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!