We've officially been Coloradans for over three months now and are truly enjoying being residents of this state! We were a little leery at first when April and May brought snow to Fort Collins twice! In May? What? Did we move to Minnesota? Or, North Dakota? Our new neighbors and store sales clerks assured us, "This is a very unusual year. We've had much more snow and cold than normal!" By the end of May, we were hoping this was an anomaly!
The clouds parted and temperatures finally started to rise in early June; we actually started to believe that Colorado may really get about 300 days of sunshine each year! (Well, maybe not full days of sunshine, but a good portion of each day!) The tulips that had greeted us in April were finally dropping their petals and new plant growth began to emerge in their place.
Signs of true spring were everywhere. The bike lanes throughout the city and surrounding areas featured many more riders than when we first arrived. The gray pigeons (they actually look like large gray doves, but by any other name can be called "pigeons") set up camp in our gutter just outside our front door. After further inspection, we could see that the previous tenant tried to squelch this effort by placing a wire mess over the gutter area. These crafty little birds figured out how to bend the wire back and have now set up a nice home there...hmmm, need to be smarter than a pigeon!
Wasps began to hover at several peaks of the house but Mark foiled their plan by spraying them before they had a change to build their nests.
Our grass started growing, the sprinkler system was checked for proper operation (with the unusual amount of snow Fort Collins received this past winter, we wanted to ensure all sprinkler heads were working), and, we had to make some improvements to the Koi pond so that we wouldn't wake one morning to find floating fish!
As Mark organized and unloaded boxes over the next two months, I continued to work part time at my previous job by telecommuting. In between working and unpacking boxes, we tackled the decorative elements of a house and it now feels like "home"!
In early June, we flew to Philadelphia to help my Mom host a wedding shower for Sara and Zach! We surprised Sara by flying out her sister, Holly and our grandson, Ezra for the event!
Following our week visit with Mom and Gene, we drove our third car to Vermont and attended my 35th college reunion just outside of Burlington, Vermont. We stayed in a lovely B&B in downtown Burlington. It was the first time I'd been back since I graduated!
We added another day to visit a friend of ours in Syracuse and also spent a night in Niagra Falls, NY. I have always wanted to see Niagra Falls and they were certainly spectacular!
We rounded out the trip by making a quick stop in Champlin, MN to spend two nights with Mark's Mom and sister then did a long 15 hour drive to home! Our cat must have thought we were gone for good! The vet said he did just fine.
We hosted our first BBQ on the 4th of July and had the pleasure of having Zach's Mom, Dad, Grandma, and brother join us!
We were very happy to enjoy two visits already from family! Mark's Mom and sister, Sue visited us for a few days in May and my Mom enjoyed a week with us just last week!
In between all this activity, we've all been busy with Sara and Zach's wedding plans! Things are falling nicely into place now! It's going to be a beautiful wedding in the mountains!
Mark and I are walking a lot more, biking when we can, and "exploring" the surrounding area every chance we get! We've even taken up disc golf (our son-in-law's passion) and have found several courses in the local area. (Now we just need to get Erich to visit and try them out, too!)
We are about to embark on a two-day "tent" camping trip in the Rocky Mountain National Park--that may prove interesting since we haven't done any camping in tents since we were in our 20s!
Finally, we are anxiously awaiting Holly and the grandkids' visit in about three weeks!
So, life in Colorado is good! While I do miss my family on the East coast, I have no regrets with our decision to move. We are closer to Holly and her family and especially closer to Sara! And, this area is absolutely amazing...friendly neighbors, very helpful, pleasant store clerks who really know the meaning of "customer service", and a LOT less traffic! It's actually a pleasure to drive out here! And, above all, the beauty of the mountains are breathtaking! Every day I walk outside my door or drive down the street and I realize that we are definitely living in a postcard!
We've lived in our Fort Collins, Colorado home a little over a month now and it is an enjoyable place to live...peaceful and beautiful! We've made great progress getting the house organized and can say we are truly ready for visitors now! (Anna Mae and Sue actually christened two of our guest rooms last week. It was nice having them here for a few days!)
