeks in our new home.

Next time: Wildlife Encounters

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Living With Tourists

When you purchase a home in Celebraton, you receive information entitled "Living With Gators," in addition to a warning about pesky critters like snakes and mosquitoes. I don't know about the gators, but I think that a document that should be required reading for all potential Celebrationites (Celebrants?) is "Living With Tourists."

I made the decision to move to Celebration with my eyes wide open. Having been a tourist myself for years, I knew exactly what I was getting into. But every now and then I meet people who complaint about the constant stream of out-of-towners and the inconveniences that they cause.

I'll admit that I've had some annoying encounters of my own. Sure, it's irritating when I can't get a table at Max's or one of the other downtown restaurants because the "outside" crowd has pushed the wait up to over an hour. And I hate it when I buy an iced coffee at Barnie's and then wait to use the restroom in a line of half a dozen people, none of whom has made a purchase.

But overall I don't mind the tourists all that much. I see them as a part of the mix that makes Celebration, and the entire Orlando/Kissimmee area, such a vibrant place. I also remind myself that they bring in dollars to support the downtown area and the special events, such as the autumn leaves and snowfalls, that I enjoy so much. I try to support the downtown stores as much as possible, but since they are geared more to visitors, a lot of my money is spent outside of town. Hopefully the tourists make up the slack because I'd hate to see the stores shuttered and the streets bare.

I've learned the side roads to avoid most of the traffic, and when a major downtown event is going on, I bike or walk rather than search for a parking place. I allow plenty of extra time to get anywhere in the peak season, and I eat at places that take reservations during the special events or busiest times of the year.

Most of the tourists I've talked with are very nice and polite, if a bit befuddled by the existence of Celebration Boulevard, Celebration Avenue, and Celebration Place. I try to help them because I remember when I was a newbie and was befuddled by trying to get around town, too.

Usually, when I encouter a carload of lost people, they are looking for a downtown event, so it's relatively easy to get them pointed in the right direction. But sometimes they've ended up in Celebration totally by accident due to its proximity to 417 and I-4. I once encountered a poor guy, caught in the midst of the snowfall traffic, who only wanted to find 192 and his hotel so his exhausted family could fall into bed. Then there was the nice British family who wanted to know if they were in Winter Park or Winter Garden (I forget which one). They had no idea where they were or how they had gotten there. At that time, I was too new to be of much help, although I pointed them to downtown where I hoped someone could assist them.

Perhaps the Tourist Annoyance Thermometer is higher or lower depending on where you live. My husband and I have most of our lost tourist encounters while out biking or walking between North and South Villages. I've noticed that for the most popular events, like the snowfall, North Village seems to get a steady influx of people who, for some unknown reason, feel compelling to turn left into NV rather than continuing down Celebration Avenue. Perhaps they are attracted by the brightly colored lights on the 300 foot catapult tower.

On our street in East Village, it's extremely rare to encouter a tourist unless they are more hopelessly lost than usual or are simply driving around town. My husband has assisted a few who have made too many wrong turns and have wound up in our neck of the woods, desperate to escape but making an endless circle. But generally our neighborhood is immune from most of the hullabaloo.

I think that will be even more true once Artisan Park is complete. Before it existed, Celebration Avenue ended at the street that leads to our house. Anyone who followed it to the end had to either make a U turn or turn left and head towards our neighborhood. Now I suspect that they will continue down the avenue and end up somewhere in Artisan. Perhaps they will gather on the clubhouse lawn and wait in vain for paper leaves or soap bubble snow to fall.

So far, I've only had one memorable negative encouter with tourists since I've moved to Celebration. My husband and I were dining at the Columbia, and there was a huge Spanish-speaking tourist family seated nearby. Their kids were running amok in the restaurant while the adults talked and drank. One little boy kept literally climbing into our booth and running his toy car along our seats. At first, one of my patented "death stares" drove him way, but he was back a few minutes later.

When I said something, he played the old "I don't understand English" game. When I was a teenager, I babysat for a Mexican family, so I can still spit out enough to make myself understood. He looked totally shocked when I told him to go play somewhere else in his native language. When the shock wore off, he went off to bother other patrons and left us alone for the rest of our meal. Eventually, all the kids from the family left the restaurant. The adults didn't seem to care a bit; they just went on eating and drinking. I have no idea where the kids went, but they were rather young to be off on their own in a strange town, especially if they really couldn't speak English. I don't know if they ever made it back because the adults were still there when we left.

That one rude incident is more than made up for by the amusement of watching tourists by the lake trying to figure out if the birds, fish, and turtles are real (heck no, they're Disney Audioanimatronics). I even had one worried person ask me if he had to pay to park on the downtown streets. I assured him he didn't, but he still seemed skeptical. I guess he had spent too much time being nickled and dimed to death at Disney World, and he couldn't believe his luck at finding a prime (and free) spot on the street downtown during the autumn leaf fall.

Even when there's no special event going on, the tourists are easy to spot. They're the ones driving 10 miles per hour in the 25 zone, with a marked propensity to make abrupt stops and/or U turns. It's annoying, but I definitely prefer them to the impatient locals who think that speed limits don't apply to them and who blow stop signs as though they are invisible. A poky tourist is much less likely to hit a child who runs out into the street or to rear end someone than the Type A residents who tailgate so close that I'm convinced they'll soon be forcing me to go faster by pushing my car.

I've learned through experience that when you live in Celebration, you learn to work around the busy season at Disney World, too. Besides learning the back roads to avoid the WDW traffic, you learn how to have a good time at Disney World itself.

When you live in the Mouse's backyard, you don't feel the compulsion to arrive at the parks at opening time and to stay until close, trying to pack in as much as possible in the precious hours inbetween. I have learned that the water parks start emptying out a couple of hours before closing time, so that's when you'll find me enjoying relief from the heat and an absence of lines at Typhoon Lagoon. I make a priority seating for lunch or dinner at one of the parks, and we grab Fast Passes before our meal. By the time we're done, it's time for a quick ride before leaving. And of course, who can resist the singles lines at Test Track and Mission: Space before watching Illuminations from one of the little-known prime spots? I am also an expert in fun things to do around the WDW resort without ever going into the parks.

I feel sorry for the tourists because they can't enjoy all the wonderful attractions on a daily basis. I also hate to see how they get fleeced by some unscrupulous companies. We fly a lot, and I almost always hear people being blatantly lied to at the car rental counters: "Florida law requires you to buy our insurance." "You're the only person today who wasn't smart enough to buy our coverage." "The car size you rented is too small for your party. You're going to have to pay for something larger." (They like to use that last one when they are out of the size the person rented, meaning they should be upgraded for free.) And don't even get me started on the used ticket resellers and the time share scammers!

Yes, tourists can be annoying, but I'm also flattered to live in a place so wonderful that people from around the world want to visit it. Like the gators, snakes, and mosquitoes, it's all a park of living in Florida. And like gators, you have to watch out for the tourists, but you can learn to co-exist peacefully.

Next time: Holidays and Celebrations

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Furniture Hell

Once we had closed on our new home, I thought that the worst was over. The closing itself had been worrisome, since I had to coordinate so many things long distance. I had to juggle Fed Ex envelopes full of documents that had been signed in triplicate and notarized in all the right places. I nearly panicked when there was a last-minute glitch in the funds transfer, especially considering that I was working with a six figure amount. But somehow it all came together, and now the house was officially ours.

It was a literally frustrating that although we were the official owners, we wouldn’t be able to spend our first night there for a couple of weeks. The closing was on August 21st, but we wouldn’t be returning until Labor Day week. We had the keys in our possession, but we were 1500 miles from the door they would unlock.

