Arkansas

Okay, I decided to post random things about Arkansas so all of you back home can understand a little bit about where we live.

We live in Northwest Arkansas, in Rogers. We are close to Missouri to the North and Oklahoma to the West. We're about 2 hours Southwest of Branson, Missouri and of course, I've been there! We live near the city of Bentonville, which is where the Walmart headquarters is located. Maddie actually goes to school in the Bentonville School district, which is a very good school district.

We live in a very nice, newer neighborhood that has a pool and clubhouse and also a playground. It's pretty cool. We have lots of good neighbors and plenty of kids for our three to play with. Our house is pretty cool. I have only posted pictures of the kitchen and family room so far, but I plan to get all of the house photographed soon. Our house is all brick, which I love! The weird thing is that most houses down here DON'T HAVE BASEMENTS! What is up with that?! That took some getting used to, especially when we had our first tornado warning! Luckily, we have huge bedrooms and one we actually made into the "Toy Room" for the kiddies~! Still no basements for toradoes, though! Just closets!

We have very little carpet, mostly hardwood floors and tile. It's perfect! We have a three car garage, which I don't know if I can ever live without again. Man it's great. We live on a corner lot, so the garage faces the side, which is very nice. We have a cool sidewalk/pathway that runs along the front of the house and from our front porch to the mailbox. I don't know what it's called, but of course, at some point, I will take a picture and show you all!

But the general area that we live in (Rogers) is great! We have a huge lake nearby. We of course have SHOPPING - We live within minutes to a brand new Target and close to the outdoor mall, which is great! We also have most of the stores that you all do back home: Kohls, Old Navy, Pier One, Stride Rite, Gymboree, Gap, etc, etc....And of course, we have Super Walmart and a ton of them, and Sam's Club, since we are sooo very close to their home office! We also have these grocery stores called "Neighborhood Market" by Walmart. They are a cute, quaint grocery store. And that's all they sell, groceries. I had never seen one of these until we moved to Arkansas! But it's also weird that we don't have any OTHER grocery stores really. There is one small employe owned grocery store, but that's it. No Krogers, No Meijer (which I REALLY miss!). I guess no one wants to compete with the 8 kazillion Super Walmarts in the cities around the home office! Who can blame 'em?!

Have I mentioned the weather here to any of u? Well maybe once or twice! It's ssssso much better than Ohio and Michigan! It's almost always warmer here in Arkansas and the winter.....OMG! I'll never move back north again after experiencing this mild, practically snowless winter in Arkansas! Of course, we did have the ice storm in January, which pretty much shut everything down for nearly a week! That's some terrible stuff! Maddie was off school for 4 1/2 days that week! Geez! Other than that, the weather is OUTSTANDING!

Okay, naptime for Gavin! That concludes today's lesson about Arkansas! Stay tuned for more Coming Soon!