{Christy and Matt Urban, Brock (4) and Charlotte (1)}
Occupation(s): Christy is a senior account manager at SumTotal Systems, and Matt is an area sales manager at Hibu.
Favorite local restaurants: Embers for special occasions and Leonardo’s 706.
Favorite local “Must go” places: Gator games of all kinds, Lake Alice and Tioga Park.
What are your children’s favorite meals that you cook? We try to grow some of our own vegetables, so any veggies cooked in fresh spaghetti is our favorite. Brock is obsessed with tomatoes. He eats whatever he grows every day.
What is your family’s favorite holiday? We spend every Fourth of July on Anna Maria Island where Matt is from and we love our time there. Easter at our family church, Trinity United Methodist, is also very special to us. Pastor Dan Johnson married us in Tallahassee 10 1/2 years ago and baptized both Brock and Charlotte. We will greatly miss him this year when he retires.
Describe your family in three words: Adventurous, passionate and tenacious.
Favorite games to play as a family: I spy and dance parties.
Do you have any pets? One dog, Zeke. He is 10 years old and was our first baby.
Why do you love raising your family in Gainesville? We love the small town feel of Gainesville mixed with culture and a high emphasis on education. We love Brock’s preschool, Abiding Savior. He has such wonderful teachers there. Once you live here long enough you always run into people you know. We love having friends here that are always watching and caring for our family, even if we are not there. We like that close-knit feeling for our kids to grow up in. If we want something new, we travel.
What makes your kiddos laugh? We love music so we have lots of dance parties at home with them. They love to run around in circles and laugh so hard. At the end of the day, we just want our kids to feel loved and laugh a lot. That’s all that matters.
What would your family’s dream vacation be? We travel a ton. Traveling and exploring cultures is a huge part of our family. Once Charlotte gets old enough to pull her little suitcase, we will probably fly off to someplace crazy like Iceland. One day we want to take a train across the entire United States together.
Favorite date spot: We love doing a lot of activities with other couples. We feel blessed to have such wonderful friends here. Our friends are probably why we never want to leave this town! We are die-hard Gators and have a wonderful football tailgate group we enjoy.
Our family is most like: The Energizer Bunny. We pretty much never stop and that’s how we like it. We enjoy our quiet time in preparation for our next adventure. We are weekend warriors and having kids didn’t change that. We love to bring them along. A bag is always halfway packed in our house.
Movie in our DVD player right now: “The Incredibles.”
The kids’ favorite books: “Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site,” “Mix It Up!” and “Madeline.”
Mommy and Daddy’s favorite TV show: HGTV’s “Fixer Upper.”
Favorite picnic spot: Anna Maria Island for a beach lunch.
Favorite family activity: Going to Disney World and going to the beach.