Here's the story. I'd been feeling a bit stale and rooted in Madison having been there for almost 4 years, a little frustrated with having hit the ceiling at work, and Doug and I are just gypsies by nature. Always up for the next big adventure. Upon one such session of complaining to Doug, he did what Martians do to Venusians, but this convo all took place during a sacrament meeting at church.
Martian: "Ok, so quit your job and let's move."
Me: "Really?"
Martian: "Sure, why not?"
Me: "Where?"
Martian: "Anywhere"
Me: "Hmm, hadn't thought of that before."
Thus the bedraggled, worn out, stale, infertile, frustrated, me began the adventure! Funktown instantly became Excitementown! Something adventurous to dream about every waking moment!
Now, let me give a disclaimer. My funk was not with regards to the incredible, awesome, amazing friends and family in Wisconsin. You guys will forever be remembered and I know we'll stay in touch. What it was in regards to is just life. Does that make sense? Probably not. But pretend you understand.
At work that next day, I looked up on my company's intranet site all the postings for Associate Financial Representatives (AFRs), my role, across the country. I spent first couple weeks of March interviewing over the phone like crazy. Even took a personal day down in Chicago to interview downtown. It was so exciting! And I was in high demand! What a blessing to know that my expertise, my hard studying, my impeccable performance, my OCD perfectionism, it was all coming together in a divine event!
Friday night, March 12th I received an offer from the downtown Chicago office, with the deadline that they needed to know by noon Tuesday because they needed to run on this quickly. I told Denver & Akron this deadline to light a fire under their butts. Monday night March 16th I received an offer from Denver. Tuesday morning I received an offer from Akron, Ohio. And then I had a few hours to make my decision! Ah!
Doug and I had talked a TON about pros and cons of different locations for weeks preceding this, during the interviewing processes. We looked at apartment costs in each location. We figured out cost of living data to be able to accurately compare apples to apples with the salary offers. We factored in our lifestyles and our personalities.
Then after the offers all flooded in during that 5 day whirlwind time span, it solidified the decision our guts had made, that Colorado was the right place. Colorado was our top pic of the 3 for lifestyle/adventure/fitness. And Colorado was the top salary/benefits offer! Chicago would have been a second, but their offer would had to have been quite a bit higher than the other places due to the cost of living in Wicker Park (where the office is).
Then to further solidfy and confirm our decision we had studied and worked out, everything just started falling into place like it was orchestrated by divine intervention- and I know it was. Within 6 hours of officially accepting the Colorado job, we had friends in Denver offering a place to stay as long as we needed to. Doug's bosses at his job have connections with a different company, same field, in Denver. His educational director even lives in Denver and travels around the country training. (As of now, job not landed yet, but he's had a few interviews & we're keeping our fingers crossed). Denver even gave a moving bonus as part of the negotiations (go me!). Our landlords in Madison let us out of our lease a couple months early, at the end of April.
So April 13th we packed up my Rover with a few suitcases of clothes, dropped off pugly with Aunt Bethany & Uncle Adam, then drove cross-country! We got to stop in Des Moines, Iowa to see my friend Carly that I hadn't seen since high school, meet her sweet little baby Rose. So precious! We drove straight through in one day, getting to our friends Joe & Tiffany's house in Henderson, Colorado around mid-night. Doug and I spent the next afternoon on the 14th apartment hunting- looked at 5 lofts downtown (all had to have parking garage, washer/dryer, allow 2 pups (yes, we're planning on getting another this year sometime!)). The first one we saw was actually the one we signed a lease on! Then I started my new job on Thursday, April 15th!
The "Welcome to Colorado" pics will be on the next post, but here's a pic of my awesome coworkers from Wisconsin at a farewell lunch for me at Claddagh on my last day. Miss you guys!
And here's my best running buddies in the whole wide world- I miss running with you guys so much!!!!! This was our final run together :( Thanks mostly for the friendship & group therapy- running & fitness was just secondary :)
The awesome book club gals threw a going away dinner shin dig for me & Abrey (she was moving to Iowa a few weeks after I was leaving) that final Friday night in Madison at the fatabulous restaurant, Bluephies. I didn't snag a picture of that night! Sad! But thanks for all the fun times & memories!
The Wisconsin chapter of our lives will wrap up this weekend. Doug & Frank packed up the rest of our stuff (I'm sure Frank was no help whatsoever actually, so scratch that), cleaned the apartment, moved our stuff down to storage in Janesville, and Frank & Doug are bunking at my parents' house in Janesville May 1st-13th. Thanks, Mom & Dad! It's a 20 min commute for him to get to his school from there as opposed to a 45 min commute from our old place in Madison. Doug's finishing up his finals week this week and then it's westaward bound! I pick up the keys to our new place this Friday after work, May 14th. Then Doug, Frank, & Matt (Doug's brother is amazingly flying in from Ohio to do the drive with Doug!) will arrive late Friday night in Denver, and I've got a whole slew of people from our new ward to help us unload here on Saturday morning the 15th. I miss my hubby & puppy!!!
The apartment is 99% set up and I'm feeling great. A whole week of sleep deprivation, box paper cuts, stubbed toe, and Mountain Dew and it's nearly home sweet home. There are a few more finishing touches I want to put on the place before posting pics of it for you all to see- namely some fun bike mounts I ordered online that are supposed to be delivered today. But here are the pics of the empty place I took right after we got the keys on May 14th but before we moved our stuff in May 15th. I will spare you my lame commentated video :)
Doug, Matt, & Frank drove out the Penske truck wth all our stuff in it May 13th-14th and got here to Denver late the 14th. It was soooooo good to see them! Thanks for all your help, Matt. We really really really appreciate it and had fun. 
The move-in on Saturday morning the 15th went well. One guy from EQ came and two couples in our new ward that I've become friends (they're also new) with came to help and Stephanie helped me get the kitchen functional way faster than I would have on my own. We found out the next day at church that there were other guys from EQ that had tried to come but couldn't find us (there were soooo many moving trucks outside our building that day w/ people moving in! :) ). Everything was in within an hour. It was great! 
