May be moving to San Jose area from Tualatin, OR advice !!!

Hi, I usually post in PNW forum, but my DH is considering a job move to San Jose area. From looking around, it looks like we'll end up in Pleasanton, Livermore or Dublin - he'll have a commute. But these appear to be nice areas (we have 3 young kids, so schools are important) Does anyone have any info to pass on to me? About any/all of it - I have just redone a looooong parking strip here and am so sad I won't see my plants grow up - thanks for any neighborhood, gardening information you may have for me.

Tracy

Moving from Oregon? First thing you have to learn is how to pump gas at a gas pump. In California, rarely does the station do it for you...

My in-laws live in Danville. They love it. They have been there many years. Real Estate is pricey but the neighborhoods seem to be excellent.

ha ha ha - you are so right ! I've never pumped my own gas and not really dying too.

I'm really curious about the climate - it is soooo wet here and I think very dry there. I'm afraid I may have to say goodbye to some of my favorite plants... but I'm sure I'll have no problem finding replacements.

My father-in-law is 92 and still gardening every year. Normal stuff: tomatoes, squash, beans, etc. Has excellent peach trees.

I live in Dublin, it's a very nice area. Houses are slightly cheaper than they are in Pleasanton and the commute to San Jose will be about the same from either one. I would not recommend Livermore just because of the commute--it's already going to be tough heading from Dublin/Pleasanton down to SJ every day, but the additional distance between Pleasanton and Livermore is a hideous stretch of traffic especially in the afternoons. I'm curious why you want to live so far north if he's working in SJ though? Unless you've got a job farther north, I'd try to live somewhere a little closer to San Jose to make his commute nicer--I think there are some areas closer to SJ that also have decent schools, but since I don't have kids I don't know that for sure. But I would definitely take a look at traffic as well as distance before you decide where to live--I have a feeling you haven't experienced anything like Bay Area traffic up there in Oregon! Here's a website where you can look at traffic conditions and even calculate driving times, I'd recommend taking a look at it during rush hour and see what he'll be driving through if you live in various areas. (and don't make your judgement based on the traffic you see now--we're close enough to the holidays that traffic has probably died down quite a bit from its normal levels) www.511.org

In terms of plants--do you have a copy of the Sunset Western Garden book? Dublin/Pleasanton/Livermore are all in Sunset zone 14, so if you look up your favorite plants you'll be able to tell if they'll grow here or not (or if there are a few you're curious about, post them here and people can comment on whether they've grown them or seen people grow them). If you don't have it, I'd highly recommend getting it, it's a great reference. In terms of weather, our summer temps probably average in the mid to high 80's, with occasional heat waves where we get over 100 for a few days, but it generally cools off into the 60's at night. Usually we don't get much below freezing in the winters but we do get a fair number of frosty nights, so you won't be able to grow true tropical plants unless you have a greenhouse. But it still probably stays warmer than where you are now! We never get rain in the summer--rainy season typically starts in mid to late November and lasts until March or so, with occasional scattered rain in the months on either end, but from May through October you're unlikely to see a drop.

It's a great summary ecrane.

We kind of live in a middle ground environment. As was said above, you can't grow tropicals without a green house and some plants like most hostas and lilacs don't get enough cold here to thrive. There still are some hostas and lilacs that are happy if you feel as if you really would like to grow them though.

you have no idea how crazy it seems that there is no rain May - October OH MY STARS! It sounds like it does get colder than I was imagining....

He has two interviews, both in Santa Clara (Intel and Sisco). His current commute to Nike from Tualatin is an hour in rush hour traffic, so he is used to traffic - however, I'm sure no comparison to what is going on there !!!
We were leaning towards Dublin, so thank you for all the comments. The only reason we looked at Livermore is because there was such a great amount of houses with a bit larger yards, now I know why. I have read that the schools in Dublin are nice. Only reason we wouldn't live right in Santa Clara - well, we don't have 1.2 million for a house !!! lol, we have 3 kids so need 4 bedrooms.

I DO have the Sunset Western Garden book - I will definitely make a list of my favorites and take a look thru. Thank you so much for all the input, I really appreciate it! I've put so many plants, trees and bulbs into our current home (ack!) there was nothing here when we moved in, it's hard to leave it all behind... in fact, I think I'll be digging up some things.

