We made it!

We moved! Today David officially started a Master of Public Health program at the University of South Florida. Although we may be Hoosiers at heart, we are super excited to begin a new life as Floridians. We moved to a town about 20-25 mins north of Tampa, called Land O' Lakes. That's right, Land "O" Lakes. BTW - You should have heard me try to explain the "o" in the name to the HR help desk rep at Roche this week.

Me: "Okay the city is Land O' Lakes, Florida."
HR rep: "Landa what?"
Me: "It's three words. Land - O - Lakes."
HR rep: "O? Like Oh?"
Me: "No, 'o' like the letter."
HR rep (in a tone of complete disbelief): "Just the letter, 'o'... are you sure?"
Me: "Yup, Land O' Lakes - just like the butter."
HR rep (finally convinced and now laughing): "Yeah, Land O' Lakes. I like that butter."

*Just in case you wanted to know, the butter is from Minnesota, not Florida. The name is coincidental. However we are finding that referencing the butter helps people from states other than Florida understand the city name. There really are dozens of lakes here, but not like Minnesota...

Land O' Lakes is fab! Honestly, we did not expect to like Florida as much as we have so far. Granted, it has only been 9 days... but it has been great fun. Naomi and Eliza especially love the neighborhood pool and playground. Our neighborhood is full of cute families with little kids who ride bikes and scooters on our cul-de-sac every night. (Of course, the girls now really want big kid bikes to ride...)

We decided to post a few pics of the last few days so you all can see how much fun it is to be in Florida!

Eliza and Naomi in the front yard

Z and Na, cheesing it up

Eliza(on right) says, "I think we should hold hands..."

Silly girls.

Hugging sisters :)

Naomi helped me make sugar cookies for Nan, who is coming tomorrow. She loves sitting on the counter and "helping". She kept trying to make her Woody doll stir the dough.

Here are a few shots from our trip down to Florida. It took us about 17 hrs, which we did in 2 days. It was a looooooong trip. I would never recommend moving yourself even if David did look really freaking awesome driving a 24ft Budget truck. hehe. This pic is Naomi, who was super-psyched to move to Florida. I had to explain to her no less than 15 times that we were not moving to Walt Disney World. I think she pictured living in the Cinderella castle.

Here she is again, showing her Mickey doll the view out the hotel window. Mickey never left her side throughout the entire trip.