Where I've Lived - Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Thank you for joining me for Where I've Lived - Fort Lauderdale Edition. I cannot believe that this is the sixth city where I have lived - and so many things have happened since we moved here.

Jonathan's company moved him to Fort Lauderdale in July of 2012, but I didn't move down from South Carolina until November of that year. While it wasn't fun to live apart after we had just been engaged, and were trying to plan a wedding - we knew that it was the best thing for our family and our future. Our plan was that I would move down to Fort Lauderdale by January regardless of if I found a job, but luckily I found a position and my company moved me down here!

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When Jonathan first moved down here his company found him an apartment for 6 months. This allowed us to look for a place to live and not have to find something immediately. Since we didn't know the area we decided we wanted to live close to work, needed at least 2 bedrooms, and that was about it. We found a place on SE 17th Street and were only 2 miles from my work and about 1 mile from his. Although there were some annoying parts of living there, we stayed for the first year and resigned the lease to stay another year.

A few months into our 2nd years lease, we found out we were expecting a baby. We knew the apartment was way to small for a family of 3 and broke our lease to move to a townhouse in Plantation. We LOVE our townhouse and I don't know how we lived in our cramped apartment for the first year. We now live about 20 minutes from work, but are a lot closer to many of the activities we like in the area. It is definitely a shorter drive to hang out with family, go to our doctor/dentist, and we are really close to the BB&T Center where there are tons of things going on.

Fort Lauderdale will always have a special place in my heart because this is where we became a family. Jonathan and I lived here when we got married, found out we were expecting and welcomed Jillian Harper into this world. I know we will not live here forever, but Fort Lauderdale will always live in our hearts.

We have made some great friends and had a lot of fun times with family over the past couple of years. We have started a new tradition of monthly game nights, and look forward to continuing this in the years to come. Jonathan and I have also made it to a few sporting events - professional hockey, football and baseball games. Maybe 2015 will be the year we make it to a Heat basketball game!

I had trouble picking only a few pictures - so here are a bunch from the past couple of years in Fort Lauderdale!

If you missed my previous Where I've Lived posts you can read them here:

Columbus Ohio

Blacksburg, Virginia

Palm Desert, California

West Palm Beach, Florida
Bluffton, South Carolina

I am sure that a lot will change over during the time that we live in Fort Lauderdale - and I'll make sure to update this post every now and then with the exciting things that are going on around here!

Where I've Lived - West Palm Beach, Florida

While living in Palm Desert I continued to look for job opportunities in Real Time [EST]. I heard about the opening of a hotel in Riviera Beach, Florida and wanted to know more. In speaking with my Director of Operations and General Manager I thought it would be the perfect way to move a little closer to Jonathan, or at least in the same time zone. I applied and interviewed for the job, but did not tell any family or friends I had applied.

While waiting to hear back about the job, Jonathan came out to visit and I took 2 weeks off of work. I received an early morning call being offered the job while he was visiting, and we were able to celebrate that I would be moving significantly closer to him now! My first few months of living in West Palm Beach were spent opening a new hotel. For anyone that does not know about this process, you spend about 16 hours a day working, and in my case living in the hotel. Some days I would not even leave the hotel. It was an awesome but tiring experience.

After the hotel opened, I was able to enjoy more of what West Palm Beach had to offer. I discovered my love of dive bars like The Brass Ring, and spending time on Clematis Street and at City Place. I confirmed my love of shopping spending time at The Gardens Mall, and was consistently tan for an entire year.

During this time I also discovered that I don't really care for Florida. I had always visited as a child, but I didn't really like living there. Looking back on things, I met some awesome people, and had fun while I was there but I wanted to live in the same city as Jonathan and I think this was a large part of why I didn't like Florida. I wouldn't have survived there without Heather and Ajitha, Brandon or Brett. They kept me sane while living there, and made sure that I always had a good time!

I lived in West Palm Beach for just over a year. My last day living in West Palm Beach was also my Birthday. I was so lucky to spend time with all of my friends from work at a going away party at The Yard House [one of my all time favorite restaurants]. It was on this day that I was also given the most beautiful birthday cake... Haha - Thanks Brett, Brandon, and Bryan! While it was sad to leave the friends I made, I knew that our friendship would last a lifetime... and I was happy to live in the same city as Jonathan for the first time ever!

If you missed my Where I've Lived post on Columbus Ohio, Blacksburg, Virginia or Palm Desert, California make sure to check them out!! Stay tuned for next week's Where I've Lived - Bluffton, South Carolina - I will have tons of pictures, since these weren't saved on my computer that crashed!