Anyone in Virginia????North Carolina????

DH and I are looking at moving to either the Virginai Beach vicinity
(Hampton, perhaps?) or the Raleigh-Durham area.
Is anyone here from either of those places?

And where would I find info on becoming certified
in those states?

Thanks so much !
Holly

I'm from Hampton Roads....Hampton and Virginia Beach are part of the Hampton Roads area.

I live in neither of those cities though, and I have no clue how to become certified. lol. Why either S.E. VA or that part of NC? They aren't anywhere close, lol.

Many people who work in Norfolk or Virginia Beach (or Hampton or Newport News) live in the other cities in the area (Suffolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth [I personally wouldn't recommend Portsmouth.])


(I'm also roughly 20 miles from the NC border, but that's northeastern NC, Edenton, Ahoskie type places, not Raliegh. lol

I'm near Raleigh. I'm taking a class in Creedmoor, NC on June 26, which is a bit north of Raleigh.

Love it here! 2.5 hours from the beach or 3.5 from the mountains. Universities, culture, farms, every type of educating you could hope for. It's a really great place to raise kids.

Wendy

My DH is funny , these are the places he has
his mind set on if he can't live in Ft.Lauderdale or Miami
(BTDT, not sure I want to do it again).

I don't care so much as long as it's a good place to raise
a family and there's a decent amount of culture and activities/
programs for children of all ages.
Neither one of us wants to live in a small town, him for work reasons
me because I grew up in one and while I think it was great for me
I wasn't exposed to much as far as culture is concerned (we had 2
East Indian doctors move in when I was 10 and there was ONE African
American family. THAT'S IT.).
Also, my Mom and Step-Dad have decided to move wherever we
go (I'm an only child ) and are very interested (well, my Mom at least.
my SD is w/my DH on the whole Florida thing) in those 2 areas.

Me, I'd prefer Raleigh. I LOVE the Carolinas!
And, FWIW, I did like Florida but we were there doing the year
of Hurricane after Hurricane and I'd prefer not to have to go
thru that again.

Thanks for your input! Oh, and Wendy, do you know of any good websites
w/more info on the Raleigh-Durham area????

Holly

Hurricanes don't just hit Florida, (or the gulf, but you know that. lol). Our "Big Hurricane" was Isabel, (and it wasn't "big" in scale of Rita, Katrina or Andrew, but it knocked this area on its butt for a bit).



(For the record, I'm 40 minutes from the beach and um, 4 hours from the mountains. hehe.)

Hmmmm, more info specifically on the area? I'm sure there are tons of sites out there for relocators (we have a TON, my daughter is one of the few native North Carolinians I know, she was born in Chapel Hill), but I don't any that are better or worse than another.

To give you an idea of what goes on when, though, here's a site I have bookmarked. http://www.visitraleigh.com/cgi/calendar/searchcriteria.cgi There's a lot of wonderful activities going on all the time.

For housing my favorite site is http://www.fmrealty.com We used them to sell our house in Chapel Hill simply because I loved the website so much. There's a wide range of home prices here, from an older home here in my town that needs work for $79k to a brand new home here in my neighborhood for $550k. In Raleigh inside the beltline (I-440) you're looking at pretty pricey, but often older and established homes. They can go from $250k for a small bungalow to $1M+ for a large home. Out in the country you can get a large plot of land for $100k (20+ acres) or a huge older home for $200k. There's a lot of growth happening here so I'm sure you could find a brand new home either under construction or near completion.

On schools, if you use the public schools reseach what's where, but don't trust any of it in Wake County (where Raleigh is) for too long. The county here redistricts constantly, nearly every year, kids are bussed for over an hour, sent to a lesser school to even out demographics, the whole bit. One of the best school districts in the state is Chapel Hill-Carrboro. They're pretty stable, have planned for growth better than Wake County, and have great test results and other indicators. Wake County does at or slightly below national average, generally (our local schools do below). If you're going to homeschool there are secular groups in Chapel Hill and Cary, and I'm sure there are religious groups as well. If you're into private schools you have your choice from a Waldorf school in Chapel Hill to strict Catholic schools. There are secular, religous, alternative, every type of schooling.

The booster law here is 8 or 80, which just went into effect January 1, 2005, so there are still a few people who are completely ignorant of the law (we'll give the benefit of the doubt to those who are just plain ignorant of the safety).

HTH!

You can email me off board if you would like, wendytischler@yahoo.com

Wendy

I'm in Richmond and I have a few freinds in Hamptom/Newport News area.

Finding info on getting certified in VA is really easy - the dept. of health has a calendar on their website with the lcass dates and locations on it.
http://www.safetyseatva.org

I grew up in the Hampton Roads area and our family is still there. I would be very careful about the areas of Hampton and Newport News. Some sections are more iffy then others. Yorktown is a nice area and so is Williamsburg.
We have lived in the Raleigh area for 3 years this summer. It's a great family area with lots to do. Housing is far cheaper here then in Hampton Roads. Schools in Wake County are tops in the USA. Lots of diversity here as well. Lots of transplants as well.
There is the town of Cary that a lot of realtors push for. The locals call Cary Central Area for Relocating Yankees

HTH!

Wendy I had no idea they did classes in Creedmor. I'm bummed I missed that infomation. It's nice to find another mom in the area who is a CPS advocate like me.

I'm taking it in June, at the Sheriff's office annex or something like that. That's the closest to me here in Holly Springs. All the others are out in Asheville, Franklin, Pleasant Grove (at least based on the safekids.org website). I'm excited about it.

When we relocated to NC (me from NY my husband from TN) we moved to Cary. LOL I saw more NY plates there than I did in Ithaca, NY where I was in college. Here in Holly Springs it's the same way a lot of the time. We have one adult neighbor who was born and raised in NC, but otherwise my daughter is the only other NC native I know. LOL

I'm definitely here, yelling to the deemingly deaf masses. We have friends who were watching the scale so at SOON as their son hit 40 pounds he was in a booster. Another friend (a professor, no less, one should who have more brains) say that you'll need to buy a booster, you may as well buy one as soon as your kid will fit and use it for as long as you can. By that logic you should skip the infant seat, and use the CONVERTIBLE for the longest because most convertibles I know are more expensive than $15 boosters. *thunk thunk thunk* Oy. Luckily his son is very very very tall and therefore slightly heavier for his age (at 3 he was 42" and probably 38 pounds) so he's within the limits of his booster, but that's one of the stupidest reasons I've heard of for putting someone in a less safe booster. At least a couple of other moms I know actually listen to what I have to say and don't just move kids out because they can. Sigh.

Wendy

I've found that for VA courses the DOH website is far more accurate than the SK website - and Corey (state CPS coordinator) posts the classes much sooner.

Thanks everyone!!!

The more I research the more I'm leaning
towards the Raleigh area...we're planning a trip to visit
both places in a few months so we'll see how it goes.

Now to convince my DH ....

well, when you come through Richmond (straight up I-95), drop me a line and we can have lunch or something.