At that point, the only utility glitch was the phone service. Even though we planned to rely mainly on our cell phone, we needed a phone line for DSL service, and we thought it would also be a good idea in case of emergency. Even before going to the house, we called the line to test it, and we kept getting a message that it was not in service. Smart City, the phone company, insisted that it was working. When we got to the house, we discovered that it was not. There was quite a bit of back and forth before they finally got it functional. For a while, I became convinced that I was really dealing with Hooterville Bell and that I’d be like Eddie Albert, scaling a utility pole every time I wanted to make a call. But finally once day we chanced upon a person who actually knew what he was doing, and our phone service has been reliable ever since.

Speaking of telephones, one interesting aspect of phone service in Celebration is that you might have a different area code from your immediate neighbors. I had expected that our area code would be 407, with a 566 exchange, like every other Celebration number that I was familiar with so far. Imagine my surprise when we were assigned a 321 area code and a 939 exchange. I was a little dismayed; I didn’t feel like a “real” Celebration resident. But one of my neighbors cheered me up by pointing out that I had a NASA/Disney World number. She said, “321 is the countdown and 939 spells WDW.” I just had to smile, and now I’ve learned to like my phone number. But it still feels strange to call someone a block away and have to dial a different area code.

With the phone sorted out, it was time to turn our attention to furniture deliveries. We’d ordered much of our furniture prior to closing on the house, and we’d dealt with stores that offered Saturday delivery since our weekdays in Celebration would be few and far between for the rest of the year. Most of our furniture was ordered from Rooms to Go near the Florida Mall. We purchased our family room furniture, bedroom set, and dinette set from them. Interestingly, my husband chose almost all the furniture for our new home. My only selection was the kitchen set, and little did I know that the decision would soon come back to haunt me.

We had also ordered a couple of futons in preparation for the company that seems to inevitably invade the household of every transplanted Northerner in Florida. On our first day in the house, we rented a truck to pick them up so we’d have something to sleep on. Our purchases from Rooms to Go were set to be delivered the next day.

On that day, we learned the First Rule of Deliveries in Florida: Add at least two to four hours to the time window that you are given. That wasn’t a big deal, as we’d pretty much counted on spending the whole day waiting for the furniture. I did start to get worried when it was almost 10 p.m. and the furniture still hadn’t made its appearance. But soon enough the truck pulled up, and our barren rooms started to look cozy and furnished. I thought that surely we must be the last stop, but the drivers said they still had one more delivery in Celebration that night.

As it turned out, they couldn’t assemble my kitchen table because some critical parts were missing. I know now that I should have made them take it back and exchange it. But they must not have wanted to haul it back, as they talked me into keeping it and promised to send out a serviceman promptly with the missing parts. Thus ensured a comedy of errors: Three times, we received a box of parts via UPS. Three times a serviceman came out to install those parts, and three times they were the WRONG parts. It was becoming a major inconvenience because they kept sending the parts directly to us, and we weren’t home to receive them. They would be delivered on a weekday and sit on our porch until our next weekend visit or until our caretaker took them in.

Finally, it got to the point of utter ridiculousness. When the serviceman opened the box and found the wrong parts for the third time in a row, he called the store and told them they had to do an exchange. Once again, we spent a day waiting, and the delivery truck rolled up late in the evening. As the deliverymen carried in the new table, I overheard my husband say something about the parts being missing again. I almost went ballistic! Happily, I had misunderstood him, but I think I scared the poor deliverymen to death. I reassured them that I wasn’t upset with them (they thought I was mad because they were late). I was just pleased that I finally had a kitchen table after weeks of staring at a skeletal base surrounded by four lonely-looking chairs.

But the Saga of the Kitchen Table was nothing compared to the Odyssey of the Master Bath Cabinets. In our original walk-through, the builder’s rep. pointed out to us that one of the kitchen cabinet doors didn’t match the others. It was almost identical, but the inlay had square corners instead of round. He had already put through a work order, and the oddball door was soon replaced. One day, in the master bath, I realized that the same thing had been done with one of the cabinets under the sink. I dutifully reported it, and the cabinet company sent out a repairman to confirm the problem.

The kitchen door had been fixed quickly and painlessly, so I thought that the master bath would be the same. No such luck. Literally four times the repairman brought out a new door, and literally four times it was the wrong door. What made this worse was that, unlike the Rooms To Go repair people, the cabinet company would only send someone out on weekdays. At this point, it was now 2004, and we had wasted four precious vacation days for service appointments, only to be told each time that the problem couldn’t be taken care of because they’d sent the wrong door yet again.

At this point, my patience had worn thin. I called the cabinet company and insisted that they would either schedule the next appointment on a Saturday or reimburse me for having a house sitter let them in. They agreed to a Saturday, which was still bad enough since we’d have to waste yet another day. Believe it or not, they FINALLY delivered the correct doors. I guess they didn’t like the prospect of an indefinite string of Saturday appointments.

There were several more “fun” experiences, and some, like the cabinets, are still ongoing. Another saga that we’re still waiting to conclude is the saga of Rhodes Furniture and the Wardrobes. In Florida houses, storage space is at a premium. There are no basements, and garages are typically too humid to store anything but the most durable of items. To increase our available closet space, we decided to buy a couple of wardrobes to place in the large, empty space at the top of our staircase.

We found a pair of perfect wardrobes at Rhodes Furniture on Orange Blossom Trail. We had stopped in to buy some Saunder pieces for our entry foyer, and we saw the wardrobes just as we were leaving. We ordered two and were told that since they were a special order item, it would be several weeks before they came in. That was fine; we were in no hurry. We explained to the salesman that we would have to have a Saturday delivery, and we confirmed that it would be no problem while signing the paperwork at the counter.

The weeks went by, and finally one day we received a phone call that our wardrobes were ready for delivery. I rattled off the Saturdays that we would be in town; we were in Celebration at least two weekends each month, so they had plenty to choose from. The person on the phone said, “Oh, but we don’t delivery on weekends.” Confused, I said, “But Rhodes told us that they DO deliver on Saturdays.” She responded, “Maybe they do, but these items are coming directly from the factory, and we only deliver during the week.” Worse yet, she said that they only deliver to Celebration on certain weeks, and you can only find out which weeks a week or two ahead of time. Of course, none of the upcoming weeks happened to be when we would be in town.

I called Rhodes and was connected to our salesman, Anthony. He had been quite friendly and personable when we made our purchases, but now he literally started yelling at me. I was shocked, as I hadn’t even said anything nasty or adversarial. I had simply called to see what could be worked out. At the very least, I thought that my delivery charge should be refunded; that would reimburse me for the inconvenience of finding someone who could waste a day waiting for the wardrobes.

Anthony called me a liar when I said that I had been told that the furniture could be delivered on a Saturday, I reminded him that my husband was a witness, and he changed tactics and started yelling that he was new and couldn’t be expected to know that the wardrobes would be delivered by the factory, I bit my tongue, even thought I wanted to point out that it was his job to know those things. But I knew that it would accomplish nothing to let him draw me into an argument. Instead, I asked to speak to the manager. At first, he refused and kept yelling about how he was new and how the situation was my fault because I had expected him to know the delivery details. Finally I told him that if he didn’t connect me, I would simply hang up and call the manager back. He put me on hold and returned in a few minutes to announce that the delivery charge would be refunded. That didn’t change the fact that I’ll still have to arrange a weekday delivery, but at least it was some small consolation. The wardrobes are still sitting on a dock somewhere, as my weekday trips to Celebration over the past several months have never coincided with the weeks the delivery truck is in the area. I have some neighbors who can handle it, but they are out of town until the fall, so it looks like I won’t have my wardrobes any time soon.

There is one more furniture saga that is still being played out. At Haverty, which is almost right next door to Rhodes, we found the perfect entertainment center for our family room. We had to order it from a catalog, but in the photo it looked like the wood color was almost a perfect match for our coffee table. I knew that it would vary in real life, but it would be close enough to fit in with the rest of the furniture.