I'm wondering about the bulbs - so I'll get out my Sunset and look thru - I wonder about all the crinums I put in last year?

You are in luck to be coming from Oregon. California has plant importation restrictions on many plant from many states but I believe that only pine trees and citrus are illegal to bring into CA from OR
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/pe/InteriorExclusion/ext_summary.html
These are the rules for houseplants
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/pe/InteriorExclusion/houseplant_FAQ.html

These rules make trading difficult which is unfortunate. The reason for them is to protect our agricultural business which feeds much of the US. Not everyone is even aware of them but I feel that it is only responsible to play by the rules.

Someone brought in a stupid brown coddling moth so we can't send plants out of the local area and we have medflies again. ARGGGGGGG............
http://cesantacruz.ucdavis.edu/files/40170.pdf

So that's one bad thing. Plant trades are very limited or impossible.

But if you come live near me in the same apple moth quarantine zone, you can have my leftover plants! I bought more stuff over the summer than I found room for in the garden when I did my fall planting, but because of the stupid moth I can't give any of the extras away!

And I think your crinums will be fine--I don't know if there are different requirements for different species, but I know there are some crinums that will grow here.

wow, I have alot of reading to do. !! I didn't realize about all the restrictions and quarantines. I've looked at Annie's online, but what are some other great places you shop at?

*thanks for the traffic link, that looks very helpful. How about the lot sizes in Dublin? I'm hoping for some room to garden but most of the houses I saw on realtor.com had almost non-existant back yards. I suppose it all comes down to $$$$.

We would move during the summer, so that will make it convenient to pull bulbs that I think will make it.... and maybe some large rocks I lugged home that I love.

How do you define "room to garden"? For lot sizes, a lot depends on what neighborhood you look in. In Dublin (and the other areas around here as well) most of the newer subdivisions in reasonable price ranges have very tiny yards, but if you go back to houses that were built in the 80's or earlier you will find larger lots. Larger by CA standards at least...my lot is 2/10 of an acre and that's pretty good size by our standards. It may sound small to you, but I've found plenty of room to garden (if you want to see what you can do with 2/10 of an acre, look at my diary or the pics I posted on Landscaping.com) My old house in Martinez had 1/10 of an acre and I still found room to garden there too. What I've found here relative to Ohio which is where I used to live is that people who want to garden have lots of garden beds and not much lawn. Lawns are a pain here anyway because we don't get any summer rain so they're very expensive to maintain, so lots of people will keep a little grassy area for the kids or pets to play but then do patios or garden beds over a much larger percentage of the yard than people in other states would.

As far as nurseries...there's an Armstrong Nursery in Dublin which is nice, but the two places I shop most frequently are Annie's in Richmond and Berkeley Horticultural Nursery. There are tons and tons of other ones, if you move down here I'm sure you'll find some people willing to take you on a nursery tour of the area!

How bad is the traffic in the Bay Area? Bad enough that a friend of mine lived and worked in San Jose, commuted 8 miles between, and it took her 20-30 minutes during rush hour.

There's a reason why CA has 6 of the 10 worst commutes in the US!

As for gardening, that old mantra about improving the soil remains true around here. Whether clay or sand, most CA soil is pretty bad. Spend 90 cents on the soil and 10 cents on the plants - and maybe an extra 10 cents for a good layer of mulch - and you'd be surprised how little water you can get by on. I can soaker hose my 2000 sq.ft.-plus of cottage style garden beds (no lawn) every 10-21 days in the summer for about $15/month. In the winter, of course, there's seldom any need to.

Best place for garden compost, non vegetable, is the Davis Street Recycling Center in San Leandro. It's where the local municipalities bring their green waste in to compost. It's good stuff and half the price charged at American Soil, but they don't deliver - you need to pick it up with your own pick-up.

Lots of 'mow and blow' businesses around, usually unlicensed. I have a gardener who helps me sometimes with big stuff, he's licensed and insured, who doesn't charge much at all. He's my "pick-up help", too. You can always find people like him, who live here because they like to live here, and don't have super-high overhead costs. OTOH, you can find lots of high-end design and install help around here too, like deviant_designer over on the Garden Design forum, who works out of Marin Cty. Just depends on how much money you have - in the Bay Area, no matter what you're looking for, there's something at every price range.

