The Journey Begins

      The journey has officially begun.... for one of us, that is! After a crazy weekend getting everything packed and in the moving truck, Cory set off for Silverthorne, CO on Tuesday October 29th. Since the townhouse we will be renting is a lot smaller than our house, we really tried to downsize the amount of things we have. A lot of furniture was given to one of our friends, 3 trips were taken with car loads of things to Goodwill, and some things were thrown away. Despite the downsizing, we were still left with a very full 16ft moving truck! 

Packed to the brim!

      Unfortunately, since our house hasn't sold and I still haven't gotten a job, I wasn't able to move out with Cory. We just don't want to be in a situation where we are paying rent and a mortgage on only one income. Things are looking up since my last post, though! I had an interview via skype for a position in labor and delivery at a hospital in Vail. Afterward they made me send these surveys to all of my references to fill out about me. It took a while, but the surveys were submitted on Thursday, so now I am just waiting to hear back. The position with the Nurse Family Partnership program that I talked about in a previous post was no longer available. They hired from within and made a part-time employee change to full-time, so that job is off the table. We did have a very positive showing on our house on Saturday. The other realtor said the people really liked our house, but since his clients just started their search they wanted to look at some other houses, too. Hopefully they look at some other houses and then realize our house is the one for them! I know God has a plan for who will live in our house after us, I'm just hoping it's someone who can move in sooner rather than later!

      Back to Cory's drive out to Colorado... He was really hoping to just make the whole thing all in one shot, although we didn't tell any of our family that because they would be worried sick and would think he was crazy! He left around 7am and made it to the western side of Denver at about 1:00am the next morning. He was only an hour and a half away from his final destination, but it was snowing, laying on the roads, and all the big rig guys were pulled over putting chains on their tires... this all lead Cory to believe it would probably be best in the interest of safety to hang out in Denver until the morning sun could melt some of the snow and make his trek up the mountain a little easier. I also failed to mention that the motor in the rental truck was only slightly bigger than the one in his jeep, and was hauling all of our belongings AND the jeep, so we were slightly concerned about it actually being able to make it up the mountain... but it did! Cory left in the morning and made it to his final destination by 10:00am.

 

Welcome to Silverthorne, CO!

Driving around looking at the gorgeous views

My handsome hubby! <3

       Cory had his first day of work at the car dealership this past Friday, November 1st. He said he really likes it so far. I am so happy for him! He is such a hard worker and if he is going to be working hard and putting in long hours I want it to be somewhere that he loves working. So far he has sent me a video and one picture of our new place. Here is the one photo he sent:

      Yes, that is my desk that our TV is sitting on. In the process of getting rid of some furniture we found ourselves in the situation of having one TV stand and two TVs. Once I get out there we are going to buy a new TV stand, but for now, my desk will suffice. I have my laptop with me in Nashville, anyway, so at least it's being useful! I believe the apartment is going to be, let's see, how should I put it..... cozy. Haha! We were blessed with being able to buy our house in Nashville as a foreclosure so we were able to get a pretty decent sized house. Our new place is probably 1/2 the size, if not a little smaller. But, as Cory said to me on the phone earlier this week, "I would live in an efficiency apartment to live here!" We really don't need that big of a space, but I think I'll miss being able to invite a lot of people over at once. 

      Today was Cory's first day off of work since he had to work on Saturday, and he went snowboarding! I'm so jealous! It was Keystone's opening day so he went to A. Basin instead and found it was far less crowded. 

     I want to go snowboarding, too! I'm really hoping that things work out and I can join him soon. I miss my hubby and I am just ready to be moved and to start getting settled in. I'm over this whole "transition" period. And I'm really over sleeping in an almost empty house on an air mattress. It was fun to joke about it before it happened, but 5 days in and my back hurts, I'm sick of easy food, and I'm bored... hence this nice long blog post! At least I have these two to keep me company:

Chance is the one sound asleep, Remy is the one resting her head on Chance.

      It's been kind of boring and lonely without Cory being here and not much to do. I am very thankful for my friends and thankful I have the pups at home so I at least have something to interact with when I'm home. Saturday was a beautiful day out so we decided to go to Bledsoe Creek State Park for a hike. It was lovely being surrounded by the fall colors!