Haverty called when our item was ready for delivery, and they cheerfully set up a date for the very next Saturday that we’d be in town. The delivery truck showed up just a bit later than we’d be told, and certainly much more promptly than any delivery so far. When the entertainment center was set up in our family room, I saw that the wood color was even closer than it had appeared to be in the catalog. It almost looked as though we’d bought it at the same time as the other furniture. For once, was everything going to work out smoothly? Of course not!

The deliverymen said that although they assemble most of the item, we would have to install the glass shelves ourselves. Then they hightailed it out of our house. I realized that they were probably trying to get out of there before we realized that the shelves on the left side were wedged so tightly into the cabinet that it would be impossible to remove them without either breaking them or dismantling the whole side of the unit.

I called the store and arranged for someone to come out and remove the shelves. But my husband, always the tinkerer, was determined to get them out himself. I warned him to leave them alone, but he just had to keep trying. Unfortunately, the deliverymen were in such a rush that they’d installed the bridge above the television incorrectly. It came crashing down and dented the television casing. Fortunately, we hadn’t gotten our “good” t.v. yet, but I still wasn’t happy.

Now my husband finally agreed that he should have left it alone, but I was stewing about the dents on the t.v. and the gouges on the wooden bridge. Sure enough, when the repairman came out, he had to dismantle half of the entertainment center to get the shelves out. He confirmed that the bridge had not been installed correctly, and he had to order a new one because of the way the fasteners had gouged the old one. The bridge is still on order, but at least our shelves are in place. The delivery was a fiasco, but I’m still pleased at what a perfect match the piece is with the rest of our family room furniture.

Besides all the fun I’ve previously described, we had a few little items that we had to call the builder about, such as a sticking front door lock and a driveway that was slanted the wrong way for our one-way alley. But happily, all of those items were fixed promptly and to our satisfaction. The only other major problem was when we discovered that the neutral had not been hooked up to our meters. We had noticed that our lights kept strobing every time we used our new washer and dryer. We didn’t think much about it; my husband said it was probably normal, but I figured it was worth a call to the electrician. It just didn’t seem right that we should have to deal with strobe lights in a brand new house.

I reported the issue to the builder, and an electrician was duly dispatched. As soon as he located the problem, he turned off our electricity and told us to call Florida Power immediately. I don’t know anything about electricity or wiring or meters, but he said that it wouldn’t be safe to have the power on until the problem was resolved. Apparently, the neutral was dangerously loose and could have caused a fire. Florida Power sent someone out to take care of it, and being a fire paranoiac, and I shuddered that the thought that we could have easily had one.

Speaking of the washer and dryer, we also did have one delivery go pretty smoothly. We were going to shop for appliances at Home Depot, but then the world’s most annoying television commercial caught our attention. The commercial was sometimes short, and sometimes it was a half hour infomercial that we’d run across while channel surfing. We didn’t have many viewing choices, since we had no cable or satellite and were limited to what we could draw in with our dinky television set-top antenna, so sometimes we were masochistic enough to watch the infomercial for 10 minutes or more.

APPLIANCE DIRECT!! APPLIANCE DIRECT!! The two announcers, who appeared to be on some kind of major uppers, would keep shouting gleefully as they romped through a forest of appliances. THE FACTORY ISN’T OPEN ON SUNDAY, AND NEITHER ARE WE! We looked at their website, but it was pretty sparse, so we decided to visit them in person.

We located one of their stores, which was located in a former grocery store. Like the commercial, it was loaded with row after row of appliances, but thankfully the manic announcers were nowhere to be found. We did get lots of amusement, though, when we noticed that they had a coin operated model on display. My husband tried to convince me that it would be the perfect thing for house guests, but I shot down that idea.

As we browsed among the wide variety of brands and models, the salesman told us that their prices on some brands were the same as Home Depot, but that they had much better prices on others. This turned out to be true, as we discovered when we purchased a Kitchen Aid washer and dryer. When we got home, we prices the same appliances on Home Depot’s site, and we had saved a couple of hundred dollars.

The salesman said there would be a discount if we selected floor models. They had many choices among the same model, so we selected two that appeared to be in good shape except for a minor flaw in the paint. I made a note of the flaws so I could be sure that we received the same units we had selected. They were tagged for us, and delivery was arranged for the next day.

That next evening, the delivery truck pulled up (later than we’d been told, but we’d learned that was a fact of life), and the deliverymen brought in a washer and dryer. I was ready to go over them with a fine toothed comb to make sure it was the set we’d selected, but I got a pleasant surprise. We’d received brand new models from the warehouse! I don’t know why, and the deliverymen didn’t know either, but I certainly wasn’t going to argue. After all the other trauma with furniture, it was nice to have a pleasant surprise for a change.

I’m just glad that our home is just about furnished. Once we get the infamous wardrobes and a new television (which we haven’t selected yet, as I want to wait until the entertainment center is prepared), we will be done and I will breath a long sigh of relief that will probably be heard all the way to North Village.

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

The "Real" Celebration

Celebration is a special town. Maybe it’s not physically special, but there is an odd mystique that has sprung up around it. Countless news articles have been written about it, in everything from the Orlando Sentinel to the Wall Street Journal. It has been the subject of multiple books, and it even starred under the pseudonym “Jubilation” in a short story in Playboy magazine. People still write research articles about it and it still makes the news with some regularity, although not as frequently as in the early days.

Celebration is lauded by some and reviled by others. Incidents that would be considered run of the mill in any other town are big news when they happen in Celebration. The more I’ve come to know about my adopted hometown, the more I wonder why. The myth has taken on a life of its own, but it bears no relationship to the reality. I think the only people who know the "real" Celebration are the ones fortunate enough to live here. The others, who know it from what they've read or perhaps even a short visit downtown, never discover the real town beneath all the hype.

If you had never visited Celebration before and somebody blindfolded you and drove you there, you’d never be able to tell it apart from other, similar planned communities. Well, okay, maybe the logo on the street signs and manhole covers would give it away, but in terms of houses and people it’s not much different than dozens of other places.

Perhaps the expectations and beliefs sprang from the association with Disney. Because it was developed by the Mouse, perhaps people believed that Market Street would always be as squeaky clean and controlled as Main Street in the Magic Kingdom and the houses would be as tidy as the facades on Residential Street on the Disney MGM Studio backlot tour.

But Celebration is a town of real people who live there 24 hours a day, not tourists who come between specified hours. The homes and stores and streets are real. Sure, Disney used to own them once, but they sold the land for development just as countless other corporations and development companies do every day across the country. Even if Celebration sat in the exact same spot, I doubt that the media would have shown it any interest if it had formerly been Farmer Joe’s cattle ranch or its developer had been Acme Land Conglomerate or some similar faceless, generic corporation.

Of course, Disney played its brand name for all it was worth, but who can blame them? Like any other corporation, they are in the business of making money. If surrounding the launch of Celebration with hoopla will drive up demand and prices, it shouldn’t be surprising that they did what they did. After all, this is the same company who made such clunkers as Cinderella 2 and Little Mermaid 2 to squeeze extra dollars out of those franchises. Whether the commodity is cartoon characters or land, it’s not surprising that the basic business practice remains the same.

But Disney doesn’t own the land anymore, or at least not most of it. The downtown has been sold to Lexin, and the golf course was sold to a private partnership. Someday the land still controlled by The Celebration Company (i.e. Disney) will all be under new ownership and full of hotels and resorts.

If you walk down Market Street on any given day, you’ll see trash and cigarette butts on the streets, and you might hear teens cursing as they hang out near Lakeside Park. Keep looking and you’ll spot junk vehicles (although the town’s most famous junker, Skippy, an old tan Dodge Dart that used to welcome all comers right at the entrance to town, his gone now because “his” owner moved away). Drive down the residential streets and you’ll find faded paint and occasional messy yards. There is dog doo and even the occasional splotch of graffiti. If you happen to come to a construction site, you might think that you’ve inadvertently wandered into a fast food wrapper graveyard.

