COLORADO OR BUST! Plus Some Visitors and a Birthday!

We left for Colorado on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 16th-- with our GPS saying we had about 24 hours of driving ahead of us. Let me just say (and say again and say again and say again....) that moving is HARD. Change is HARD. Starting over in life really does a number on your identity, your self esteem, your body, your relationships, you name it. But darn it if it doesn't make you realize how much Heavenly Father is involved in our lives! We had so many moving pieces to this cross-country move. I kept comparing the process to dominoes-- if one fell down, so would all the rest. Everything was time sensitive-- sometimes even down to minutes and hours. For example, we couldn't leave until Tuesday afternoon, but we HAD to be there to close on the house by Friday afternoon. The moving truck wouldn't be there with our stuff until July 1st so we had plenty of time to get carpet installed, and then suddenly they were coming June 22nd! Etc. Etc. Etc. We experienced soooo many tender mercies along the way, it truly is a testament to how He knows us, and knows exactly what we need!

We drove through North Carolina and Tennessee that first afternoon and evening and the kids did AMAZING. They watched movies, colored in their coloring books, read stories, played with toys, and ate snacks. We finally stopped in Nashville to stay the night which was about 8 hours of driving under our belts.

The next day we worked our way north into Kentucky and then over to Missouri.

There's the famous St. Louis arch peeking out there just through the window! I guess this counts to check it off my "bucket list," right?

Crossing over the bridge from St. Louis, MO into Kansas City, MO, and then onto Kansas City, KS. Seriously! So confusing.... 

We stayed the night in Kansas City, MO and then pushed super duper hard to get all the way to Parker, Colorado by Thursday night, dinner time. Wow. Let's just say Kansas is a beast that almost ate us whole! There was lots of corn and waving wheat but not much else. Zach did his best to follow along with the geography of where we were headed and could not figure out why it was taking so long to get through Kansas! The kids were elated when we finally crossed the border into Colorado and FINALLY made it safe and sound and mostly in one piece! 

We stayed at a hotel in Castle Rock that night and let the kids swim to burn off three days worth of pent up energy in the pool the next morning. Good morning Colorado!

That afternoon Jon let me pick where to get lunch and naturally I chose Cafe Rio! We had the Final Close meeting on the house that afternoon, so after dropping the kids off with Auntie Kylene, we headed over to meet our realtor and officially became first-time home owners!!

We couldn't believe we FINALLY had the house. We had some serious road blocks along the way (like USAA suddenly refusing to give us the loan, and missing deadlines left and right thanks to using a VA loan)-- and I think Jon and I were both holding our breath waiting for just about anything to happen. We got to sleep in our new house that very first night, and while the kids ate breakfast the next morning I took our first official picture of the "new house."

 Jon's parents drove all the way from Washington to bring us some furniture-- including this beautiful picnic table that also folds into two benches. We have LOVED having somewhere to sit and eat outside this summer!

They then spent the next two weeks helping us clean, unpack, fix up the garden and back yard, and most importantly, watching and entertaining the kids so we could get to work uninterrupted, since our stuff came just 4 days after we got there!

After one of their excursions to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, they brought us back some famous "Voo Doo Donuts" (a Portland chain that just opened in Denver). And after days of unpacking and cleaning, man, a donut never tasted so good!

On Friday June 26th, I celebrated my 32nd birthday. I woke up to a HUGE surprise from Jonathan (we'd agreed no birthday presents because I wanted new carpet for the upstairs) of new mountain bikes for he and I, and a trailer to pull Leah in. Let the family bike rides begin!

My sister Whitney (who very generously flew in to help us get settled) made me a delicious pancake birthday breakfast, and Lucy picked me those flowers from the garden.

Later that day we went to IKEA, one of my favorite stores, where I had my very own slice of chocolate birthday cake. Yum!

And of course, my birthday wouldn't have been complete without dinner at Cafe Rio, where I devoured the whole burrito (literally) and then we got to see the new movie "Jurassic World" with Jeremy and Kylene while Whitney babysat and got the kids to bed. It was a fantastic day!

I don't know that I'll ever be able to repay Whitney for all the amazing, kind, generous things she's done for our family. My kids love her, she always brings a very needed sense of calm to any situation, and the girl painted like a MANIAC for three days straight. I don't even think you could call what she did slave labor. It was worse! She was up on ladders, covered in paint, basically redoing the entire first floor. LOVE YOU WHITNEY!

My kids were dying to have a lemonade stand since we finally had the "perfect" location-- a house right on the corner, so Whitney and I helped them make up some lemonade and cookies to sell.

How could you NOT want to buy lemonade from them?? All in all, thanks to a few generous souls, their "free" lemonade stand made about $10. Not bad for an afternoon's work!

That night Zach was dying to get his hands on some fireworks since firework stands were popping up left and right before the 4th of July holiday. He took his half of the lemonade stand money and talked his Dad into buying about $50 worth of explosives to ring in our first holiday here in Colorado with a bang! He is ALL boy.

Whitney finally had to leave us to go on to bigger and better (and less strenuous and exhausting) things, so before I dropped her off at the airport, we stopped for dinner in downtown Denver at The District. We started with a bacon appetizer featuring things like duck bacon and siracha glazed bacon. YUM! 

I got the fish tacos which were just okay-- I don't think I'd order them again.

But Whitney got the chicken fried steak sliders which were AMAZING. Talk about Southern comfort food, right there in Denver! Those hipsters sure know their food.

We decided to make our own little stop at Voo Doo Donuts for a quick dessert before heading to the airport to drop Whitney off. Parting is such sweet sorrow! I hadn't seen Whitney in over a year, since she lives in Arizona, and I lived in North Carolina. I'm hoping now that we're considerably closer, we can at least see her again sooner than that! We certainly got off on the right foot in Colorado thanks to our wonderful first visitors!