- Our New House -

In May of 1999, Lin and I decided to move to Florida to be closer to dad.

Dad was 85 at the time, still in basically good health (thanks to a few "bionic" additions), but was starting to need some help around his place in Ankona, Florida on the Indian River Lagoon between Ft. Pierce and Stuart.  He was still active in his church choir, played bridge with a regular Thursday Bridge group down at Walton Hall, but may not have been eating (alone) as regularly or as well as he should.  He also was still driving and traveling by himself - around his area as well as up to visit us in Birmingham, or out to Denver to visit Jim.

We approached dad with the idea in early May and he was "all for it".  We started doing some online house hunting thru Realtor.com, and looking for a listing agent for our home in Birmingham.  By the end of May, we had listed with Jill Dunn at FIRST REAL ESTATE, and had "selected" about a dozen homes in dad's area which we felt were "worth a look" - sent these listing addresses down to dad and he went by most of them to give them a look-see.  He also took some video and sent up the tape so we could have a look as well.

In June, dad approached us with an alternative to moving and buying ... "Why not move and redevelop on his place on The River" ... It didn't take us long to say "that's a great idea" to that suggestion.  Meanwhile, we were taking care of some "minor details" and "fix-ups" on the Birmingham house and started the showings around mid-June.  Our place in B'ham was under contract, for an end of July closing by about the end of June.

In Mid July I went down to Florida to find a place for us all to stay while we took down Dad's existing house and put up OUR NEW HOUSE.  Found a very nice place in Vero Beach - about 40 minutes easy drive North of the our new place.

This stage of our relocation adventure, needless to say, WENT WELL !

The relocation also went well ............

The final selection of "the right house" to put on dad's place, the selection of an engineer, drafter, builder, and the construction of our new place ..... NOW THAT'S A WHOLE DIFFERENT TALE