please note, all of these questions are generic and will be asked for all locations so some may sound silly. The questions underneath each area are only there to help you think. Please feel free to skip things that don't apply or to elaborate on things that I did not mention.

Housing:
(How is military housing there? Which area did you live in and did you like it? Is it affordable to buy or rent in town and if so what areas would you recommend? Any additional thoughts?)


Schools:
(Which schools did your kids attend? Did you like them? Did your kids like them? How do you think the school system was overall? Any schools you would recommend over others? Did you go to college while you were there? If so, which college and how did you like it? Any additional thoughts?)


Shopping:
(How are the commissary and NEX? Do you shop there or out in town? What stores are available out in town? What is the local shopping like? Malls? Any places you recommend? Any additional thoughts?)


Cost of living:
(What is the cost of living like? High? Average? Low? How did it effect your family? Was there anything special you had to do to make ends meet? Any additional thoughts?)


Military Community:
(How is the military community? Are there resources for family and spouses? Any likes or gripes? Additional thoughts?)


Recreation:
(What is there to do in the area for adults? For kids/families? Is there anything within a few hours driving distance?)


Weather:
(What's the weather like? Mild? Seasonal? Hot? Humid? Rainy? Cold? Are there seasons?)


Overall:
(Would you go back again? Why or why not? What are your main likes and gripes?)

Housing…

We currently live in Lofgren Terrace on the border of Eastlake/Bonita/Chula Vista. We are about 11.5 miles from 32nd Naval Station. There are 2 and 3 bedroom townhome units available. One layout for the 3 brdrooms and 4 different layouts for the 2 bedrooms.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/wileycherries/housing/lofgren2ndflr.gif
The upstairs is of decent size. We are in a 2 bedroom 1.5 bath. Upstairs is the main bathroom to be shared between both bedrooms. The masterbedroom is 11.4” x 11’ and the 2nd bedroom is 10.6” x 10.4”. There is also a walk-in laundry room with shelving and a small window.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/wileycherries/housing/lofgren1stflr.gif
Our downstairs/first floor is very spacious a total of 20.4” x 23” floor space. The living room can be split by furniture to make a decent size living room and a decent size office. The kitchen (8’ x 8’) over looks the dinning area with a sort of breakfast. It sounds small but it does have ample counter space and room to move. The kitchen and dinning room have lanolium flooring depends on the unit but ours is wood grain flooring. The dining room is 11.8” x 9.3” with a sliding glass door heading out to the patio. We have an attached one car garage with opener and additional storage in the garage.

Before living in Lofgren Terrace we lived in Rancho Penasquitos at a civilan apartment community, Milazzo Apartments ( http://www.fairfield-properties.com/weblink/weblinks/forms/wbl_property_home.asp?scode=1104). They were fairly high priced for a 886 sqft 2bdrm/1bath apartment. However they did allow dogs and came with a washer and dryer. I preferred this community due to it’s location. It is a very quiet community located in the Poway School District, along with ample park space and not a lot of room for the commercial industry. The area is full of green grass, lots of trees, and wonderful parks ranging from Hilltop Park to the Skate Park. However this community area is approximently 25 miles from 32nd Naval Street and about 8 miles from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station.

Schools…

Currently our daughter is attending Tiffany Elementary School in the Chula Vista school district. Here you can find Tiffany’s Accountability Report; http://www.cvesd.k12.ca.us/cvesd/inst_services/public/arc/tiffany/tiffany.pdf. They are on a single track regular school schedule. They start from 8.45am to 2.55pm Monday thru Thursday, with half days on Friday ending at 1.25pm. There is approximently 643 students in the school. The class sizes average around 20 students.

She previously attended Canyon View Elementary in Rancho Penasquitos, which we personally LOVED and miss dearly. You can see here… http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/about/SARCs/summaries/CanyonView.pdf their statistics, etc. Canyon View is part of the acclaimed Poway Unified School District and has ranked in the top 30 elementary schools for 2006 for all of San Diego County. Here you can find PUSD’s target ranges for California’s testings; http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/news/state-district-05-06/6.pdf; which of course you can see clearly have higher scores then other San Diego County and Statewide scores.

Shopping...
San Diego has a couple Exchanges to choose from depending where you are living. You can choose between MCAS, 32nd Street, MCRD, and Pendelton if you are up north. I personally believe all the exchanges prices average around Khol’s and Mervyn’s prices. However you can get great deals during sales and holidays for name brand items. No matter what community/town you live in you will always be able to find a Wal-Mart or Target close by. Most shopping centers include one or the other along with Old Navy, Barnes & Noble, Ross, and other misc. retail chain stores.

There around 8 major malls in San Diego County. They are all run by Westfield shopping centers. We have Plaza Bonita in Bonita/Chula Vista, Chula Vista mall off broadway; Fletcher Parkway in El Cajon; Horton Plaza in Downtown San Diego; UTC in La Jolla (which has a indoor ice skating rink); North County Fair in Escondido; and Camino Real Mall in Oceanside/San Marcos; Fashion Valley Mall and Mission Valley Mall in Mission Valley area.

There are also a couple different commissaries to choose from at each of the bases including North Island as well. Depending where you live you have the choice of a couple different grocery stores; VONS, Albertson’s, Stater Brother’s, Henry’s and a couple health food places such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods Market. Most prices are cheaper at the commissary however for more specific foods you have a better choice of heading out in town.

