A Pride of Lyons: Back to Normal?

I am headed back to our kids, on a plane from Colorado to Michigan, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them. I brought presents for them but I don’t think that compares with the bunny (yes, a bunny!) that my dad brought home for them yesterday. Oh, Papa - you make it hard for Mama and Daddy to be cool.

A lot happened in the last few days. We had a wonderful time and I think it was a perfect balance of relaxation, work, and preparing for our move. We ate out, lounged on the couch in front of the TV, drove around our new city and into the foothills, found a rental house, visited preschools and worked on various details for the next month. Phew! David will travel to Michigan at the end of this week for the holiday weekend and then we will only be together on the weekends for the entire month of June because D will be working Monday through Friday in Boulder. I don’t think I have totally grasped what that means – I think I’d like to remain in denial for a little longer J

Right now we’re working under the assumption that the current buyer for our house works out. Of course, if they don’t, it’s back to square one. That would be a setback, but not the end of the world. We will go ahead and move at the end of June regardless so we can all be together again. David plans to fly back to Austin on June 21^st, pack up Tug and a few things and then make the drive to Colorado with his truck. The movers come on June 22^nd or 23^rd to pack and move us and then it takes approximately 7 days for our stuff to arrive in Broomfield (our new hometown!) Our lease begins on July 1^st so in a perfect world our items would arrive when we can move in J Keeping our fingers crossed on that one.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be ‘back to normal’ until July 1^st then—WOW—that seems like a long time from now. It will be especially difficult for the kids since David will be gone all those weeks but we can’t think of a better solution that works for us financially.

I really, really loved Colorado and the area where we will be living, working and playing. I thought Austin was a health-conscious, outdoors-loving, kid-friendly city but was blown away by what I experienced in the Boulder area. Everywhere you turned there was a park, playground, running trail, hiking trail, or open space. It was wild! We saw three sensory parks (parks that have special equipment for kids with sensory needs, like Blaine has) in the short time we were there. Everything was green and lush and beautiful and the mountains in the background were breathtaking. The shopping centers were excellent and nearly every restaurant we went to had gluten-free options. Dogs are a big deal, in Boulder especially, and you see many dogs relaxing with their owners at the tables outside of the restaurants. Boulder really reminded me of Ann Arbor except that there were these amazing hills right there! Yesterday, my third day there I finally saw one police car. It was weird because I hadn’t seen one all weekend. Apparently the crime is very low there.

I am so glad I had the opportunity to visit before moving because I really didn’t think I would ever want to live anywhere except Austin. But coming to Colorado this weekend made me realize that I will love it here and this will be a perfect place for our family.

But it wasn’t all perfect – there was one thing that was really, really hard for me. It was COLD on Saturday and nearly every night. Brrr! It made me dread the winter which I know will be much colder than this weekend. I’m anticipating that a large portion of our budget this year will be going towards warm clothing, down comforters, and ski gear J