I don’t mean to imply that any of the above problems are rampant in Celebration. I simply mean that they do exist, no matter what the media hype and the mythical tales would have you believe. The Disney association doesn’t mean that Celebration is any more immune to real life problems than any other similar town.

Crime happens in Celebration, too, from thefts of mail to auto theft, burglary, and even armed robbery. Criminals don’t say, “Oh, wait a minute, this is that Disney town. I can’t do anything here.” The affluent demographic, coupled with the town’s proximity to major roads like 417, 192, and I-4 make it a tempting target; the nearby pixie dust of Disney World offers no special protection.

But for all its faults, I still love Celebration. Any town will have its problems, but for me the negatives are far outweighed by the positives. Some of the positive traits have nothing to do with the town itself. I’d enjoy living in any town located so close to a plethora of tourist attractions. Disney World is just one part of the Orlando/Kissimmee Tourism Juggernaut that grows larger each year. Sure, that attracts droves of people and causes traffic jams that snarl the roads for miles. But where else could I watch an Arabian horse show, watch a gator “jumperoo” show, surf in a wave pool, swim with dolphins, go on a simulated mission to Mars, fight criminals with Spiderman, do a reverse sky dive in a wind tunnel, or be shot 300 feet in the air, all within minutes of my house?

And of course there’s the famous Central Florida weather. Sure, the summers are intolerably muggy (although there’s never enough humidity to suit my husband), and during the rainy season a short but torrential downpour is a daily occurrence. But for me, that is balanced out by the wonderful, mild winters. I’ve lived all my life with snow, so if the only snowflakes I ever saw again were the soap bubbles at Disney World and in downtown Celebration, blowing in the balmy 70 degree air among the palm trees, I would be perfectly content.

But Celebration has its own special attractions. It’s a friendly, welcoming community full of people who care. They’re involved with the community and committed to making it a better place, even though they might disagree on what “better” means or the best way to accomplish it. Better to have bickering among passionate souls than to live in a place mired in apathy.

It also seems that people move to Celebration specifically because its friendly reputation, which makes it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Within weeks of closing on our home, we were closer to some of our new neighbors than we ever have been with people we’ve lived literally on top of for almost a decade. Our midwest home is in a twelve story condo building, and we were one of the first families to move in after it was built. We’ve outlasted almost everyone, and even the handful of original residents are nothing more than vaguely familiar faces to us. We say a quick hello, but I don’t even know their names or anything about them. When our condo complex was new, we used to have an annual block party. That lasted perhaps two years, and then it died out due to lack of participation. Once upon a time, elections for the condo board were hotly contested races. Now, the board literally has to beg for new members.

I hope that the same thing will never happen in Celebration. I love the block parties and the events like Founders Day, the Holiday House Walk, the Farmers Market, and the Fourth of July Parade that embody that small-town spirit. Many towns try to do things like that, but most don’t succeed. Our original hometown started a Farmers Market and put out some chairs so people can sit in the downtown area, near the fountain (a traditional one, not a cool run-through fountain like Celebration’s). But there is one big difference that embodies the thing that draws me to Celebration: In my new hometown, the rockers downtown are loose, and you can move them anywhere you want on the lakefront. In my own home town, all of the chairs are chained down to prevent theft.

No, Celebration isn’t perfect, but it’s about as close as I’ve found. Don’t believe what the media says, neither good nor bad. You’ll never know the real Celebration until you come and experience it (the whole town, not just the downtown area) for yourself.

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Smile, You're on Candid Camera!

Finally, in the end of the muggy month of August, our house had risen completely from the barren, sandy field and was ready for the final walk-through. We'd sacrified our last precious vacation day to come to Florida for the occasion. Thank goodness for Priceline; as usual, I bid on a Disney World area hotel and ended up in the Downtown Disney area for somewhere in the $65 range.

As our house was being built, we'd become intimately familiar with the Hyatt, the Hilton, and the Wyndham. We liked all three, as they were all within walking distance of Downtown Disney. Even though we had a car, sometimes it was nice to just take a stroll and have a soda at Ghirdelli's or squash soup at Wolfgang Puck's.

Because the house was now completed and locked, we could not go in and "visit" any longer. That had been the case on our last couple of trips, so on those occasions we poked around and looked in the windows like a couple of burglars, trying to get a glimpse of what the paint, carpeting, and tile looked like. One of the biggest thrills for me was when the electricity was hooked up and I discovered that the doorbell was functional. It seems totally silly now, but I got the biggest kick out of pressing the button and hearing the "ding dong." Good thing nobody ever answered or I would have had a heart attack!

By an odd coincidence, I had been sharing my experiences with our next-door neighbor to be. I met her on a Celebration discussion website, and I could tell by one of her postings that she was going to be in the same triplex. Turns out she had purchased the middle unit, which shares a wall with us. It was fun to have someone else to share the excitement and long wait via email. The internet is an amazing thing...what are the odds that I would run into my future neighbor online? The neighbor who purchased the other end unit remained a mystery, although the builder did tell us that she was a cruise director. That was of great interest to my husband and I, as we are absolute cruise fanatics.

We arrived early for the walk-through, and so did the builder's representative. He was the person who had overseen the construction of our home, so he was very knowledgeable. Normally, if you are in the area, he walks through the house with you at various points throughout the process. Unfortunately, since we were making our purchase long distance, we didn't have the opportunity to do that. But on our weekend visits, we had been satisfied with what we saw of the construction and craftsmanship. We had considered hiring a building inspector, but eventually we made the decision to take our chances.

We had read the many contruction horror stories about the early days of Celebration, but I suspected that 1) they were probably somewhat exaggerated; and 2) even if they weren't, surely things had improved in almost a decade. Our builder, Cambridge, had not even been involved in the initial villages, and they had a lot of experience building in Florida. I knew that was a plus; some of the biggest problems I'd read about occurred with the townhomes built by a company based in Oakbrook, Illinois, that had absolutely no experience dealing with the special needs of Florida's climate.

Our real estate agents had also come for moral support. They had been visiting our home site and sending along occasional photos, and now we had finally reached the big day. I still found it hard to believe that we had come so close to buying a condo, and now I was going to have my nice little house and yard, with the bonus of a porch that was just itching to have a swing hung on it.

My husband had brought his video camera to record all of the relevant details. I knew that we'd be getting a lot of information tossed at us in a short amount of time, and there would be no way to remember it all. Taping the walk-through seemed to be the best way to preserve it. That way, when we needed to know something important, like where the water shut-off or some electrical circuit is located, all we'd have to do is pop in the tape and fast forward.

I was a little concerned, as hubby had forgotten to charge the battery before our wedding, which means we have all of about five minutes of our nuptials on tape. Apparently he had learned from his mistake, as this time around he had charged the battery and brought a spare.

Our home is relatively small (a little under 1500 square feet), so I was amazed at the amount of detail involved. There were lots of Florida-specific things to keep in mind, such as pouring Simple Green through the pipe by the air conditioner to prevent mold and other icky things from building up. Instead of a traditional furnace, we had something called a "heat pump (I'm still not sure how it works, but it definitely kept us toasty on the cold nights that winter). There were fail safes in case the hot water tank, which was upstairs in the closet, overflowed, and strange safety systems involved with the outlets and fuses. Our home also had some peculiarities; for some obscure reason, it was considered a commercial building under the building code, so the standards were somewhat different than the ones for a "regular" single family home.

Our appliances were like something out of the Jetsons, particularly the flat top electric range. The last new home we purchased was nearly ten years before, and apparently household appliances have come a long way since then. The refrigerator was the one item that took the most getting used to, as the freezer was on the bottom instead of at the top. I was also pleased that it had an automatic ice maker, although I soon learned that's a necessity in Florida.

