MileHigh2MilesAway

Happy Easter! 

Today is a reminder to have hope and faith…“So we too might walk in the newness of life.” Romans 6:4 

If that quote doesn’t hit home I don’t know what else does. It has been a month of “walking in the newness of life.” I have learned that Dollar General=country Target, to save cans for money and trash for “burn piles”, the Amish like to party late (still curious if they can get a DUI though), that errands take at least 20 min, that these communities are tight knit & rooted generations deep, and that you have to embrace the silence-something that I am not used to growing up in a family like mine. 

There is really is something about the quiet here though that just settles into you, clears your mind and fills in the gaps like the fog in the fields. It softens life and fills you with a sense of peace.

Recently we have enjoyed Library story time with fellow Chiefs fans 🙌🏻, breakfast at the (Sportsman’s) Club, FaceTiming & writing letters to family as our means of communication, egg hunts, registering Mila for Kindergarten and cheering on Tyler as he inches forward (literally!-he is on the verge of full on crawling).

Coming up next-Demo Day (or days)!

We arrived late at night to a sky full of stars and a chill in the air. Also a rooster across the street that has no sense of time. You can hear cock a doodle doo at all hours of the day (and night). 

There has been lots of cousin hangs, rummy tournaments (happy to report I’m still the reigning champ), portrait drawings (Mila is becoming quite the artist), and mastering duck calls.

Weather has been a little bleak so we had to take advantage of our few good days…Sorry TLC but we did in fact go chasing waterfalls. 

Taughannock Falls—the tallest falls East of the Mississippi (the video is from a different view and day, much colder and angrier). Ithaca Falls—where Mila begged to swim despite the signs that warned of death. She insisted that she “couldn’t die” even though she for sure can’t swim.

We got to walkthrough our future home and lets just say it is not as close to move in ready as we had hoped. I really thought we left our bad luck in Colorado. But since we can’t control the wind, we will be adjusting our sails again. 

For all of you that are following along…it looks like there will be some renovation content in the not so distant future.

Packing up and moving across the country with 3 young children is not for the faint of heart. But we did it in two weeks. 😅

Our kids became more feral with every box we packed. Taking full advantage of the lack of supervision. They found creative new “canvases” for markers, lipstick (*not blood*), even dirt—mainly bodies and walls. They found creative new places to rest/fall asleep—vacuum sealable bags filled with blankets, the hallway floor, and mom and dad’s bed a couple hours before bedtime.

Saying goodbye to our besties was hard, but watching our kids say goodbye to them was even harder. 

3 days and 1600 miles later we made it. Not only were we hit with the 2 hours ahead timezone but also daylight savings.

I’ll tell you one thing—If we ever do a move like this again, we will be hiring a moving company.

How do we say goodbye to the place that has meant so much to us? From the very first sunrise over the Rockies to the countless days spent in the mountains, this state has been home for a very long time.

As we packed up the last 14 years of our lives, we were overwhelmed with gratitude for all the memories we made and the life we built.

We hiked many trails, skied many slopes, camped in many forests, swam and fished (well Jesse fished) in many snowmelt frigid waters. We had a fair share of “three free” at Coors. We got married on a mountain side. We brought three beautiful little “natives” into this world and said goodbye to our first (fur) baby. We celebrated all the milestones, the ups and downs, the firsts and lasts.

We will miss the crisp mountain air, the golden aspen trees, and all the family and friends left behind.

As Maria says in Sound of Music “when the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.” It seems that window is looking out at the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. Moving away is bittersweet but we are excited to see what this next chapter holds.