Returnin’ to “the Forest”
November 10, 2008 by admin
Filed under Livin' in the Forest
Returnin’ to “the Forest”
In 2006, our family started the venture to sell our home and move. It was a very stressful time making decisions, watching the rates, and of course showing the house. One decision that was a “no brainer” was that we were “Returnin’ to the Forest.” Or at least she was.
My wife, Kathy, had moved into this neighborhood when she was two weeks old. She has since gone away to college, gotten married (to me), and started a family. She will turn 29 again this December, so she has been a part of Windsor Forest for many years. She knows how close knit a community it is and she wanted her family to experience the same. I entered the picture in the high school years and saw a lot of the same qualities. I probably spent more time in this neighborhood than my own during those years. Her parents were thrilled about that.
So our house was on the market and we began a journey through just about every house in Windsor Forest with a sign in the yard. We were fortunate enough to find a fixer-upper next door to her parents. I think. We started our renovation. All the time moving from place to place and driving back and forth to the Windsor Forest bus stop until we moved in. Twelve months later we had taken that house and made it a home. And that’s where we were; home.
Seems like a lot to go through, but now we have swim meets, progressive dinners, picnics, parades, group trick-r-treatin’, holiday parties, and actual trees. Annual events quickly became the norm. You’d be hard pressed to find many of those qualities in other neighborhoods. Kathy was back in a place she felt most familiar. Even now, she will give me directions to pick up our daughter and will say “you know, it’s next to where the Kirschner’s lived”. Huh? Like I said, I’m not a veteran here yet so I may need a road name or two to find her.
You could set your watch by some of the people taking their walks around the neighborhood and their faces are becoming more familiar every day. Some are old friends that could paint a picture of this place that would make anyone want to live here. All throughout our moving ordeal, I would give Larry Foster updates on our progress and setbacks. He would always smile and say it will be worth it. Now I could hit a golf ball from our house to his (I’m not sure if I’ve hit it yet).
You really can’t appreciate an atmosphere like this until you experience it. My kids and I have the benefit of living with, and next door to some real Windsor Forest historians. Natives who have been here longer than most. It says a lot about a place to have two generations choosing to live in it. Will the third generation follow suit? Let me get them out of the house first.
Curt, Kathy, Kayla, and Alyssa Nordeman