That's about all I can remember without referring back to the videotape. Good thing we recorded it all! There were a few minor things to add to the punch list for fixing. Most were typical, like a non-functioning electrical outlet, but the most unusual was a mismatched cabinet door in the kitchen. The incorrect door was so close to the others that you really had to look hard to spot the difference. But once you did, it was obvious (squared corners on the inlay instead of rounded).

Once the walk-through was over, I could feel my sense of excitement building to an almost intolerable level. The wait hadn't seemed so bad when we were 1500 miles away, and even when we had visited, seeing a building under construction wasn't so tantilizing. Now, seeing it in perfect, pristine, ready-to-move-in condition had brought the reality home. It was the home of our dreams, and it was almost ours! It was so hard to go back to a hotel room when that gorgeous home was sitting there empty.

Worse yet, once we did the closing by mail, we wouldn't actually get to spend our first night in the house until a couple of weeks later. Since our vacation days had run out, we were waiting until Labor Day weekend to return. That way, we'd at least be able to have an extra day to relax. A weekend goes by much too fast, but we'd have Monday too. We knew it would be rustic, since the furniture wasn't coming for a while, but what the heck...it would be OURS.

Little did we know that furniture was going to be a whole new experience, opening the door to a special hell that we never knew existed.

Next time...the Real Celebration, followed by Furniture Hell

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Details, Details, Details

Although I had thought it would seem like forever, closing time was rapidly approaching for our new home. I needed to take care of innumerable little details, like house insurance, utility hook-ups, and furniture (since we'd be living in two places at once for a while, our Celebration digs would have to be furnished pretty much from scratch).

The phone was the first detail I was able to take care of, thanks to the wonderful world of cell phones. It seemed silly to have a land line, especially when we'd be traveling back and forth between two states. So I simply got a cell phone with a 407 area code and a Kissimmee exchange, and our phone number was established before our house was even completed. Next was a mailing address; a post office box did the trick. Now we were Florida "residents," at least in spirit, able to receive telephone calls and mail. Unfortunately, in reality we still had a couple of months to wait for a roof over our head.

In Florida, natural gas is not a necessity as it is in colder climates, although a few homes have it. Ours was 100 percent electric, so that was one less worry. But of course we'd need water, and we ended up getting a land line phone for DSL internet access. Once we got the phone installed and working, it took me a long time to learn the phone number since I never called it or gave it out to anyone. I think I would have had a heart attack if it ever rang once we moved in!

The biggest challenge of all was finding a place that would write us a homeowners insurance policy. Apparently, the possibility of hurricanes makes insurers quite gun shy, even as far inland as Celebration. Couple that with the fact that we were new to Florida and would be commuting for a while before we were permanent, 100 percent of the time residents, and no one wanted to touch us.

The clock was ticking down to the closing date, and I really began to think that we weren't going to find insurance. I have no idea what would have happened, and thankfully I didn't have to find out. After calling dozens of agencies and posting frantic queries on the internet, I found an agency (ironically, located right in Celebration) that was able to get us a decent policy with a decent company at a decent price.

Our other challenge was the logistics of setting up a long distance closing. With all our visits to our house while it was being built, we had run out of vacation days again. We actually had one left, but we were saving it for the walk through, which had to be done on a weekday. We had thought about hiring a building inspector, but in all visits, the workmanship looked pretty decent so we decided we'd be safe doing it ourselves. There are a lot of construction horror stories that come out of Celebration, but oddly enough, most of them concern the higher priced builders and the expensive homes, not the modest little bungalows.

Just like the walk through, a closing on a Saturday is too much of a fantasy even for the home of Mickey Mouse and Fantasy Land, so we arranged to do it all via mail and phone. But the trick is, you don't really know the exact amount of funds that will be required at closing until something like 10 seconds beforehand. Then the money has to be wired over so the transaction can proceed.

I was getting a little nervous about making sure that everything was perfectly coordinated. But I was having some fun, too, as my husband and I were using our weekend visits to hunt for furniture for our new home. Since the model had been an exact duplicate, we knew the measurements and had a pretty good idea of what the rooms would look like. There were a few minor differences. For example, in the model, the front room was open, whereas it would have French doors in our home. The model had wood cabinets, but ours would be white. And the model featured garish wallpaper that would surely have awakened the dead if you'd brought a swatch to the cemetery, but our walls would be white just like the woodwork.

One day while we were poking around the model, a pair of woman waltzed in. They were apparently Celebration residents, and I don't know if they lived in estate homes or what, but they looked around the little triplex in utter disdain. One sniffed to the other, "I can't believe this is a house! I just can't imagine how someone could live in such a tiny place." I bit my tongue, comforted in the knowledge that Miss Snooty would probably drown next time it rained anyway because surely the Florida downpour would overwhelm her upturned nose. To this day, I still joke that we are the triplex trailer trash of Celebration (and I'm sure Miss Snooty would agree 100 percent).

In our travels, we had learned the location of the Florida Mall and the countless furniture stores leading up to it. That would take care of the main furniture for the kitchen, family room, and master bedroom. We also found the addresses of some futon stores located quite a bit farther away. We knew it would be worth the journey because we wanted a large selection. We planned on putting a futon in the front room and second bedroom to accommodate the house guests that almost instantly descend on every new Florida resident. We figured we could get everything ordered; in stock items could be held until closing, and we wouldn't be in a big hurry for things that had to be ordered from the factory, since furniture is notoriously slow. Many years ago, I worked for a furniture store, and "6 to 8 weeks" really translates to "You'll be lucky if you see it three months from now."

Our home was looking more and more "real," although we could no longer go inside it because it was complete enough to require the door to be locked. It was interesting to see how the outside facade evolved. We were told that it was originally going to be a Colonial style, but that it was switched to Craftsman for some reason. I'm glad, as the Colonials don't have a front porch, just stairs, which would mean I couldn't have the porch swing I'd always dreamed of. Then we were told that it would be gray with blue trim, but it ended up being beige with green doors. Then...oops!! Turns out the doors were supposed to be blue, not green, so they were abruptly repainted. Personally, I kind of liked the green, but it was probably some color-combination violation of the Celebration Pattern Book.

I ordered our window treatments in advance; I am very obsessive-compulsive about certain things, and temporary blinds drive me crazy. Thankfully, we found a blinds company that worked with our builder a lot, so they would be able to come in and do the measurements before we closed.

In order to decide the exact type of blinds we wanted, we drove around to other triplexes, checked them out, and took photos. I think I freaked some of their residents out. One lady watched me from her doorway, but she never actually came out to ask what I was up to. Maybe she thought I was some crazed tourist. I'm sure I looked like one in my rental camera, fanny pack firmly cinched around my waist and camera in hand. But seeing various window treatments in homes just like ours was a big help. We were able to get pictures that approximated almost exactly what I was envisioning.

As the closing date approached, it looked like the house would be ready just in the nick of time. There would have to be a final inspection in addition to the walk-through, and the timeframe was tight. We set up the walk-through, and hubby had a great idea. He decided to tape it so we'd never have to wonder, "What the heck did they say this valve does?" Now, it was just a matter of days...the video camera was charged and we were ready to get our first glimpse of our new home in its final state of glory.

Next time...Smile, you're on Candid Camera!

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

The Long Wait

Now that we had finally purchased the perfect home in the perfect town, we were in for a long, long wait. Actually, it wasn't so bad because we weren't under any time constraints. We knew we wouldn't be able to move to Florida immediately and permanently anyway, so we had more patience than most new home buyers who are anxiously waiting to relocate.

It was a bit difficult to know that construction was going on 1500 miles away, and we couldn't be there in person to watch our "baby" grow. This was eased somewhat by our real estate agents, who mailed us occasonal progress photos, and to a kind neighbor-to-be who took pictures nearly every week, which he posted on a web page for us.