Not everything in Santa Clara Cty is expensive. Have you looked south instead of north? You may be able to find some deals on developer homes which are big in those areas, which were formerly farms and unincorporated areas before SJose started to grow. Lots of developers are being squeezed these days so there's a chance you might pick up a decent deal. Trouble is the traffic is just as bad there because there aren't as many access roads or side streets.

The property taxes, of course, will blow your mind (in a bad sense). You'd have to be here at least 5-10 yrs before you'll stop feeling the pain. Your DH, no matter where you live, will have a rotten commute. Talk about it together now to decide if the dream home with the lousy, stress-filled, heart-attack-inducing commute is preferable over the smaller, older, less fancy home with a moderately less lousy commute. It's going to come down to choices, and not easy ones, so good luck to both of you, and I hope everything works out!

Intel and Cisco are big co's but if I were hedging my bets about future employment I'd prefer Cisco. Intel's had a lot of ups and downs in comparison. The primo place to work is of course Google - my BIL, who is a contract IT employee, almost drools when he talks about Google's lavish (and free) corporate restaurants. Yeah, that's plural, I think they have four or five of them for their employees!

oh he'd love to work at google, and yeah, the Nike campus is like that - tons of restaurants, beautifully landscaped, 50% discount at the employee store (I AM SOOO GOING TO MISS THAT!) fountains and a lake.... just watch out when the geese nest, they get very nasty!

Thanks for all your input.... I'm great with all beds/ little grass - I've pulled out an unbelievable amount of grass here (with large hunks of clay attached), the latest was a 90' parking strip. Thanks for suggesting looking around South, we are fine with an older house and have been thru fixing up a home before (1909 house with one bathroom!) if we have the payoff of a larger lot.

If it took me 30 minutes to drive 8 miles, I think I'd run home!! You both have helped me alot - Intel is flying him down on the 21st, they're putting him in a hotel for a couple of days so he'll drive around alot..... also, I don't know if this helps, but he goes to work early (5:30 am) and works late (7:30 usually) which helps with the commute here - will it make a difference down there?

One other thing to think about...I forget whether it's state income tax or sales tax that you guys don't have in OR, but we have both of them here (and they're not small!) So make sure hubby takes that into consideration when he's negotiating his salary with whichever company he goes with.

jkom's got a really good point about the commute--lots of people here will sacrifice and get less bedrooms, smaller house, etc to make their commute more manageable. On a nice day when there aren't any accidents maybe the commute is something he can put up with, but a lot of days there are accidents, or in the winter it rains and nobody knows how to drive in the rain, so those days it could be a nightmare! I'd definitely recommend renting a house or apartment when you first come down rather than buying something right away, that way you get a chance to know the area better and see what areas you like and can tolerate the commute. His work hours will help some, but there are a lot of other people who work schedules like that too, so don't think that he'll avoid traffic by doing that. He will probably avoid the worst of it though, but honestly Dublin to Santa Clara is probably a 35-40 min drive even with no traffic at all. (by the way...if he's coming down on the 21st, so many people will be off already for the holidays that whatever he sees as far as traffic will be a far cry from what's normal, so don't let him draw any conclusions about what's a manageable commute or not that close to the holidays)

By the way--we're really not trying to talk you out of moving here, just want to make sure you have all the info you need to think things through! It's expensive to live here and you make sacrifices in terms of mortgage payments, lot size, commuting, taxes, gas prices, etc but we all must feel it's worth it or else we wouldn't still be here!

thanks ecrane, it is all a bit discouraging !! I think we are focusing on all the bad things - we did talk about doing a huge Costco shopping before we move to avoid the sales tax. The property tax is higher (I thought it was high here) . One nice thing, both companies seem to be very seriously interested in him... so we'll see what they offer - it does need to be quite a jump from what he's making for Oregon living.

I agree with you on buying a house too soon - plus we have to sell our existing home. We would rather rent for a bit when we first arrive, and really look around, get used to the commute.

I'll remind him of the 21st being "vacation" traffic.

There are a lot of good things though too--the weather is gorgeous, you can spend time outdoors pretty much all year round, and there are tons of things to go do and see. Plus you get a lot more sunshine than you do in Oregon--I never really thought about how depressing cloudy rainy days were until I moved here, and it's really a big difference.

