New Home Scorecard

Every time I think about it, I feel really grateful for our new home. Here's my latest scorecard:

• House: We loved our old house, but the new one is fantastic. I think it is just about perfect. I have told my wife several times that when we die, I want a house like this one in heaven.
• Neighborhood: Our subdivision has about 30 homes in it. I think we had about 8 or 10 neighbors come by in the first couple weeks to welcome us. Many of them brought gifts. Our kids have made friends with several of the neighbors and they love to ride bikes and play together. Our old neighborhood was great too, but most of the time we lived there, there were no children for our kids to play with.
• Community: Something about the area just feels like home. The community seems really well kept and people seem to really care about their surroundings. We went to a local parade recently and it was a blast!
• School: I've already blogged about this, but the school system we're in now is amazing!
• Commute: My commute is 5-10 minutes shorter each way. One of my favorite things is on the way home, I have several places where, if I see traffic is backed up, I can get off the main road and take alternate routes. Much easier on the nerves.
• Church: Our new ward is amazing! The church we attended in our old house had a lot of really wonderful people in it, but the culture was unhealthy for several reasons that I won't explain here because I don't want to offend anyone. I'm sure our new church has its problems, but I haven't seen too many yet. Maybe it's still the honeymoon stage, but I LOVE our new church family. There are so many fantastic people and the Spirit we feel together is so uplifting and sweet.
• Scouts: My son is in Cub Scouts and he was pretty unmotivated to attend the Scout program where we used to live. Since moving here, he has been so excited to go to every single meeting because it's so well organized, they do fun activities, and he feels like he's achieving some of the scouting goals.

So far, this new home has an A on all counts. Based on what I've seen so far, I'm ready to settle down for the rest of my life. That may be partly because the pain of moving is still fresh in my mind, but I've told several people that I want to die in that house. And the weird part is I think I'm serious about that.