Every time he posted new shots, I eagerly logged on to see the vacant lot turn into a foundation, and then to watch the steadily rising walls. Once the structure was in place, it morphed from a skeleton to a roofed and fleshed out building that was starting to look like a real home. Inside, tile, carpet, and appliances were added it as it edged closer to completion. Exterior paint, and then landscaping, finally completed the picture.

We were also very fortunate to be able fly down for a visit every few weeks or so. I am a big fan of Priceline, as I don't mind letting William Shatner choose which hotel I stay at or which rental car company I use. I booked resort-level hotels in the Lake Buena Vista/Downtown Disney area for around $65 a night. I also snagged rental cars so we could drive around Celebration, poke around the construction site, and get to know our soon-to-be neighborhood a little better.

There was so much contruction going on in East Village that it had changed substantially every time we saw it. Some of the homes sprang up in what seemed like mere weeks. Where empty land had been when we initially signed our contract, we now saw houses with people living in them. Every now and then, we would see another family that, like ourselves, appeared to be visiting a place that was under construction, dreaming of a bright and not-too-far-away future.

Each time we visited, we brought our camera and took a new batch of photos. Between those and the website pictures, we had more photos of our house than some people take of their children. When we purchased our condo back north, we didn't have a similar sense of excitement. Even though we visited the construction site a few times, we never bothered to bring our camera. Sure, we were happy about buying a new place, but in a low-key sort of way. After all, we were only moving half an hour away, simply to be closer to our jobs.

We didn't choose our Midwest condo we fell in love with it; we chose it for convenience. We didn't find it through a set of cosmic circumstances. We found it after endless weekends of hunting for a place that was decent, roomy, and that fit into our budget. It met our needs, but there was no emotional attachment.

Celebration was different. This time, we chose the town, and even the state. We knew that our future home was the right place for us because of the way things had turned out. We already felt right at home in Florida, even while we were just visiting and living out of hotel rooms. When we were done visiting our house, we would drive around aimlessly in our rental car, learning the streets, the stores, and the neighborhoods. We also explored the various expressways, including I-4, 417, and 528.

In the past, when we visited Florida strictly for vacation, we had never rented a car. Still, over time, I had apparently developed a vague sense of direction from being there so often. I thought I would have no clue on how to get anywhere if I actually had to drive myself, but when I started driving, I was pleasantly surprised.

I quickly built a new sense of confidence as I learned the lay of the land. I was also getting used to Florida drivers, an eclectic mix of tourists, elderly people, and I-don't-give-a-damn locals. I got used to the fact that U-turns out of left turn lanes are legal, but it was much more challenging to learn to predict the behavior patterns of my fellow drivers. Apparently, if you are in the far right lane and want to turn left, it is perfectly acceptable to abruptly and without warning cut across all the lanes. Making a sudden stop in any lane is also fine, and even common. After all, it's hard to read your map while driving, and the people behind you won't mind the delay (not to mention slamming on their brakes). I soon became immune to these and other driving challenges.

Celebration has its own set of driving rules too. Apparently, in the local language, "Stop" means "Pause if you feel like it, but probably you should just rush through without slowing down." That's certainly how people react when they come to a stop sign in town. The posted speed limit is 25, but in reality it tends to be either 10 (lost tourists) or 50 (locals). Being a foolish Northerner, I abide by the posted numbers, which results in almost constantly being tailgated.

But all of the driving was enjoyable, and we learned more and more about Celebration, Kissimmee, Orlando, and the surrounding communities. Most people think of Orlando as Tourist Land, and they don't think of Kissimmee at all. But in reality, only a few miles away from all the Disney glitz and the many parasitic attractions, there are miles of cow pastures and farmland. It was a surprise to me to learn that Florida is prime cattle country.

We also learned about some attractions that most people never seen, or even here of, like the Disney Wilderness Preserve. We haven't made it there yet, but it's nice to know that there are places where nature still rules.

Even though our home wasn't done yet, we'd already started feeling like residents of Celebration. Every weekend we were there, we had lunch at the Market Street Cafe, and I battled the tropical heat with many scoops of ice cream from Herman's and iced coffess from Barnie's. We'd spent lots of time on the walking paths, and we'd visited every shop in the downtown area more times than I can count. It felt good to absorb that small-town atmosphere, and every time we visited, it simply reconfirmed that we had made the right choice.

Late August was the scheduled completion date, and time was inching along slowly but surely. As it loomed closer, I knew there were plenty of technical details to take care of.

Next time...Details, details, details

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

A Disney-Style Ending

Since Disney is so closely associated with Celebration, I suppose it's only fitting that our story had a Disney-style happy ending. When we returned home to the Midwest, I started doing some research into Florida real estate contracts. In Florida, there is a very strict waiting period until a condominium purchase becomes final. Technically we were already past that period.

But the law also requires that the purchaser be able to review all the documents and restrictions during that period to help them make their decision. Oops! In our case, we had not been able to review all of the required material because of the missing binder.

They say there is a reason for everything, and now I finally saw the cosmic purpose as to why the covenants were never sent. By law, our waiting period had not started ticking until we picked up the binder, so we were still within the cancellation period. Somebody Upstairs was watching out for us!

Needless to say, we pointed this fact out to the condo builder. They really didn't have much choice; under the law, they had to allow us to cancel the contract and to refund our down payment.

We immediately signed a contract for the triplex unit in East Village. We knew that we wanted an end unit, and we had our choice of either side since none of the units in the building were sold yet. It was a hard choice, but we ended up choosing the right hand unit because it had a single garage (the other end would share its garage building with the middle unit, although each would have its own driveway and the individual garages would be separated by a wall).

The only sad thing was that the units had already been designated as "inventory homes," meaning that the options, colors, etc. had already been chosen. Thankfully, our unit was going to be done in all neutral colors (beige tile and carpet, white walls and cabinets), so that wasn't a problem. The unit we chose would also be the only one to have French doors in the front room, a feature that appealed to me. That room is normally left totally open, but I liked being able to close it off. If we had a lot of out of town visitors, it could double as an extra bedroom.

This was quite a change! In the space of three months we'd gone from not even being in the market for a new home to putting a contract on a condo long distance, and then to switching mid-stream and suddenly buying a house in the two-hour lapse of waiting for our flight. Whew!

Of course, at that point, our "home" was only a sand lot with a wooden marker and lots of deer tracks. But it was fun to imagine what it would be someday. The slated completion time was August, which was fine with us since we still had our home back north and no firm plans on what we were going to do.

Since the triplex model was identical to our future home, we were able to take plenty of photos and measurements to help us with our decorating plans. Now we would begin seven months of dreaming and planning for our Celebration home-to-be. With all the odd circumstances leading up to its purchase, we just knew that it was meant to be ours.

Next time...FL Culture Shock

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

Finding Home Sweet Home

Now that we had made the decision to purchase a home in Celebration, and to do it sooner rather than later due to rising prices, we faced a new challenge. We had to find the perfect place while being stuck 1500 miles away. As a further complication, we wouldn't have any more vacation days for the next three months.

I am a "yard person" who loves to plant and tend flowers and create a nice little outdoor environment. I also love a porch or backyard swing, and maybe even a fountain and bird bath to round out my relaxation space.

Unfortunately, because we couldn't make an immediate, permanent move, we needed a place where the exterior ofthe buildings and the landscaping would be taken care of for us. On the surface, it would seem like a townhouse would be the perfect answer. I'd have my little patch of land, but a landscaping service would take care of the major chores and our association dues would pay for painting, roofing, and the like.

