The Key Lime Pie Miracle

So there we were, in sunny Florida, still grinning and laughing from being at an amazing wedding and dancing the night away.  Dancing together will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Back home, our friends were trapped in ice and most of our family's flights were delayed until the next day.  How great was it that we were "stuck" in Florida?!  Sunday was going to be a great day, I was sure of it.

Well, that was until we ended up looking at three houses that were in the ghetto of Jacksonville.  I had very little luck with three (yes, three) realtors pointing us in the right direction.  We were really discouraged and were wondering if we could really make a life in Jacksonville, Florida.

We checked in to our hotel and snacked during their afternoon reception.  Neither of us were particularly good company, and we were really discouraged.

BUT...I suggested we push the reset button, go to dinner, and try tohave a nice time.  I also informed AMP that I'd be getting dessert.  (We don't typically get dessert when we go out, because, you know...our self-imposed budget.)  But a reset button called for dessert.  I was happily going to go with Blue Bell Ice Cream, as I was just glad to see it on the menu.  (Dr Pepper isn't offered as a fountain drink too often in Florida, so I was happy to see something very Texan.)

Adam suggested we share Key Lime Pie, and I figured that we couldn't go wrong with it, considering we were just six hours north of the Florida Keys, home of Key Limes.  (Seems logical, right?)

Let me tell you, this Key Lime Pie was the best reset button.  We laughed.  We enjoyed our pie.  And we were smiling again.  It was a miracle.

We talked with our waitress, who was in grad school for Marine Biology and was about our age.   I asked her if she could point us in the direction of some better areas, and she confirmed that not all of Jacksonville was, in fact, ghetto.

We left the restaurant in better spirits than when we arrived, and fell asleep fast in our hotel room.  Adam couldn't sleep at 5 a.m., so he got up to do some online research on the city.  He looked up good neighborhoods, crime rates and Google satellite maps.  By the time I woke up at 8 a.m., he had a plan and a few houses to look at that seemed promising.

We headed out with a new plan, a new outlook and smiles on our faces.  First, we stopped at the school so that I could see it.  We got a little "mini tour" by an administrator who told us we looked lost.  :-)  She was darling.  And then we headed out to look at houses.

We quickly ran across a neighborhood where women were out running alone, cars were not parked up and down every street, and Pawn shops weren't a regular occurrence.  We were breathing easier!

We found a house on a cul-de-sac that we would've rented without even stepping foot inside.  From the photos online and what we saw peeking through the windows, we were ready to move in.  Unfortunately, the timing wasn't quite right, so we probably won't end up there, but it gave us hope in finding an area that we liked.

After a few more houses, we headed to the beach and stopped for lunch.  We ate outside and soaked up the sun.

It turned out, that this city might just be a good fit for us, after all.