Cost of living…
It can be expensive to live out here in San Diego. As of Feb 2005 our prices were up 3.7% compared to the US avg of 2.7%. Prices all around have gone up and continue to go up yearly around here. We pay a state tax of 7.75% on the dollar. Childcare averages $220 a week for full time for a 4 yr old out in town at Childtime Facilities during the summer of 2005. ESS in the Poway Distritct would range around $275 a month for before and after school care. Minimum wage in CA is around $6.75 an hour. (http://compensation.blr.com/compensation/california_minimum_wage.cfm)

Military Community…
There are a lot of community resources here in San Diego. Besides different programs, classes, get togethers each base offers, there is also the USO (http://www.usosandiego.org/); Fleet & Family Support Center (http://www.cnrsw.navy.mil/fsc/default.htm), Operation HomeFront (http://www.operationhomefront.net/sandiego/), along with many others.


Recreation…
There are numerous things to do while in San Diego. A couple of things to do while here are:
1. Visit Birch Aquarium
2. The many different beaches, from Oceanside to Imperial Beach
3. Old Town
4. Balboa Park
5. San Diego Zoo
6. Shelter Island if you are into yahts and sailboats
7. Flowerfields in Carlsbad
8. Lego Land
9. San Diego Wild Animal Park
10. Campland by the Bay
11. Different campgrounds in Encinatas
12. Palomar Mountain and Observatory
13. Julian
14. Mt. Laguna
15. Glamis for dirt bike riding
16. Catalina
17. 2 hrs from Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm
18. Harbor boat tours
19. Cabrillo Tide Pools
20. La Jolla Shores
21. Sunset Cliffs
22. Boat rentals at the various lakes and beaches
23. Fiesta Island
24. Seaport Village
25. Night life in Downtown San Diego
26. Surf schools
27. Hang gliding from La Jolla overlooking Black’s Beach
28. Mission Beach’s Belmont park including the Wave.

Weather…
The average weather for San Diego is 49 to 80 degrees. December, Jan, February April and May average 66 to 70 for highs and 49 to 59 for lows. From June to November the weather averages 70 to 80 for highs and 55 to 70 for the lows.

We lived in Lofgren too.:)

Lofgren sounds so lovely!!! I never knew about it!!! It's only like 5 mins away from my parents who live in Bonita! Hmmm....where's definitely going to have to look into the place the next time we're stationed in San Diego.
Reading your review is making me miss my hometown even more!!! :(

Housing:

We currently live in an apartment building in Coronado. It's nice but sometimes I feel like I live in a retirement home. Coronado seems like a great place for families with kids (nice parks, schools with budgets so big they don't know what to do with them, small town atmosphere); however, we're newly married and it's hard to find other kidless couples to hang out with. I often envy our single and young married friends who have cute condos in the city, but I'm also partial to more metropolitan areas. The big bonus of Coronado for us is that biking is the main form of transportation which allows us to easily share a car.

As far as affordability goes...thank goodness the commissary is right down the street. The price of everything in Coronado is inflated. Buying is definitely out since one of the small condo/apartments (2 bedroom/1.5 bath/less than 1000 feet) is listed for half a million.


Schools:

Thanks to the over-abundance of funds for Coronado High School, they offer an adult education program. I took the cooking class ($25 with a $20 lab fee). It was kind of like watching a cooking show live, but you get to eat the food at the end!


Shopping:

The North Island commissary and NEX are nice. We don't venture into San Diego much, so it's nice having them nearby. The NEX at the San Diego base is huge and has just about anything you could ask for. When I'm in for serious shopping I head over there.

Horton Plaza is the over-hyped mall around here. It's crowded and confusing and I pray to God I don't have to go there once the holiday shopping season starts! If you go, be sure to get your parking validated. DH and I went there to see a movie only to discover it was playing at the theatre down the street. Since we were pressed for time, we kept the car parked in the Horton garage. We paid almost $20 in parking at the end of the night.

My preference for shopping is Mission Valley. It has my favorite store Target. Plus, a Border, most of your usual mall stores, Bed Bath & Beyond. A couple of miles down 163 is Fashion Valley which has all your move upscale, expensive stores. There's also a Barnes and Noble down the street from Fashion Valley.


Cost of living:

Cost of living in San Diego is super high, and Coronado is higher than that. We just got married and we're trying to learn how to combine expences and such (i.e. my idea of dinner is not yogurt and milk and his idea isn't eating out every night). So it's been a little tough to figure out how much of this is temporary, and how much is going to follow us back to the East Coast. But I've lived in Florida my whole life and never had too many problems living off a student's budget, and I'm struggling with the budget for Coronado.


Recreation:

San Diego has no shortage of recreation. Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, club/bar hopping downtown for adults. Coronado is extremely kid and family friendly. Parks and bike-riding are the big thing hear. During the summer, there's a concerts in the park series in Sprekels Park that features people having the most elaborate picnics I have ever seen in my life! DH and I recently discovered Fiddler's Cove Marina just past the amphibious base on the strand. You can rent a kayak or a canoe for $8 and a small sailboat for $10. We rode our bikes down, rented a canoe, and paddled around San Diego Bay. It was a great time.

Weather:

It is sunny and warm everyday. I never thought I would miss hurricane season (especially after last year), but I do miss Southern thunderstorms and a little rain. But you really can't complain when you can go walk on the beach in November and only need a light jacket.

Overall:

Coronado is not a bad place to live, especially if you have kids. I would recommend couples without kids get a place in the city. Personally, I wouldn't want to come back just based on the cost of living - we could never afford to buy here. But like I said, once we have kids...it would be a fun place to be.