But although the townhomes in Celebration are lovely and huge (some with three full stories of living space, as well as a separate apartment over the garage), they have an enormous price tag, too. Since we had done no pre-planning, financial or otherwise, we were somewhat limited on funds, and the townhomes were out of our price range. There were some condos on which construction had just started, but when we were in town, there was no model yet. All that existed was bare land and and a few newly laid foundations.

Still, from the information we could glean via the internet, the condos seemed to be within our price range. I wouldn't have my garden or swing, but at least I'd have a little balcony where I could still put some type of fountain, some plants, and perhaps a couple of rockers. It might not be my dream home, but at least we'd have a place in Celebration.

The next step was to locate a Realtor. Being an internet person who does nearly everything online, I rapidly began looking up real estate agencies in Celebration and shooting out a barrage of emails. I was hoping to make a knowledgeable contact who could either confirm my choice of a condo or let me know if there was something else available that would be more appropriate.

At that point, my only knowledge of the different types of homes came from a brief visit to the Preview Center, and I was hazy on the concept of the different villages. I had no idea that there was so much informaton to absorb, and there was precious little available online. Thre are websites with lots of generalities, but nothing specifically aimed at newbies, and often the information is glaringly out of date.

Oddly enough, none of the real estate agencies answered my messages. I did eventually get one response, but unfortunately it was after we had already gone forward with a condo purchase on our own...but that's getting ahead of the story. I was really surprised to get only one answer, since we were a Realtor's dream: A couple who was already committed to moving to Celebration. The only thing remaining was to the select a home and sign on the dotted line. I doubt that commissions come much easier than that!

I was sorry that the Realtor who responded did so after we had already initiated the condo purchase on our own. We had really hoped to deal with someone local to represent our interests. It made me a little nervous to be so far away and handling everything via computer and the phone.

I did as much research as I could before proceeding with the condo purchase. Although I would have preferred to look at a model in person, it wasn't an absolute necessity. We knew we were moving to Celebration and we'd pretty much figured that we would have to go with a condo due to financial restraints. My husband and I prefer new contruction, so we were pleased that we'd be able to buy something brand new. All that remained was to choose a floor plan and location.

We contacted the builder directly, reviewed several floor plans via the internet and snail mail, and selected the type of builing we preferred. We liked the four unit buildings and knew that we wanted to be upstairs. Now it was only a matter of choosing the particular building location.

We weren't locked into a particular timeframe for moving in, and we knew that we didn't want to live right on Celebration Avenue because I hate high-traffic locations. Over the phone, we selected a building across from Spring Park, a few blocks off the main thoroughfare. Only one of the two upstairs units was available, so the choice was already made for us. We executed the contract, sent off the down payment, and our Celebration was one step closer to reality.

There remained only one slight glitch. I was really itching to see the famous "Rules and Covenants" that had achieved so much notariety in almost everything written about Celebration. I was told they would be sent to me along with our contract, and soon two thick binders showed up in the mail. One was full of condo restrictions, and the other...well, it contained the same thing! Instead of the covenants, we had received two identical copies of the condo documents.

How could I be denied?! Would I never see the list of rules and restrictions by which we were committing ourselves to abide? Perhaps the conspiracy theory people were right and the town really was patrolled by a gestapo. They didn't want me to know until it was too late and we'd already moved in. Then I'd wake up one morning to find my porch rockers gone because there weren't the right shade of white.

I made a few calls to the condo office, but I was put off each time. It's hard to make too much of a nusience of yourself when you are over one thousand miles away, so no covenants were forthcoming. I had to content myself with pouring over the property diagrams and trying to picture where our future home would be located based on my sketchy memory of the Spring Park area. I also wiled away the hours making photocopies of the floor plan and sketching in various arrangements of furniture.

Meanwhile, the New Year 2003 dawned bright (and cold, at least where we were), bringing with it a new round of vacation days. My husband and I planned a dual purpose trip to Celebration: visit our new condo, or at least the foundation and the sand lot where it would one day stand, and to finally get those precious and ultra-secret rules and covenants. It was hard to believe that on our last trip, less than three months earlier, we hadn't even been thinking about buying a home as the plane touched down in Florida. Now here we were with a new place under contract!

When we arrived in town, we were amazed at how much progress had been made on the condo buildings. Ours was still in its initial stages, but we were able to see some identical buildings that already had second floors in place. We poked through the contruction site, ignoring the warning signs, and snapped photo after photo like pround parents documenting the birth of their child. Then we picked up the missing binder...finally! The condo office was closed, but they had left it at a real estate office next door, so I still didn't get to meet the sales representative in person.

Alas, I was rather disappointed at the covenants, which turned out to be quite mundane. I was expecting strictness to the point of insanity, but they were pretty much what I would expect to find in any planned community. I know of trailer parks in the Midwest that have stricter regulations (one turned down a friend of ours because he owns a Harley and they didn't want "his kind" moving in).

We spent most of our time getting to know the greater Orlando/Kissimmee area, since it would soon be our home. At the end of our trip, we returned to Celebration a couple of hours before our flight to take one last look around. We had never managed to find the bungalow models on our first visit, so this time we were determined to locate them. Since bungalows are the least expensive single family homes, I was curious to see what a little more money would have gotten for us.

We had the vague knowledge that the bungalow models were on a street called Nash, but that could have been the moon as far as our directional sense was concerned. At that point, we were only vaguely aware of the fact that Celebration is made up of "villages" and that our condo would be in South Village. We wandered in the general direction of East Village, and although we didn't find the models, we did stumble across a bungalow Open House.

Since we didn't have much time to spare before leaving for the airport, we decided that the Open House would have to suffice. I went poking around the property while my husband, who is not nearly as enthralled with models as I am, starting chatting with the real estate agents. By the time I had made my way through the cute little home, he had told them what we were looking for. They were a husband and wife team, and the husband said, "I have just what you're looking for! Do you have time to take a ride?"

We're adventurous, and we still had a bit of time, so we figured, "What the heck!" We hopped into his vehicle and headed over to Nash, where he showed us an attached bungalow model. It was something I would have called a townhome, but that's not the proper term in Celebration-speak. Although we hadn't seen any information in the Preview Center on those particular models, we learned that there are triplexes and duplexes in addition to the free-standing bungalows. The model was an end unit in a cute little Craftsman-style triplex building.

As it turned out, this was just what we had been looking for. It was a nice little place with a back yard, as well as a tiny bit of land out front, outside maintenance was included in the monthly fee. The Craftsman model had a porch that was large enough for a swing, and I could fit in a couple of rockers too. Best of all, unlike the regular townhomes, the attached bungalow actually fit into our budget. It was a little more than the condo, but if we struggled a bit, we could swing it.

Next, we were shuttled into East Village and shown a large vacant patch of land where one of the last new-construction triplexes was scheduled to be built that summer. It was an absolutely super location, on a cul de sac across the street from a little park-like area. It was much quieter and less trafficked than the spot where our condo would soon be standing. The large wouldn't be large enough for a pool, but we were within walking distance of the newly constructed East Village pool, and Spring Park and Lakeside Park were only a short bike ride away.

We knew that the triplex would fit our needs almost to the letter. As I had suspected when I initially looked for a Realtor, the experience of a professional really came in handy. Unfortunately, it had come a bit too late. We were locked into the condo contract, which we had signed over a month earlier. The cancellation period was over, and we couldn't afford to lose the hefty down payment.

Were we doomed to live in the condo and to bike wistfully to East Village to gaze at the home that should have been ours for the rest of our days? Would I have to continually mourn just how close I had come to getting my back yard, flowers, and porch swing? Or would a bit of the pixie dust from nearby Disney World somehow float over and save the day?

Next time...a happy ending.

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com

A Spontaneous Decision

Celebration is a town like any other, not the magical, mythical place of popular lore. But there must be a bit of magic somewhere. How else can you explain the number of people who make a spontaneous decision to move here? Some literally give up their jobs, pack up their families, and move in with nothing more than the possessions they can cram into a moving van. I would have happily been among them, but for financial reasons, my husband and I had to take it a bit more slowly.