On the property taxes...what makes them high is that you have to spend a lot more money for a house. I'm paying about the same in property taxes as I would have back in Ohio for a house that cost the same as mine. But of course in Ohio I never would have spent this much on a house, so as a result my property taxes would have been less. But in terms of percentage of your property value, I don't think CA's that out of line with the rest of the country.

Chances are you'll have to make a little financial sacrifice to live here, salaries here in many industries are better than in other parts of the country, but usually not enough to 100% make up for the cost of living difference. But for many people it's still worth it to live here, you have to factor in what you're getting in terms of better climate, better career options, etc and then decide if it's worth it to you or not.

you are right - thanks for the encouraging words. It still astounds me how many months you have no rain ... just incredible compared to here. and yes it is gray and rainy many many days here, even June is more rainy days than not.

So, I'm thinking we'll get rid of all our umbrellas!!

We may have sales taxes down here but our property tax rates are a lot lower than in Oregon. My mom & sister live in OR and would rather have a sales tax with lower property rates.

Keep the umbrellas! You can use them as sun shields (parasols) in the summer and you may find them useful when it does rain here.

1.2 million for a house in Santa Clara? Maybe in Santa Clara County which includes all the high and low end cities but housing down in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara are all cheaper than Dublin and Pleasanton.

I lived in San Jose for 5 years and loved it! It does get hot in the summers and there were a couple of freezes one winter we were there but we had a nice home on a cul-de-sac with good neighbors and I had the best garden I have ever had anywhere! Oh, and roses did exceptionally well for me there. But then so did almost everything I planted. Hosta did fine in the shade as did ferns and larkspur, portulaca and ... well it was a good garden spot for me!

Another plus in San Jose was the public transportation system. I usually commuted by train across town. That got me where I needed to be without sitting in traffic and the system worked well with transfers and schedules. In fact, at least then, they had the best public transportation system I have ever used. They put Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego all to shame!

But to drive the commute was a nightmare!

It has been 12 years since we lived there but the Blossom Hill area used to be a nice area with good schools. But a lot can change in 12 years! I don't know what it is like now.

Over all, for a country gal, I actually liked San Jose a lot! Not as much as I like being back here in Northern CA but it was nice for us there.

oh, thats so great to hear! (especially the good gardening!) thank you zany. Garden Mermaid, good idea we'll keep some of the umbrellas - the kids actually use them here on sunny days.

CalifSue - that is good information. Can't wait to go "see for ourselves" ... we keep hearing it isn't affordable to live right in Santa Clara. He's going to stay for a few days when Intel brings him down. And again on Jan. 3rd for Sisco. Traffic will not be indicative at all - but at least he can take a looksee at housing and talk to some folks about schools for the kids.

Hey - btw I have a 5th grader - here she would be going to middle school next year; is that how your schools work ? Middle is 6-7-8? My other two will be kindergarten & 2nd grade. (My first year with all 3 kids in SCHOOL!!!!!!) Preschool doesn't count - it's only 2 hours lol

Here's a website that I highly recommend for browsing real estate--I like it better than Realtor.com http://www.californiamoves.com I'd recommend doing a search in each of the cities that you're interested in, and look at what kind of square footage and lot size you get for your money in each area. I took a peek at Santa Clara, looking for 4 bedroom houses for $800K or less, and there were a bunch that popped up, so you can definitely find stuff there for under a million. (if you use this site, it makes it easier if you can first narrow down to the counties you're interested in...Santa Clara and San Jose are in Santa Clara county, and Dublin/Pleasanton/etc are in Alameda)

That's a nice site ecrane.
A nice suburb area in San Jose would be Almaden Valley. Here's once nice home I found. it mentions the good schools:
http://www.californiamoves.com/property/propertydetails.aspx?propertyguid=0e2f0870-0669-415d-b10d-3f23cd4a0b6e&sqft=0&Street=&mls=&CityIDList=m835&MaxPrice=700000&MinBed=4&PropSearch=0&PType=SFAM&sortord=D&CountyIDList=231&CommunityIDList=&thumbs=1&page=1&Zip=&MinPrice=0&sort1=listprice&sort2=city&rpp=10&MinBath=2

Another area near that is Blossom Hill, here are 10 pages of listings, 799,000 and under all with 4 bd

http://www.californiamoves.com/property/propertyresults.aspx?sqft=0&Street=&mls=&CityIDList=m1418&MaxPrice=800000&MinBed=4&PropSearch=0&PType=SFAM&sortord=D&CountyIDList=231&CommunityIDList=&thumbs=1&page=1&Zip=&MinPrice=0&sort1=listprice&sort2=city&rpp=10&MinBath=2

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS AWESOME INFORMATION !!! I'm going to go search right now. I think $850k is our working number at this point so we just may find something closer.

oh thank you!

