Hi!  It's great meeting you and I thank you for visiting my site.  I'm Dustie Meads and my husband, Ed and I moved to Bella Vista in October 2002.  Along with us came our four dogs, two of which are pictured above with me (a 9 yr. younger, thinner, me), Pierre and Caffee and two which are are pictured below (Sugar and Nooker) enjoying an unusual Bella Vista snowfall.

We fell in love with Bella Vista (Bella Vista means Beautiful View in Spanish) at first site.  We decided to check out Northwest Arkansas after my son in law took our only daughter and moved to Bentonville because of his job.   They would be eventually be starting a family and I wanted to be close to any future grandchildren.  We had discussed moving to an area near a VA hospital when my husband retired, and since there was one in Fayetteville (25 miles south), we decide that Northwest Arkansas might be a good place to check out.   

    On the second day out we discovered Bella Vista and immediately knew that's where we wanted to settle.  It took another three weeks of heavy hunting before we found the home of our dreams.  Fortunately our previous home sold the first week we put it on the market, so two months later we were settled here in Beautiful Bella Vista!

     My husbands trepidation about bringing four dogs into a community of so many retirees was almost drove him nuts.  He, in turn was about to make me nuts, as I was not abandoning any of the dogs (in the heat of the moment divorce was considered as an option!).  Fortunately his fears of angry neighbors were ungrounded.  Our neighbors are wonderful and 3 out of 5 of them are dog owners, with many having two or more dogs.  And they couldn't be nicer people!  Everyone we've met in Bella Vista have proven to be outgoing, friendly and very welcoming!   In fact, a friend I've made here shared a story with me of how her elderly father, when asked whether he knew what the name Bella Vista meant, responded, Of course, it means Beautiful People!  So true, and thus our marriage was saved and the dogs safe and our life in Bella Vista began.

     After we moved in, I was "playing" on the net,  when I decided to begin a site about our new community, the kind of site I tried to find when I knew I was moving to this area.  I wanted a "personal" touch website where I would feel comfortable emailing and asking "dumb" questions.  I didn't find any sites like that, so I decided to build one for new and future residents of Bella Vista.  A site that would make them feel like they had a friend already living in Bella Vista, one that could help them find the answers they have about the area.  Through the growth of this site, I learned so much about the area, and it's my wish that you will too!

 Welcome to BEAUTIFUL BELLA VISTA.COM and if you've any questions, please, don't be afraid to ask!

Dustie
dustie@dustie.com 
479-876-9981

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UPDATE APRIL 24, 2004

Well, we have been in Bella Vista over a year and a half now.  The dogs are loving it, we are loving it, and our second spring is BEAUTIFUL!  Last fall I planted over 100 tulip bulbs and had the most spectacularspring display (I bought the tulip bulbs on Ebay last fall!). 

Spring is no doubt the most lovely time of the year in Bella Vista.  I've never seen so many flowering trees, Forsythia, Red Bud, Dogwood, Flowering Crabapple, and ones I can't name yet.  Fishing is great, caught a few 3+ pound bass, although most have been small ones.  Went fishing in Beaver Lake, about 25 minutes to the southeast from here.  That's one really big lake!!!  My son-in-law went with me and we didn't catch a thing.  I always catch something in our Bella Vista lakes, so big isn't always better, at least not in this case!  When I was putting my boat in at the dock I told someone there that I usually fish in Bella Vista.  He said that I was spoiled...and I guess I am.  Our lakes may be a lot smaller then Beaver, but they've got FISH you can catch!

Golf courses are full of people playing and greener then green!  Someday I may even learn to play golf.  I can certainly use the exercise.  A lovely time of year is Spring...in Beauty I Walk!

Do we still love it here?  You bet!  

SPRING IS THE LOVELIEST TIME OF YEAR!

UPDATE MAY 31, 2005

Still loving Bella Vista as much as ever.  Pretty well settled in.  My husband, bored of retirement, has taken a job with the POA (Property Owner's Association) as a Lake Ranger and is really enjoying it.  I divide my time working on the internet and being active in the Local Village Art Club (I built their website at www.villageartclub.org ).

The most exciting thing is about to happen in November.  It's the reason we moved to Bella Vista in the first place.  Our daughter is finally going to give us our first grandchild!   They recently completed their new home in Bella Vista and live only a mile away, so Bella Vista is going to become even more beautiful with the new addition to our family! 

UPDATE NOVEMBER, 2005

MAKENZIE LEE KANABLE WAS BORN ON NOVEMBER 6, 2005.  A beautiful healthy baby girl, and native Bella Vistian! Not to many native Bella Vistians live around here, as most of us are transplants from somewhere else! YAHOO!  I DO LOVE BELLA VISTA..after all, my only grandchild now lives here!  Wonder if she'll prefer golf or fishing?  mmmmm........

Sadly though, our dear dog Sugar passed away this year.  She was 13 years old, and had hip dysplasia (common in German Sheppards) and kidney failure.  She had a good life, and was loved.  May I be able to say the same when it's my time to go.  She will be missed.

