I did not do our usual New Year/Virtual Christmas card blog post, and somehow it is already halfway through April?? So this may be a long post, but isn't that typical for me/us by now? A big part of why we missed that post is likely due to the many big life changes that were occurring at that time! Back when I wrote our last blog post Jeremiah and I were in the thick of trying to decide what our next steps were as far as whether to stay in CO and buy a home here or whether it was our time to move back to AZ. It was all-consuming weighing our options and playing through both scenarios and ultimately it boiled down to Jeremiah and I both felt that our time in CO was just not over! We felt like if we chose to make the move back to AZ right now, Colorado just would not have been complete for us! It is hard to get too much more specific than that because so much of it was just feeling, but we finally came to that decision and decided to start making steps toward buying a home here in CO. All the while gauging how these more concrete steps were feeling and sure enough it was feeling right for both of us right now and in mid-December we put an offer on a home in Highlands Ranch, CO! And our first offer was accepted!! We were very cautious in our expectations because as everyone knows right now the housing market is crazy, but we were so excited when we found out it was accepted! We were out at Oregano's, our all-time favorite restaurant with Jeremiah's coworkers when we found out which was a really fun place to celebrate! We only saw about 10 houses in person prior to putting in this offer and this house was definitely a stand out to both of us. We were feeling discouraged by a lot of what we saw in our budget, but when we saw this one it almost felt too good to be true! We saw it on a Thursday evening, placed the offer later that night, and found out the following night at about 7 pm that it was accepted! Then it was a whirlwind of next steps: inspection, signing papers, appraisal, etc. Overall everything went really smoothly and before we knew it we had our move-in date of January 17th! We were very fortunate that the apartment we were in had a very flexible move-out date so that wasn't a big issue for us. The night we got the keys we did a little "camp out" at the house. We brought our air mattress, ordered pizza, and loaded a movie to watch on our iPad. It has not been about 3 months of being home-owners and I still catch myself thinking, is this place really ours?? We officially moved in to our house the week after we got the keys with the help of 6 of our friends and it was a very smooth process! Many hands make light work as they say, and that definitely felt true for us! We had prepared pretty well packing up, but the final move of furniture and boxes into the truck and then unloading at our new house went really quickly with all of the help! It was definitely bitter sweet moving out of our apartment that we had been in the last 4.5 years, and when we did the finally clean up and returning the keys we walked around our complex in the loop that we've walked hundreds of times to reminisce on our favorite memories and experiences from our time there! It was the first place we have lived in together (excluding J's grandparents house for the first month after marriage before moving to CO) so it was the first place we really established ourselves together! As I said we have now been in our new house for about 3 months and are filling it up slowly but surely and making it our own! The house is 3 bed/2 bath with a 2-car garage and unfinished basement so there is definitely more space than what we had previously! Highlands Ranch is basically on the opposite end of Denver from where we were in Westminster before. But this location makes a lot more sense now in relation to our workplaces! We each have about 15/20 minute commutes which is much better than Jeremiah's previously 45-50 min commute! Church and our small group is still way up north, but that is only 1-2 times a week versus every day for work. And speaking of work, one of our other big changes was that I got a new job! You may be thinking, didn't she just start a new job? And yes, kind of! I was only in this past job for about 11 months, but I quickly realized that it was just not the right fit for me. It was more research heavy than I anticipated and pulled me out of patient care quite a bit, so I was really missing full-time patient care which is what I became a PT for! It was a big struggle for me because I was feeling like the longer I was in that job the more I was losing so many of my hands-on skills and worried that I wouldn't even be able to find another job. I also was struggling with what setting would be best for me. I talked with a mentor from PT school, shadowed a friend of mine in her setting, and talked with other PT friends about my thoughts, and ended up interviewing at Swedish Medical Center for an Inpatient Acute PT position. My friend, Mel, was instrumental in helping me get the interview and now we get to be coworkers! On my birthday I got the official job offer which was extra special! And I was in Beaver Creek with family as I always am on my birthday, so it was a double bonus that they could celebrate with me! More on that trip later. Swedish is a Level 1 Trauma Center here in Denver and as an inpatient acute PT I get to work with patients hospitalized for all sorts of conditions! So far I have seen patients on Ortho, Neuro, General Surgery, Cardiology, the ED... And at about my 6 month mark I will start to get involved in the ICU which I am simultaneously nervous and excited for! This job has been a huge positive shift for me. Since graduating PT school I had been struggling with finding the right fit and feeling a little lost in my career! But so far in this new job I have a lot of great PTs and OTs that I am surrounded by and am doing a lot of learning every day and get to work with so many patients in a challenging setting. It is also a great fit as far as hours and expectations go! I am loving it!
