2019 and the New Location

[DISCLAIMER: HEAVY SARCASM ALERT! Please be aware that this text contains heavy sarcasm which can be confusing to some people. If you are from Ohio please refrain from reading, it may result in headaches and general confusion. If you find yourself becoming disoriented while reading this text please discontinue reading and go back to your buzzfeed quiz.]

This year has been one looooooooong year. No surprise there. Time no longer works in a linear fashion while waiting for the next adventure to begin. Our Seattle journey is coming to a close in 2019 and we are packing up the wagon and hitting the dusty trail to a new location we’ve never been before, but it’s where the dart landed so away we go.

Our wagon doesn't look quite this good.

Fort Lauderdale, Florida was where the first dart was thrown back in the summer of 2004. My future husband, sister-in-law and I left Michigan with nothing but a trunk full of bathing suits and liquor. We drove all day and all night ready to hit the dull sandy beach at sunrise. Slushy alcoholic drinks and flip flops would sustain us until we needed real jobs and Dan started dental school. We were never going to move anywhere snowy and cold ever again! A balmy 90 degrees year round was the life for us. Getting inside that hot black car with leather seats and sweating through your work pants at 7am was all part of the charm.  

Four years and a handful of hurricanes later we decided Florida wasn’t the place for us, so off we went to Colorado Springs, Colorado in the summer of 2008. The front range of those beautiful Rockies was a sight to behold, who would ever get tired of looking at that stunning mountain view? The weather was the perfect mix of sun, seasons, and a little snow. Life couldn’t get better than this! People everywhere would stop and talk to us about what wonderful skiers they were. Man, the confidence here is off the charts! It’s amazing that every person said they were an expert climber, hiker, snowboarder, runner, biker. What can’t these people do?!  Who needs to be humble when they live in Colorado!

That John Denver was full of sh**!

In October 2012, we decided it would be better to be IN the mountains than be near the mountains. We headed to Frisco, Colorado to live in a tiny mountain town and raise our kids like good mountain people do: skiing and snowboarding before they can even walk. If we live in Colorado we have to become experts at everything so mountain emersion is key.  Yes, this is the life for us! It was a Thomas Kincaid work of art every day, from October 1 to May 31, looking at all that fresh white snow piled so high you could walk right over our fence. What a joy it was to have our neighbors ski right up to our porch and chat with us while we were relaxing in the hot tub. Who needs privacy when there’s an HOA that says no fencing or porch enclosures to enhance a “neighborly community,” not us! Searching for our dogs that would escape the yard every week after it dropped 5 feet of snow was certainly a great workout, especially with a baby on your back.  The baby weight from both kids dropped off so fast!

No sarcasm about the amount of snow we had.
That was legit!

Then, sometimes in mid-life we decide we want something better than what we have had. A new adventure awaited us, which by now “us” was a family of 4. In late spring of 2017 we moved to Seattle so Dan could go back to school to specialize. Sure it rains, but it doesn’t snow! The summer is 78 degrees and sunny for 4 months straight. Plus it is the perfect time to become minimalists! Purging all of our stuff to live in a two bedroom apartment is such a freeing experience. How rejuvenating it is to live with nothing!

This is where it’s at! A family of 4 in an 800 sq foot apartment with one bathroom just makes us all feel closer together. ‘No boundaries’ I like to call it! This cozy little shoebox of a home only costs triple what a 3000 sq foot house would cost anywhere else. But the seafood, water and mountains are just what we need. It only took us 45 minutes to get to the seafood restaurant 8 miles away.  We planned ahead so we weren’t completely starving by the time we were seated 35 minutes after we got there, even though we had a reservation. That’s just big city living!

Seattlites shopping downtown a week
before Christmas.

Although… having a yard and garage would be nice, especially for all the hockey equipment we have. Perhaps owning a house that costs a fraction of what we pay in rent would be an investment. Maybe owning two cars again would be handy for all the after-school activities we attend. I could definitely get on board with more than one bathroom…

Let’s get those darts back out.

Hang the map.

Blindfold please.

Done.

In August of 2019 we ride!

Will La Crosse, Wisconsin be our final destination? Will our nomad hearts ever be tamed? To that I say, there’s a lot of world we haven’t lived in yet, so stay tuned.

2019 will be a year of change for all of us. Don’t be afraid.  Embrace the adventure! Trust this: If everything starts to fall apart… all you really need is a trunk full of bathing suits and liquor and you’ll figure it out.

Not our actual trunk of booze but pretty close.

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for reading!

~Amanda