UPDATE NOVEMBER, 2007

I've added a history page to the site, as well as expanded the Real Estate section to help those buying a home in Bella Vista.  Granddaughter is now 18 months old and a real joy!  We are all loving Bella Vista still, even though we've become an incorporated town rather then an unincorporated village.  We've seen no changes in the last 6 months since that vote and don't anticipate seeing many except maybe having to pay city tax eventually.

UPDATE JUNE, 2007

It's been a lovely spring and summer, quit rainy...if you watch the weather channel you'd think we have a climate more like Washington or Oregon state with all this rain we've been having.  But the rain has kept the temperatures very pleasant, not too hot.  And it's not been rain all day every day...it's been more like some cloudburst most days, but then sunshine and rainbows the rest of the day!  The building boom over the last few years has slowed, the market is overbuilt now, so it's a wonderful time for buyers coming to the area.  It's a buyer's market and will probably remain so for the next year or so, at least until the overbuilt situation has been leveled by all the people still moving to the area.   

Beautiful Bella Vista.com is finally showing up as number one in a Google search of Bella Vista, Arkansas, and visitation is up to 16,000 page views a month.  This tells me that interest in our area is on the rise, so I don't suspect it will take long before it's once again a seller's market.  Now would be a good time to buy a home in Bella Vista!

UPDATE JUNE, 2008

Well, we still love it here.  In fact, in six months, we will have lived longer in this home then we have in any of the previous homes we've owned in our 26 years of marriage.   

Another quite rainy season and everything here is so beautiful and lush!  This spring was the most beautiful spring that I can remember to date!  Tragedy struck this winter and I had to leave Bella Vista for a couple of months.  My mother was diagnosed with Lung Cancer and I spent January through March in Mississippi.  She died March the 15th and I brought my father back here to Bella Vista to stay with me for a few months.  The beautiful spring helped Dad in the healing process.  We spent hours fishing on the lakes and visiting the spring garage sales, both things my dad loves to do.  I credit Beautiful Bella Vista with helping myself and my Dad through a really tough time.   

It's still a buyer's market here in Bella Vista, but that's not going to hold true forever.  Too many baby boomers are going to be looking to retire in an area such as this one, so if you're thinking of buying a home, now is the time.

Our first winter in Bella Vista....Believe me, this much snow is not the norm in Bella Vista, 
however, Sugar and Nooker sure love it!  Our second winter only saw two snowfalls.
The 1st didn't stay longer then one night and the other was melted in less then three days.
I went fishing 4 times the second winter in 60 degree temperatures, although the norm was 
probably in the mid 40's. Third winter...just as mild as the 2nd winter.  Haven't 
been able to use a new bought sled, purchased after the first snowy winter.

4th Winter, 2005...Total approx 7" snow all winter...

5th Winter, 2006...about 4" of snow all winter...

6th Winter, 2007...about 6" of snow all winter...
(finally used the sled, flew down the hill with my
2 yr old granddaughter and lucky we didn't break anything)

7th Winter, 2008... 5" of snow all winter and an ice storm

Visit the Weather page to learn more Bella Vista's climate.

Sugar went to rest in the arms of Angels in May of 2006.  Some Angel
sure has a great new friend.  She will be missed.

Nooker joined Sugar in heaven in 2008 so now that Angel has two great new friends
and Sugar has Nooker to romp with once again in a place even more beautiful then Bella Vista!

UPDATE SEPT, 2010

The winter of 2010 was a cold one, just like in much of the country.  Two large snows,
each around 10" deep, lasted a week or more, very unusual for Bella Vista.  We still
had some days through the winter where a light jacket was appropriate wear, but
not nearly as many as we usually have.

Our darling long hair Chihuahua died in the early spring from complications brought on by
undiagnosed diabetes.  She always was prone to overweight, though we tried to control her diet.  She was only 10 years old, and she is missed. 

A few months later we rescued a sweet Papillion mix, from the Fayetteville Animal Shelter.  We named him Radar and He's already become a dog of our hearts.  He get's along great with our 15 year old poodle, Pierre and is wonderful with my granddaugher carrying him all along. Radar even has my husband wrapped around his little finger.  Radar is definitely a little charmer and loves Bella Vista!

If you were thinking of moving to Bella Vista, and can get your home sold, now is the time
to move here.  Home prices are really low and with interest rates as they are, you can
find a lot of house for the money!  The recession isn't quite as bad in Northwest Arkansas
as it is in some parts of the country, but the area is not growing like it was just a couple of
years ago.  The economy may have slowed, but this is still a wonderful place to live
and my husband, myself, my daughter, my son in law and my 5 year old granddaughter,
a native born Bella Vistian, are still loving it!   October we will have been here 8 years.

         
         Only Granddaughter, Makenzie                                         Our current fur child, Radar                    

Update 2011

Working on our 9th year here and what a year we've had for weather thus far...record snowfall, record rains and, so far, unseasonably warm...and we're only half way through!  To learn more about our weather check the weather page on the links at the bottom of this page.

Sadly, June 3rd, our beloved Poodle, Pierre, crossed over the rainbow bridge.  Now all four fur kids who moved to Bella Vista with us in 2002 are all together again, romping and playing and keeping some angels quite occupied I'm sure.   We're on the look out for a new fur kid to adopt, one close to Radar's age so the two will, hopefully, be good buds together and keep my husband and myself on our toes!