Jeremiah continues to really enjoy his job as well, which if we are being honest, was another big pull to stay in Denver! He has wonderful coworkers that I get along with really well also which is a bonus! They really value him at Stryker and as I have said before, I think he is the best employee anyone could ever want - totally not biased at all of course. For the better part of a year he has been working on a project with his team that was a brand new idea that he brought to the table basically to make one of their processes more efficient and consistent. Just a few weeks ago he was finally able to demo the project to the larger team and some higher ups and it went very well, and they were very complimentary, so that was exciting! It is really fun to hear him talk about his work and his goals there and for him to be supported through it!
Some other highlights since the end of October include hosting Madeline and Parker for their special 8-year-old CO trip! When Paisley turned 8 she got to spend a weekend with us by herself here in CO and we did all sorts of fun activities. So Parker has been talking about it since her trip and we figured this had to become a tradition! Since Madeline and Parker are just two days apart and really great friends it made sense to host them together. We went to Hammond's candies, Little Man, did Minute to Win It games, hiked, went to a trampoline place, made pretzels, and played a ton of Slamwich. We packed the weekend full! We have a little while until Luke turns 8... Who knows what we will be up to by then and whether he will want to come alone or with Preston! In which case Luke would have to wait until he was nearly 9. We shall see if the tradition continues!
Also in November we hosted Jeremiah's mom for a quick weekend which was really nice, quality time with her!
The week of Thanksgiving Jeremiah and I went on a week-long road trip through Utah/Northern AZ! We went to Page, AZ first to visit Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend, followed by Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and then up to Salt Lake City to explore a new city! Well I had been there previously, but pretty minimal memories of it. All of these sites/national parks were incredible. When we visited Bryce Canyon it was especially quiet which made me like it even more than Zion I think! I'm not sure though, because in Zion we did the Narrows hike which was really cool and unique. And there is just nothing like Antelope Canyon. Truly a fascinating natural phenomenon! Jeremiah and I stayed in Airbnbs along the way, except for one night camping in Zion! We both love road trips, national parks, and exploring new cities so this was just about the perfect trip for us! We had an amazing time! Oh and we were in SLC for Thanksgiving and found a restaurant that did a traditional Thanksgiving meal along with some unique offerings as well so that was kind of fun! The delicious meal without the clean-up, but the trade-off is no leftovers!
As I mentioned above, the first weekend in December is always the annual Beaver Creek trip which is always a highlight of my year and a great kick off to ski season!
We headed to AZ for a full week for Christmas (my last job had very nice time-off if you couldn't tell) as well! Per usual we filled it with lots of quality family time both mine and Jeremiah's, some of our favorite Christmas traditions, street hockey, celebrating Preston's birthday, time with Tommy and Emily... All the best!
Fast forward after we moved in the beginning of the year our first guests were my mom and sisters, and my youngest niece Mae in the first weekend in March. It was so fun to have them and to be able to host them comfortably in our home! It was pretty cold weather that weekend so we hunkered down for most of the weekend, talked a lot, had a nice dinner out at Linger while Jeremiah watched Mae, and just enjoyed a lazy weekend together!
And then of course our CO winter wouldn't be complete without ski days!
I originally had all of our Italy trip in lengthy detail on this blog post as well, but I decided to put them in two separate posts otherwise it would be the longest post EVER. So I will wrap up here with an attachment to a little video Jeremiah and I put together of our year last year! Thanks for reading and please feel free to continue reading on my next post to hear all about Italy!
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