We didn't take the plunge until 2002, but Celebration has actually been around since 1994, albeit as a barren patch of ground with a sales trailer and the Ghost of Towns Yet to Come looming over it. I won't go into all the hoopla surrounding the initial sales kick-off and the lottery for the very first homes. There has been enough written about that already. Although it has reached mythic proportions, it has since been overshadowed by the kick-off of other, similar developments.

I had heard about Celebration for years, and somehow the idea of living there had always appealed to me, even sight unseen. Of course, both my husband and I are major Disney fans. We progressed from visiting Disney World once or twice a year early in our marriage to buying annual passes and flying out to Florida as often as possible.

When Disney Cruise Line was launched in 1998, we altered our passion slightly and became frequent cruisers, sailing half a dozen times a year or more. Our park visits dropped off as the cost-cutting measures began to rise and the effects at Disney World became more evident. Fortunately, the cruise line kept up the quality.

Even though we'd visited Kissimmee dozens of times, we'd never made it over to Celebration. I don't like to drive when I'm on vacation, so we always used a towncar from Happy Limo to get to our hotel. We stayed on Disney World property and relied on their internal transportation system to hop around to the various parks. For our cruises, we took a towncar to and from Port Canaveral, and we took the Mears shuttle for visits to Universal Studio and Islands of Adventure.

Since we were spending so much time in Florida, we often discussed the possibility of moving there for good. I am a wimp when it comes to heat, but my husband likes it hot and muggy. For him, the steamier the better. Each time we flew out for another visit, I would watch as the towncar headed down I-4 or 417 and the neighborhoods zoomed by. I saw stucco-sided condos and rows of cookie cutter houses with pools and Florida rooms. I wondered if one of those neighborhoods would be our future home, and I dared to dream of a quaint little Florida room with a swimming pool and a lush garden. But I always thought that the dream would be many years distant.

On one of our Disney cruises in late 2000 or early 2001, I chatted with a woman who lived in Celebration while we were both relaxing in the Tropical Rainforest sauna room. I told her I'd often dreamed of living there, but I was sure that it was far too expensive. She said, "Oh, no, the prices are quite reasonable!"

I guess we all have different ideas of "reasonable," but since she didn't define the word, I thought that maybe my impression was wrong. Who knows...maybe Celebration was at least somewhat affordable. She regaled me with stories of relaxing downtown by the lake in a rocking chair or enjoying the pools on a hot summer day. I filed all this information somewhere in the back of my mind. It wasn't a priority, but I knew that someday my husband and I would be taking a look at the "Disney Town."

As luck would have it, in October of 2001 my employer sent me to a conference held at Disney World, in the Swan and Dolphin hotels. My husband still had some spare vacation days, so he flew down to join me and we extended our trip over the weekend. I bid on Priceline for a hotel, and we ended up at the Marriott World Center. This meant that, for once, I was forced to drive.

We knew that the home office for Disney Cruise Line was located in Celebration, and with all cruises we were taking, we were quite curious about it. We decided to take a drive by and check it out. Since we were there, we decided to drive into town and finally see this quaint slice of Americana that people in the media seemed to either love or hate.

We spent some time driving around, just soaking up the character of the town. I'd heard the usual rumors about Celebration and how the home styles and colors were stringently controlled. This didn't jibe with the lovely mix of architecture that we saw, nor the beautiful gardens and the eclectic mix of yard decor. We saw everything from quaint gingerbread Victorians with homey porches to Spanish style mansions to a house that could have doubled for the Bates motel.

Many people claim that Celebration is a throwback to the towns that used to exist in the 1950s and 1960s, but I don't really think so. I grew up in one of those towns, and it was quite different. For one thing, Celebration's business and residential districts are quite separate. In the old neighborhoods, there was a corner store (and often a tavern) every few blocks so you never had to run too far for a newspaper, bread, or milk (and Dad could always stop for a quick beer on the way home from work).

Also, those old towns certainly didn't have common areas and parks like Celebration's. Sure, there was usually a community park, but not countless little spreads of well manicured public land every few blocks. The downtown district of those old towns had businesses like pharmacies, hardware stores, and mom and pop groceries that catered to the residents. Sure, Celebration has a Gooding's Grocery downtown, but it bears no resemblence to a traditional supermarket, and the other businesses are mostly geared to tourists.

No, Celebration is not an old town teleported forward in time. It is its own place, with its very own character and personality. The one parallel with the old towns is a strong sense of community, but that has nothing to do with the phyiscal make-up. I think that friendliness and community spirit are something people bring with them because it's one of the reasons that many of them move here.

After circling Celebration Boulevard and Celebration Avenue a couple of time, and being stopped by an endless parade of golf carts crossing the road, we found our way to the Preview Center. This was the place where you could get information on the various home types. It also featured an impressive model of Celebration and an enthusiastic promotional video.

Originally, the Preview Center was located in the "tower" building downtown, but by the time we came around, it had been moved to a house just off Celebration Avenue. The original building now houses a Bank of America branch.

The center is pretty much defunct now, as sales have moved over to Artisan Park, the last area to be developed, way down at the end of Celebration Avenue. But at that time, the center was still in full swing, and most of the model homes were located nearby.

We poked around the models, but when we saw the prices, I realized that the woman I met on the cruise definitely had a different definition of affordability than I did. Still, it was fun to check things out. We were hoping to see the bungalows, which are the cheapest single family homes, but they were located in Roseville Corner, adjacent to East Village. Since we had no idea where that was, we never found them. We just checked out the models that we could find on foot near the center.

We were told that a new development (which is what eventually became Artisan Park) was going to be added soon, and that although it would be aimed at people aged 55 and over, there would be no specific age restriction. It was going to have condominiums and townhomes, which might be closer to our price range, so we thought that perhaps we would return in a year or two to check it out.

We were glad that the new development was a few years down the road, since we weren't quite ready to make the plunge yet. Heck, before we'd come to town, moving to Florida was still a vague dream, perhaps as far off as retirement. But somehow Celebration had shifted that dream to a more immediate context. We had only visited, and we were trying to work out how we could move there sooner rather than later. We had no interest in looking at other neighborhoods. Somehow we instinctively knew that Celebration was the place for us.

We did some bumming around downtown, enjoying the lakefront rockers and marveling at the "old-fashioned" movie theater (only two screens), ice cream shop, and Art Deco-style diner. It was touristy rather than authentic small-towny, right down to the Muzak piped into the streets. But however corny some people might find it, we immediately fell in love. We spent some time on the walking trails, which lead out of the crowded, tourist-heavy downtown area and into the residential streets. We soaked up the atmosphere, and somehow the spell that had snared many others before us was taking over our rational brains.

By the time we had to leave to catch our flight home, we were trying to figure out how we might buy a home in Celebration as soon as possible. To this day, I still don't know how "retirement," which had moved to "a few years down the road," suddently became "right now." But somehow it did, and we've never regretted that spontaneous decision. I think a large part of it was that we realized that soon we'd be priced right out of the market. Even with new condos going up within a few years, I strongly suspected that their prices would be much, much more than the going rate in 2001 (indeed, time proved me to be correct).

So somehow, without even really discussing it, my husband and I made the decision that we were going to buy a place in Celebration, and soon. To heck with the fact that our jobs had us tied to the Midwest, not to mention that we had no idea how we might handle it financially. We're not poor, but neither are we independently wealthy, and we work very hard to finance our frequent vacations. And of course house hunting might be a bit of a challenge, since I had run out of vacation days for the year.

But we were determined not to let these minor hurdles stop us. Just when we least expected it, our quest to become Celebration residents had somehow begun.

Next time...hunting for a home long distance.

Learn more about Celebration on my website: www.celebrationinfo.com