Home Improvement: Laminate vs. Hardwood

So after less than 6 months, my husband and I have relocated here in Sealy. We really like the town and the area and hope to stay here, but we were less than in love with our first house here. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful house in a neighborhood full of really nice people, but like many houses in the US, our American Dream quickly turned into an HOA nightmare. My husband is a woodworker and wanted to build a shop. Our covenant clearly stated that we could do so, and our neighborhood was filled with various kinds of hobby shops, but we quickly discovered that the president of the HOA had no intention of allowing us to build a shop and had already drug another couple into a lengthy lawsuit. Thus, we began a search for a house that already had a shop and DID NOT have an HOA. Whether by chance of design, we quickly found a lovely home with a large shop in a beautiful mature neighborhood just a few miles down the road. While I am fairly certain that it is a mark of insanity to move after just a few months, the new house meets our criteria for a retirement home almost to a T. The only change we felt we needed to make was taking out the carpet and installing new floors.
Thus began the great debate between hardwood and laminate. My husband, of course, loves hardwood because he is a wood worker and prefers real wood. I prefer laminate because it is bullet proof and easy to clean. We put real maple in our last house and quickly discovered that it is seriously high maintenance flooring. Since I am not redoing this house with resale in mind, I held firm and got my laminate. It is Pergo Max and in my opinion, it is gorgeous. It may seem even more beautiful to me because it is so easy to clean and because I can slide the furniture around on it, let the cats tear our on it, and if I want throw a screaming, stomping fit on it--and it will all be just fine!