We really enjoy being able to see Sara and Zach more now, although we've seen more of Sara than Zach due to work schedules and all. Wish we could see more of Holly, Erich, Zoe, and Ezra, too, but I know California is their home. We do enjoy visiting the Ventura County area, too, though! It's quite different than here, but there are lots of things to do there, too! And, it's biggest plus is our grandchildren are there and the ocean! :) We're hoping once I stop working to do two trips a year to California to visit them and Tommy and Mona in Merced!
We haven't had a chance to do much with our new neighbors yet. We were invited to cocktails and appetizers for next week but unfortunately will have to miss it because we'll be out of town then. :(
We've been busy exploring the area and have started bicycling a lot more now and are trying out different disc golf courses. I've also been working out 5 days a week on the elliptical every morning, too! Not really losing any weight yet, but am feeling better.
Still working with Sara on wedding plans. She's doing a great job getting things together! Her bridal gown came in last week as did my dress so we tried them on yesterday at the Bridal salon. She looks fabulous in it! It shouldn't take much fitting which she'll schedule in about a month. I need to make my appointment for my fitting when I return from this trip back East.
All-in-all, I'm happy with our move decision and so is Mark. I do miss my East Coast family and am looking forward to seeing them soon! I know we'll get out there once a year, I just wish they could come visit us sometime.
I can't believe we are now living in our home in Fort Collins, Colorado! It seems so surreal as we have thought about this for quite a long time. We did a lot of soul searching, planning, and had quite a bit of angst during the decision-making process! But, we couldn't be happier with our decision!
The movers unloaded this past Tuesday and we've made great progress unpacking the boxes. We had 286 boxes to unpack and I think we've done about half of them in just 5 days!
We've met 3 of our neighbors so far and everyone of them seem so nice! So far we've met Barbara and Dick, Jack and his daughter, Joey, and Dan. (Dan's wife, Barbara wasn't feeling well.) The quicker we get the house put together the sooner we'll be able to be more sociable. We are looking forward to meeting everyone on our court!
The movers finished loading the van today. Empty house now and very surreal! When the movers left, I sat down on our stairs and my eyes swelled up just thinking of all the wonderful memories in this house. Mark came over and sat down next to me and the same thing happened to him. It's not the fact that we're leaving the house, it's the memories that the house holds that's hard to leave.
But, it is time. The girls and their families are not coming back to the area to live and it just doesn't make sense to live so far away anymore. At least we have the ability to make the distance between us a lot less.
So, we'll do the final cleaning tomorrow and leave a welcome note for the new owners. We hope they have as much pleasure, happiness, and pride in this house as we have had for the past 20 years!
The movers descended upon us this morning with tons of boxes, paper and bubble wrap...8 of them in all! I feel like I'm sitting in a ant colony right now with so much activity going on all around me.
It's 10:30 a.m., and Mark and I occasionally walk through the rooms to see how things are coming along. They are working upstairs and on the main level right now. They should be done with packing tomorrow. They do seem quite efficient.
I can't believe tomorrow is my last FULL day of work! I admit, I will miss seeing my coworkers every day. It really has been a pleasure working with them! I'm glad I'll still get to work with them part time from afar. Thank goodness for IM!
Just 13 more days until the movers come to pack us up! Whew...the long wait is almost here! It's funny how long we've been thinking (and planning) for this day.
When I started this blog about 2 years ago, we had no idea where we were going to live or when we would change our work status. The one thing we always knew was that it didn't make sense for us to be on the East Coast if our girls were never coming back here to live. And that fact, coupled with the horrible traffic congestion and lack of living "open space" in this entire Washington DC metro area were the catalysts for our move.
When we first moved to Centreville, VA 20 years ago, this was a lovely forested area with what we were told would be a carefully planned, primarily single family community with amenities for senior citizens, too. Boy, were we duped! It turned into a townhouse community which is conducive to more frequent housing turnovers than if there were single family homes.
Twenty years ago there were about 30,000 residents of Centreville. Today, there are about 80,000 residents, most of the growth due to an influx of multicultural people. We've watched our neighborhood Christmas lights dwindle over the years to only a handful of families who now put up lights during the Christmas season now. Kind of sad.
It's no longer enjoyable to run out to the store or run to the mall on the weekends because the traffic is just like rush hour...sometimes worse! And, that's right here in Centreville and the surrounding towns. And, don't even think about getting on Interstate 95 sound or the 495 Beltway on the weekend! Ugh!
So, yes. We are quite ready to move...snow country and all!
