The Adventure Begins

I'm in sunny Celebration, Florida! The weather today was absolutely fantastic. Super sunny and 80!

This town is beautiful. A little history...
Celebration is right by Disney World (outside of Orlando). Everyone probably has heard of the Disney park "EPCOT" or "Experimental Prototype Communityof Tomorrow." What you might not know is that Walt Disney originally planned for EPCOT to be a community where people could work, play, and live. Although this isn't how the park turned out, the Disney company decided to fulfill his orginal vision.
In 1994 the town of Celebration was established. The Disney Company used 4,900 acres of land to build Celebration. Almost every home has a porch so that its residents could sit outside and talk with neighbors. Garages have been built, but in almost every case, they are behind the homes with an entrance through a smaller alley-like street instead of through paved driveways (this is sooo confusing when trying to get around!). This was done so the fronts of houses would not look ugly. What Walt Disney wanted was a town that looked somewhat like his hometown.

I'm loving living here so far. There's so much to do and the weather is great to just go outside and relax! Our host family is amazing. Hannah and I were very nervous walking up to the door but our host mom greeted up with hugs and was more than excited to have us. We have two "siblings"...Cameron and Savannah. They are both in high school and a lot of fun to hang out with. And our host dad is so funny. Hannah and I feel very comfortable here and they really feel like family. Our apartment is so cute! We have to walk up a spiral staircase outside to get up to it. We're going to spend a lot of time in the house with the family though. And we have a pool for all this hot weather!

Today our host family treated us to some Chipotle for lunch! Later in the afternoon our host dad, Hannah, Savannah, and I went on a bike ride around town for a couple of hours. Everything was so neat to see. There are these awesome boardwalk trails through these forest jungle areas all over Celebration. We even saw an alligator! We're loving it here so far and can't wait for what the rest of this time brings to us. First day at Celebration School tomorrow. It's a teacher inservice day so no kids yet.