Orlando, Florida: Home. Sweet. Home.

[Chris Owen]

TTBS After living half a century in Kansas we moved here to Orlando five years ago. It was to be the fulfillment of a long-held dream to live among the palm trees and year-round sunshine. Before the move we thought about it a lot and planned even more but nothing could quite prepare us for the reality we would face, Lisa and I.

The dream started decades ago on a vacation in Las Vegas with our then infant first child Sydney. I remember focusing my eyes on a stand of palms the last day of that vacation around the pool at Caesars Palace, trying to burn that image into my brain. I didn’t want to forget what those palm trees looked like when we returned to Kansas. I knew as certain as the sun rises each day that someday we would live in a warm, tropical climate. How we would get there, what we would be doing when we lived there or even where that might be, we had no clue.

Two children, 5 cats, 4 dogs, 10 moves, and countless cars later, here we are celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary. The reality of living in Florida has firmly set in and as is so often the case, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence. Economic conditions have taken their toll on the area and unemployment is high. Home foreclosure rates here are at the top of most nation-wide lists and five houses on our street sit abandoned. The travel business took a downturn rivaled only by the post 9-11 travel depression that forced many out of the business.

Yet we did well in a number of ways.

At a time when many dug in to weather the storm, my travel business took a different direction, prospered, and allowed me the time to focus on new horizons. Choosing to work for only “nice people” I shed a bunch of clients looking for just the “cheapest price”, aligning myself with those who know that “value” is more important and are hungry to make the most of their travels.

The job Lisa transferred to here with Adventist Healthcare has turned out to be the most rewarding of her 30+ year career. At a time when many might be thinking towards retirement, she is focused on the “mission” of what she does every day and finds herself working with more like-minded people than ever before. Today Lisa completed the formal part of a one year weight management program that dropped 60-some pounds, solidly on the way to 100.

The “kids” who moved here with us five years ago quickly went off on their own, charting their own paths, their own way. Sydney moved to Chicago armed with a Journalism degree, 35 cents and a trunk-load of guts that would propel her on a fast-track to early success. Whitney chose a magical career with Disney, a world-class employer that offers her a stable work environment with plenty of room for growth in many directions. She meets people from all over the world, has a diverse life of her own and is happy “spreading the magic” as they say but still drops by most Sundays to see us.

At the center of it all has always been our home.

More than just a roof over our head, we’ve always made home a good place to be. We have traveled far and have a lot more places to travel, but will always look forward to “getting back home” regardless of how wonderful the trip might be. When Sydney got a cold recently, memories of a “comfy place on the couch” to get better while growing up came back as good memories of a good place. When her sister Whitney makes the trek from her home on the other side of Orlando, I like to think that coming back home resets her week and gives her pause from her vibrant life.

As the world continues to spin, things change and people come and go, it’s nice to know that at the center of it all is home.

We need that. We need home to come back to. We’re glad to be here in Florida, thank God for His blessings and thank you for coming along with us.