 

      I think that's it for now! Cory was able to go to the local Snowboarders and Skiers for Christ get together this Sunday. He had a good time and I'm hoping we can make a lot of friends there. I'm also hoping that I can move out to Colorado soon so that my pictures of fall in TN will change to pictures of the winter in CO! Please pray that I will be able to move out there soon.... and for fresh pow for Cory to shred! :o)

Planning for the big move!

      I've been wanting to start a blog for a while now about Cory and I moving to Colorado so family and friends can follow along with everything we will be experiencing and going through. To get everyone on the same page, Cory and I will be moving to Silverthorne, CO in the beginning of November. Cory got a new job as a service adviser at the Vista Chrysler Jeep Dodge Subaru dealership in town which is prompting our move. This is a big move for us because 1. We will be moving over 1,000 miles away; and 2. We will be living at close to 9,000 ft elevation! Definitely a big change for us! We are very excited for all of the outdoor opportunities that will be available to us and to finally be living where there is SNOW! How we have missed our fluffy white friend since moving to Tennessee. To give everyone an idea, here is what the area around Silverthorne looks like:

It's beautiful!

      Some things are going very well with our planning, and other things... not so much. First, what is going well! Cory has a start date of November 1st! While this may not seem like a  big deal, the General Manager was beating around the bush for a while, so we are happy to actually know when Cory will be starting. Second, we have found a townhouse to rent! While this might not seem like a hard task, when you throw 2 sixty pound dogs into the mix, many people do not want to rent to you. But getting rid of Remy and Chance was just not an option, and while the townhouse will be a lot smaller than what we live in right now, we can afford it, it has a garage for Cory's car stuff, and it will meet all of our needs. Here are some pictures of it:

We will have the garage and the upper part of the townhouse. Somebody else lives in the 1 bedroom apartment below.

This is the view out of our living room... gorgeous!

The view from our front deck!

      Now for the things that aren't going as well, that we would like our friends and family to pray for! We are facing two major obstacles: 1. Our house needs to sell, and 2. I need to find a job.

      First... the house. We've had 10 showings on our house in the week and a half it's been on the market which is awesome, but no offers yet. We're hoping and praying that someone will love it just as much as we do and will want to buy it soon. 

      Second... the job. You would think that finding a job as a nurse would be easy, right? Well... not so much. The government reform on healthcare has a lot of hospitals tightening their budgets and trying to hire less staff. Even more of a problem is that there are only 2 hospitals within driving distance of where we will be living. One only has 45 beds and the other 38, or somewhere around there. To put that into perspective, I think Vanderbilt has almost 900, or some ridiculous number like that! To get to more opportunities in Denver would require a 1 1/2hr drive going up and down the mountain and considering the potential for large amounts of snowfall... I don't think it would be very safe and it is not something I really want to do.

      I did, however, find a job that I think I would really love, that I applied to today. It's with the Public Health Department of Summit County (the county we will be living in). I would be a nurse working with low-income and first time Moms through the time they find out they are pregnant up until their children are 2 years old. I would be doing home visits on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to do patient education regarding their pregnancy and taking care of their children, helping them determine goals and ways to achieve them, and making sure their basic needs are met. Its kind of a social worker and nurse job combined, but I think I would love it and could really make an impact on the lives of these young and at-risk mothers. It is only a part-time job, which is both a blessing and a curse. We obviously could use the bigger paychecks of a full-time job, but when thinking about the future when we have kids, we could never figure out how we would get childcare taken care of when I would work 12hr hospital shifts. With this job, one day when we have kids, I could work only a couple days a week, still making money for our family, but being able to spend a lot more time with our future kids! And until we have kids, hopefully I can find another part-time or PRN job to bring in some extra $$.

      Those are our 2 big prayer requests at this time: that our house would sell, and that I would be able to find a job. If one of those needs don't get met, Cory will be moving out to Colorado at the end of the month and I will stay in Nashville working at Vanderbilt until I either get a job or our house sells. We just can't afford rent and a mortgage on Cory's income alone, especially when part of it is commissioned based. So if you could pray that God will meet our needs and allow us to move up together, or at lease not be separated for a long time, we both would really appreciate it!