There are so many things that I really love about where we live. I love our house, with its tall ceilings and room for huge art work…

our open kitchen/great room... 

the natural light... 

and our cute backyard. 

We also have awesome neighbors! Ok, not those neighbors. But we know two other awesome young couples on our street (including fellow blogger Erica, who lives next door. Hey neighbor!). They’d never threaten us with the hell’s angels! We also have other couple friends who are distant-neighbors; they live just down the road.

Plus, our neighborhood is safe and quiet. We feel comfortable leaving the door unlocked when we walk Drew and when we’ve accidentally left our garage door open all night our stuff is where it should be in the morning. There are two big parks at the end of our street where we can let Drew run around and where I can totally see our kids playing one day. I grew up with a huge, wooded backyard so having an open space for our kids to run around in is so important to me…and it can be hard to find in the suburbs. 

Just down the road the Riparian Preserve is a true gem where I love to admire the birds and desert plants and where Drew loves to sniff. Our beautiful library is right on a pond at the Riparian Preserve, it’s one of the most beautiful public libraries I’ve seen and I make good use of it.

There’s our beloved Coffee Shop right down the road too; they make the BEST cupcakes and vegan cupcakes. And downtown Gilbert is so cute and is getting cooler every year: there’s Liberty Market, the newly open Postino (yay!), the Gilbert Farmers’ Market, Hale Theater, and Art Intersection.

And yet…somedays we dream of moving. Mostly it’s on days when the traffic is terrible and the drive home takes awhile. (Although now that I have my Prius with an HOV plate I can always drive in the HOV lane, which has cut my commute time down by 10-15 minutes!) Or after we spend an evening in Phoenix or Scottsdale and wish we lived closer to everything going on there. Now that I have a job I love (yay!) and know that I’ll be based in Tempe and Chris in downtown Phoenix, it could make sense to be closer to work. 

And while I love our house, I also dream of living in a house with more character, something built in the 50s or 60s, mid-century modern, and in a neighborhood where our house is unique. Something similar (although more affordable!) than the homes we saw on the Modern Phoenix Home Tour a year ago: 

Oooo, and maybe a pool! For all those 100 degree+ days (there are a lot of them).

As of this summer we’ll have owned our house for three years (three!) and we’ll be free and clear of the $8,000 tax credit that we received. (If we were to sell before three years, we’d have to pay back the $8,000). So technically we’re “free” to sell our house as early as this summer…not that it would be a good financial move. We bought our house for $200,000 and Zillow currently values it at ~$175,000. Not too bad considering what the market has gone through but obviously we’d like to walk away from the house with at least the $20,000 down payment that we put down, ideally with a bit more.

Time is on our side though. Although our commutes aren’t ideal we still love living in Gilbert and in our house so we’re in no hurry. Plus moving would likely mean living in an older and/or more expensive home so that's a big consideration. After Chris gets tenure in 2014 (fingers crossed y’all!!) we’ll probably evaluate our situation and see what makes sense for us. But actually just looking at pictures of our house and thinking about all the people and places I love nearby makes me want to stay put! If we do move I’ll definitely need to figure out how to get our friends to relocate with us….