Our Bold Adventure Continues

I'm sitting here in an almost empty house watching movers load our possessions onto the biggest moving truck you've ever seen. Eighteen wheels aren't good enough for this truck. No, it needs 22. Our stuff takes up a sliver of the truck, but still it's taking an age to load. The movers are being careful, and I don't think they're wasting time. But I'm a little bored, can't leave the house, and am out of productive things to do. So you win -- I'm passing time by putting a few photos on the blog. I'll put up photos of the new house when I have some, which should be soon. Until then, enjoy these of your favorite twins. Juniper and the girls in front of Boulder's signature mountain range, the Flatirons. Note the scrubby vegetation. These are not Vermont's mountains -- we're on the high plains. M examines cupcakes at a good-bye party for us at our playgroup in Minneapolis. O loves the merry-go-round. This one is in Delaware, but we hope to

I was looking forward to a lull. Moving is a lot of stress, and we made this one happen pretty fast. I figured, just get out of Minnesota and I could catch my breath, begin learning about Boulder, find the grocery store, investigate preschools. No lull for the lucky. We sold our house in three days for full asking price and found a lovely place in a great area of Boulder just as fast. The whole series of deals went down while Juniper and the bunnies were on the east coast at the annual Murphy Beach Vacation and funnydad was throwing himself into his new job back in Boulder. It made for a busy vacation and a lot of phone calls as everything was finalized, but suddenly it’s done. Or almost done. (Find some wood to knock on, please.) We'll own the new place beginning September 11th. It is in a great neighborhood, a block away from the best public elementary school in Boulder. It's within walking distance of a little marketplace with a Wild Oats, a couple of restaurants, a couple o

We took our funnybunnies a short ride up the mountains yesterday to "hop on rocks." They loved it, though at every hop we worried they'd slip and break an ankle or arm or worse. Of course they didn't. The view, just minutes from our house, is stunning. As we live here longer I'm sure we'll learn the names of each mountain and to tell them apart, but for now the big picture is a enough. Don't need the details yet, can't focus on them anyway at this point. Look one side off the mountain and see Boulder, flatness, and eventually (if the curve of the earth weren't in the way), Kansas. Look off the other side and see mountains, mountains, and more mountains. Nestled in there somewhere are ski resorts like Vail, Aspen and Telluride. Countless other places less famous but equally worth the trip. It's hard to imagine people walking over this endless pile of hills during our country's westward migration because the terrain is steep and rough and, we

So here I am on an airplane moving to Boulder. Could have been a smoother transition, but I’m here. (It’s a long story.) Already people look different. Fit. Tan. They carry books about hiking and have carabineers on their backpacks. It’s hard to say good-bye to Minneapolis. In two years I’ve met neighbors, friends and fellow mothers who have become very important to me, and to my children. I found a job I adore and I built a garden that made me proud. We had neighbors who gathered many evenings in our front yard to hang out, have a beer and watch our kids ride trikes up and down the sidewalk. I’m not saying I can’t recreate these things in Boulder, in fact I’m sure I will, but it’s terribly sad to leave and say good-bye to what I knew there and what could have been there if I’d given it more chance to grow. I could have been happy in Minneapolis. The summers were way too short, but the winters were manageable. And the parks, lakes, and trails made a pretty nice environment. It was a go