Headin' West, My Friend

We're moving to Denver.

It's true. We're moving from The Woods to the mountains. Matt got an amazing job offer with his company that we'd be absolutely crazy to pass up. He's essentially working two jobs right now until his current group finds his replacement. As the summer goes on he'll be spending about half of the week, if not more, in Denver until he's more permanently in his job and we're all there, which is effective the second week of September. This is so bittersweet for me. It took me a while before I could even talk about it without crying. No doubt this will be such an adjustment for me for all the obvious reasons. My family is here. Here is my home. It's warm here. I will freeze to death in Colorado. I'll probably get myself into a hundred car accidents trying to drive in the winter weather. (I'm seriously so nervous about that.) I'm so happy here in The Woodlands and with our life here, it will not be an easy process for me. That said, I'm also excited at the opportunity to have a life in Denver. Out of all the places to get transferred to, you can't do much better than Denver, right?! Plus my Aunt Jennifer and her family will be just a little over an hour away in Ft. Collins and my dear friend Tami lives in the very suburb we got our house in. I'm so incredibly thankful for them. Tami has already done so much for us, I look forward to the friendship I'll have there with her.

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Denver. We accomplished our goal of signing on a house and we're incredibly excited about it! We'll be living in Arvada, a suburb just west of Denver. We're still trying to get over our shock of how quick it is to downtown--maybe 15 minutes?! We're so used to everything being so spread out here in Houston and planning 30 minutes to 1 hour to get anywhere-even in The Woodlands. It will be so easy to go into Denver (again, 15 minutes!) to do so many fun things and Matt's commute will be so incredibly short, it will be wonderful. We're actually super close to Golden too. In fact, our zip code shows up as Arvada or Golden depending on where you search or who you ask. Matt's big thing when finding a house was having great mountain views. He figures if we're uprooting to Colorado, we better go all out and have a wonderful house with fabulous mountain views. He got it all. Here's the view from our master bedroom. (Most all rooms have a great view in this house...)

I'm so excited thinking about our new house. It's awesome. There's an incredible patio sure to make for lots of outdoor living in our future, plus we get the fun kids play set in the backyard--that's really exciting! As soon as we move in we're going to add another bedroom and bathroom in the basement (it's unfinished right now). There's a nice, big storage area we're going to leave down there, and then also a huge space in the basement that will be perfect for the babies' play area. I'm also looking forward to our wonderful kitchen. It's got double ovens, so bring on the Holidays! Double ovens also means I better step my game up as far as cooking and baking go, right?! I'm looking forward to that when I get the time. Meanwhile, I guess we'll enjoy double the boxed, 3-ingredient brownies and cookies! I'm happy Cole and Cam will each get their own room and once we add the bedroom in the basement, it will be a 5 bedroom house. So once again, bring on the Holidays and bring on what we hope will be many, many, MANY visitors. More pictures to come...

Our house here officially goes on the market today. We'll be living super crazy these days trying to always have the house ready to show. I'm notorious for my "sad times" that I get in situations when I'm leaving family/friends or when they're leaving me. In that aspect, it's probably a good thing we're moving so quickly. "Sad time" is definitely not a good place for me to be in. I don't eat, I have tummy issues (even more than my little Crohn's-self already has), I cry a lot, and one action or word can lead me to a dangerous downward spiral. I'll cut the drama--but it's not a fun place to be in! I'm constantly trying to stay focused on all the hundreds of tasks at hand so I don't get trapped in it. And again, it's not like we're moving somewhere horrible where we'll know no one and no one will ever come visit. We're moving to a great place and I'm remembering that we're lucky to get such a great opportunity and so thankful Matt has such a wonderful job right now. To get through the stressful and sad times of selling our house (that we love so much) and moving away, I'll just keep thinking of the exciting new path our lives are taking and settling into our new house...Good times ahead!...