scrubbedexpat099

I would not call North Carolina a pit.

petitefrancaise

PFFF!
it's about 90 degrees today, gentle breeze blowing, kids have been hopping in and out of the pool, all playing nicely. We had lunch on the patio under the pergola with the fan blowing. My neighbour has gone away for the weekend and asked if her son can stay with us (of course! He gets on v well with youngest daughter)

We have street parties at least 2x a year and there is a huge range of nationalities in our street (including an Afghani family who were telling me about how their marriage was arranged)

We had a celebration party at home for my graduating high schooler where family friends we have known since she was a baby in Scotland came (Scots who love it here), another Austin family we have known for 15 years, some neighbours (Australian, Puerto Rican, Floridian and Minnesotan) as well as friends from the kung fu club. All out in the garden, BBQ on the go. Kids playing in the pool.

Daughter has done v well in High School, she and her friends are going to the best universities in the country. They've gone to one of the best high schools in the country. Since her college isn't costing us much we're paying for her to have a holiday in India and her 2 best friends are going with her (one is of Indian birth)

This evening we will take the family to a fab burger restaurant as a surprise, a beautiful lakeside setting, boats, paddle boarders, live music and about $10 a head.

Son is going to China for a 3 week immersion in chinese so that he will do well next year in IB chinese - in his class only 3 of the kids are not native chinese speakers and his confidence will improve.

Summer horse-riding camps, canoeing lessons, camping in colorado. Oh yes and we're pretty sure we can manage a cheapish ski holiday in New Mexico.

Our family income is less than Stockhall's.
Rosetinted???? Bring it on!

stockhall

Sorry wasn't refering to NC as a pit. It was one of my choices for relocating. I was referring to your question in a general answer as clearly I have been made to feel that is the only home we are good for. In fact this joyful easy going person has been made to feel rather useless today and only fit enough for a pit as clearly pulaski has some prejudicial thoughts on my setup and can not bear the thought that perhaps someone can be that positive and happy about a decision.

scrubbedexpat099

Ask him for car recommendations, that will make him happy.

stockhall

Bless you. I have found honesty is fine harsh not so. I can put up with a lot. Reading your posts make me smile. My marriage is not arranged probably from the only family in husbands circles that will have an outsider for many years to come. I am London born and bread moved to bucks in 2011 and is nice but not enough.

petitefrancaise

I've had my bad moments too. I don't think I want to retire here, I'd rather be around my mad welsh relatives - we are a close family emotionally if not geographically.

When the temperatures get higher, I will be fit to kill people! I hate A/C at night but I can't sleep if the temp is above 75 and OH and I may well end up sleeping on different floors of the house for a few nights. That's when I'll head to Colorado, I'd rather sleep in a tent at 65 degrees than stay here.

The attitude to guns and politics here really pisses me off, but on a day to day basis we live in a nice suburb with people like us who don't have guns and have Hillary for President stickers on their cars....

Noorah101

Oh, sorry...I thought you were from the UK. My apologies if I misunderstood. But if you're not from Asia or Europe...where are you coming from, if you don't mind me asking? Anywhere else in the world will still have lots of cultural differences!

Rene

stockhall

We all have bad moments I have had some horrendous ones more when we moved here then any time in my life.

The only time I have encountered temps and heat like you describe was in Cyprus and it did take a few days to get used to it. I like the idea of escaping to cooler climates for a while instead of hot for winter.

Any thoughts on winebagos? Would i get one big enough?

stockhall

I am from UK

stockhall

Oh and I have no idea where i want to retire yet. My mum is 60 this year and can't even think about retiring any time soon here.

Noorah101

Thanks for clarifying. In that case, I'm even more confused by your previous post where you said "if I were coming from Europe". Isn't the UK in Europe? I might be a USC, but I don't think my geography is that bad..LOL

I wish you all the best.

Rene

stockhall

Continental Europe perhaps is what I should have said

scrubbedexpat097

I have to say one thing that might sound negative but it is something that may well happen.

Moving anywhere can be exciting, stressful and tiring. When life settles down and the normal day to day stuff kicks in is often when homesickness also kicks in. You may think it won't happen to you, your life may be near perfect, plenty of money, nice house and kids settled in school. But one day some silly little incident like craving for something you can't find or a phone call from the UK with good news of a birth or wedding that you won't be able to join in with. Suddenly you want to be back there. It can be a strong indescribable feeling that doesn't always go away but it happens to a lot of us..

stockhall

Not negative quite normal I believe. We are going to look into a holiday before the move but not sure

jjmb

You have been extremely lucky and have very gifted children and you are very much a tiger Mother which isn't meant to be derogatory but it has meant that you have fought tooth and nail to get your children where they are now. However, most of us have very average children who do not get scholarships and have to pay the whole load. As you pointed out to the OP, even with the income her spouse is earning and with 6 children she will not be get much help from the government. I worked out that in the 8 years my kids were in university we spend about $250,000, probably more and one of them didn't even complete university. We were more than happy to spend the money as without a degree, your job prospects are terrible and even with a degree unless its from the right school and a good gpa, you will be stuck with a middling job, just above the minimum wage. Of course if you are particularly gifted, you will get the right internship and never finish university like a friend of my daughter. He now has his own company and employs UT interns each summer, all before he was 30.

I wish I had assess to a forum like this when we moved over here, as then we would have known that Pflugerville then was not considered a great place to live. Fortunately things are changing but then again our property taxes have gone up accordingly. If you want good schools, you have to pay the taxes! Of course the argument is the English universities charge almost as much as most state universities now but the difference is that you don't pay upfront and eventually any students loans will be forgiven after a given number of years, if you don't pay them back and you have to be earning a certain level to begin paying them back. Here, you pay as soon as finish university regardless of your situation and its the only debt you cannot get rid of until you have paid it back.

So my advice to the OP is make sure your children go to a good school, get a good transcript from their current school so they can be accredited with the correct gpa, especially the 15 yr old. Make sure they pick the right college and right degree. If your child is having problems at school at the moment, unfortunately that might be repeated in any other school they attend, especially if they have social anxiety issues. Part of my son's issues stemmed from his school in Scotland where he was bullied. Unfortunately, that didn't change here. Of course the alternative to normal high schools, especially if you have a sensitive child, are the charter schools which are much smaller and geared more towards the needs of the child. Unfortunately I don't know much about them but they are springing up everywhere. Most high schools around here have a school roll of 2000+ Also remember formal schooling here does not start until kindergarten at 5. Good Pre-k schooling is expensive as my eldest daughter is finding out.

PF, your street sounds perfect but most places in the Austin and the surround ing suburbs are not like that. Pflugerville is definitely not like that where I am. I know people to yell hello but that about it as most of them are too busy working. Yep the temps looks like its perfect at the moment and hopefully it will be like that most of the summer but I am not betting on it. After suffering through the summer where we had 90 days at 100f or above, I welcome any summer where the temp stays below 95f.

I wish you luck with new life in Austin area, if it happens, as it is a good city/suburb to live.