Finding a place to live...

The past month has been an interesting one in terms of deciding where to live and why we live where we live. We have started to look for a new place to live as our landlords have expressed that they would like to sell the condo next year. Even though we don't need to be out till early next year, knowing that we will have to eventually move, we started the search now.

Our original search was for 3 bedroom places within the same neighbourhood. Unfortunately, rental rates increase quite a bit for the nicer 3 bedroom places, and there aren't that many to choose from. Slowly our search began to expand.

While d/town was the main search, every now and then we'd peek into the areas outside of d/town. This is when we found a beautifully renovated house in Burnaby! We didn't really think we'd entertain the idea of moving out to the suburbs, but after seeing the place, we fell in love with it! We'd be getting a bigger space, a front and back yard (that comes with a gardening service), a garage (which would make loading and unloading kids so much easier), a crawl space (all that storage!), and an awesome kitchen with brand new appliances. It was crazy, we were suddenly convinced we could make the move to suburbia... so we put the application in. Were we crazy?! Well, all of a sudden, we began to really think about what it would mean for us and what we'd miss out on if we weren't living d/town.

Living d/town is great! There's the convenience of having everything within walking distance. It only takes Trav less than 15 mins to walk, grocery stores are everywhere, the community centre is 5 min walk away and there's 5 parks along the seawall to choose from. It's all very very convenient and without having to hop in the car. Very green ;)

So, having to move to the burbs would change a lot of how we're used to living, we'd have to rely on transit or the car a lot more. The biggest would be our time away from Trav with his commute being a lot longer, he'd have to leave home earlier and possibly be home later. He was excited that it could've meant he could buy a bike and get fit by riding back and forth. But in the end, after many many many back and forth decision making, we decided we just weren't ready for the burbs just yet!

Plus, the girls get to see their cousin Megan so often, it really is a special time where we're living this close to Steve & Cherie. So, no to Burnaby for now.

In the meantime, we've been looking at larger 2 bed and den condo's. It's tough finding a place to live with the right things that you're looking for, the right price and the right location. But we're close and hopefully soon we'll nail it all down, and then the real adventure comes... the packing, moving and unpacking! ;)

And what do Nora & Lily have to say about all these decisions on a new place?! "Don't stress mom, so long as we have each other to entertain, we're all good!" I love the way Lily looks and smiles when Nora is near, and I love how proud Nora is to be Lily's big sister :)