**ecrane , btw I have seen pictures of your garden here within the last year - Fantastic !!! I even copied an area from a picture I saw of yours -- I'll definitely look at your other photos.

ahem.....so, abandoning us PNW-ers for CA, huh? And without even telling us???? harrumph! ;)

And to think, we'd even be happy to help you dig up plants at your current house.... ;)

Seriously, sounds very exciting!

*Okay, I just looked around for a couple minutes and am feeling encouraged. The houses will be slightly smaller than what we have now, but not too much. The : ) upside for me are the lots are much bigger than I had envisioned ! Thanks again for the great website, I like the search criteria much better - and picking the neighborhoods as well.

Now I know Almaden Valley and Blossom Hill are thumbs up - if you think of any other neighborhoods to pass on that would be great. My DH will be thrilled when he gets home - thanks again !

Susybell ! no, we wouldn't leave tilll Spring/Summer - and funny I started to type a post in the PNW forum just this morning.... I had to delete it - denial I guess ?

Glad you're finding some things you like! If you can go up to $850 I don't think you'll have any trouble finding something decent that's reasonably close to his job.

And thanks for the nice compliment on my garden--if you move here (or even just come to visit) you're welcome to come over and take a tour! And if they ever get rid of the stupid apple moth and lift the quarantine I can send you home with plants and/or cuttings!

Yeah - thank you so much ecrane, you have been so kind to help me out !

RTP, no harm, no foul, I wouldn't turn down an opportunity to live down there, either. :) Besides, investigating and announcing are different things, too. Waiting until everything is finalized job-wise is probably smart. Hope you don't mind I was teasing you a bit, though.

ecrane, you should go check out our forum, RTP is no slouch in the beautiful garden department, either. Here's just one post of some of what she's done recently.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=4037916

I'll be a bit envious of her being able to see yours in person, though.

You are welcome in my garden when you get here too. This is a wonderful place to live and other then housing costs and some bad traffic you really can't beat it. I know that those are big caveats but I can't think of a place that I'd rather live.

thank you doss ! you all have been so great - susybell, showing off my babies!!! tsk tsk - and I'll never see them grow up, either !

Looking at that list, other very desirable towns/areas are Cupertino, Campbell, Cambrian & Willow Glen. If he gets a job at Cisco, there are several locations where their buildings are located, the biggest campus is near my house in No. San Jose.

The closer you can live to hubbies work, the better for the entire family mentally, emotionally and physically I believe! So once he actually nails the job, you can narrow down locations.
Once you do finally get here, I can get you started with a visit to my garden and some thinning of my plants will usually be warranted!

I think I'm actually getting excited to move now ! I think he's leaning towards Cisco (sorry, I think I spelled it wrong earlier - always confuse it with Sysco - totally different) but I don't really know why yet. Both places seem extremely interested, Cisco tried to get him to come in BEFORE he interviews with Intel.... then called him yesterday to ask what Intel's salary rage is.... how funny - they must compete for the same people alot, tho.

I will come over and dig in your garden anytime !!! I did see a new house -in our price range - with absolutely nothing in the backyard, just grass from one corner of the fence to the other - I really wish they'd just leave the dirt so I don't have to pull all that sod out. And then just seed where I may want a spot of grass.

Some of the older homes look interesting, too. I don't mind ripping wallpaper off walls if everything else is right. I had to laugh at one of the homes - they had put a doll or stuffed animal on every single bed in the house - tee he heee

If you move in the summer, that's really a very bad time of year to plant things here, you're better off waiting until fall. So in that couple months of summer, if you don't feel like ripping out the sod, you can just put newspapers down on top of it, that'll kill it. Then you can work the grass into the soil when you plant things and that'll help add organic matter to the soil.

I hopped over the the PNW forum briefly to check out the pics of what you did with your parking strip--it's very pretty! I can see why you're a little sad to leave when you just did all that work! While I was over there I saw your thread about grevilleas...they do great here, I have probably close to 20 different kinds in my garden. Supposedly they don't really like clay soil that much, but I don't really do much in the way of amending the soil and mine have done fine. There's a nursery called Sierra Azul which is in Watsonville (about 30 min or so south and a bit west from San Jose) which has a really great selection of grevilleas and other Aussie and South African plants. Even though it's over an hour drive for me to get there I still go about every other month. Other nurseries in the Bay area carry them too, they just have a bigger selection and some varieties that you can't find elsewhere. And UC Santa Cruz has plant sales a couple times a year where you can pick up some more unusual ones (they've got a really impressive Aussie plant collection there)

oh now you are just tempting me ! lol - yes, I may have to stick to planning and lasagna beds at first, but thats ok. I have made alot of mistakes here in our Tualatin garden, but have to remember it had no landscaping when we moved in, and I have enjoyed myself immensely.

I would love to try grevilleas, good to know you have been so succesful - 20 kinds ! wow ! I am getting excited at the possibilities ... I need to read and pull out my saved Garden Design magazines.

tootsie, I work in Santa Clara and live in Gilroy. We moved here when my son was 9, and he went thru high school here, and I was pretty pleased with the schools, and it still feels kinda small-town (for better or worse!)

Real estate prices are better than some of the areas you've mentioned; you might consider looking this far south for a larger lot. To help with the commute my company, and many others in the Bay area---especially high-tech firms---have great telecommuting and flextime plans. Also I've ridden the train to and from work with a bunch of Intel and Cisco folks for many years.

And I have a work colleague who wants to from Pleasanton to Oregon---maybe you guys could work out a swap!~

thank you so much for the information - it's really good to hear about the schools from someone who has lived there. We'll definitely look in Gilroy, I like the smalltown feel.

About how long is the train ride from Gilroy to Santa Clara?

Swapping lives lol !

Train ride from Gilroy to Santa Clara is about an hour and 15 minutes. I catch the train in San Martin (1st stop north of Gilroy) at 6:10ish. That's the first train out; there are 2 later ones, and they're talking about adding more. In the evening there are 3 trains that go to Gilroy. Most of the companies have shuttle arrangements for getting employees to and from the station. There are also major programs to promote carpooling and other forms of traffic reduction at all the high-tech companies in the Bay Area, including commuter checks (my company gives us $35 a month toward CalTrain passes, etc). We all agree here that driving alone sucks!~ There is also another train to and from the Tracy area that a lot of Bay Area commuters use. I ride the train with some people who live as far away as Los Banos and work in Santa Clara---check that out on your map! They drive to Gilroy and catch the train. It's a way to get a much cheaper house, but it's a heck of a commute.
Here's a link to CalTrain's website so you can get an idea of the times, routes, etc., just to see if it's worth considering.
http://www.caltrain.com/

When your DH interviews, he should ask about telecommuting, if it's a possibility for the position he's looking at. I do programming and project management, and I've been telecommuting for the past year; I just went from 3 days a week to 5. I only go into the office when I need to. My company has made convenient arrangements for email, remote meetings, phones, etc. The focus of the program is to cut way back on the real estate the company owns/leases. Sun Microsystems has been the pioneer in this. My work phone, for instance, rings right onto my computer---I have a "virtual" phone that pops up on my screen when someone is calling me. Unless they hear my birds in the background, no one knows if I'm at the office or at home. Not every position lends itself to that sort of arrangement, and it doesn't work for everyone, but if his does and he could have a home office, it may be worth exploring. If it could work, that might impact the layout of the house you look for.

For that matter, I have colleagues who live in Oregon and work remotely. Maybe you wouldn't have to move at all LOL!

Thank you pigeon - I just read both your posts out loud to my DH. He does think he can telecommute, but not at first. But, still good to know - we can deal with a longer commute if it's not forever every day. **Intel is going to fly him to & fro from the Hillsboro Airport every week until we move, so the kids can finish the school year.

We appreciate all your information so much. We talked about Tracy (which happens to be my name : ) -but think it's just too far.

We'll definitely look at Gilroy, especially because the schools are nice.