I'm baaaaack....

Well. I'm not even going to try to go into any type of detail about the last 8 weeks. In a nutshell:

At the end of June, TH got a job offer that was too good to refuse...in Denver. They wanted him to start working 5 weeks later, on August 1. In Denver.

So we packed up our stuff, quit our respective jobs, used up some (ahem, maybe more than some) of our savings, and moved back to Colorado.

FINALLY.

So much happened in July, you guys. A crazy epic drunken nightclub adventure in Vegas the likes of which we somehow never had in seven years of living there.

Awesome.

Wanting to kill each other during the moving process and threatening each other with divorce.

Not as awesome.

Getting our Vegas house ready for rental and then saying a prayer and driving away from our little home. Renting it out within 2 days of listing. *fist pump*

Preparing the kids for The Big Move and then when The Big Day came realizing that in the flurry of activity I kind of forgot that The Big Move was also a Road Trip With Kids. TH drove the moving van towing one of our cars, and I drove the other family car with the kids and the cats and some of our stuff. Thank GOD my sister took pity on me and flew out to help me with the drive. Let's just say I didn't really prepare for the road trip the way I usually do. There was an emergency "I forgot to pack enough wipes" stop. Then another stop to pick up RedBox DVD's because I brought the portable DVD player but no discs. And let's not forget the "one of the cats peed in the carrier and now the car smells horrid" stop. But we made it.

Then we had all the unpacking, and figuring out our new neighborhood, and all the EXTREME deja vu being back in the Mile High City. TH and I spent part of one afternoon just driving around to our old haunts (we're high school sweethearts) and reminiscing. Our high school. The houses we grew up in. Places where we went on dates. This is the strangest part about being back in Denver. We've never been "grown-ups" here. Vegas is where we really grew up in a sense - it's the only place I've ever practiced medicine, the place where we became parents, where we bought our first house, where I became a sorta kinda runner, where we spent 7 of our 9 married years. We left behind alot of good friends and great memories in Sin City. We never grew to love Las Vegas and never felt comfortable raising the kids there, but it would be a lie to say it wasn't bittersweet saying goodbye to the life we'd built there.

However...

We are so happy to be back in Colorado. The quality of life here is unbelievably better for our family. We've been here for 3 weeks and already we've taken the kids hiking, visited the mountains, spent time with the cousins, and squeezed in a date night with my sister watching the kids -- the FIRST TIME since we became parents that we've had a free babysitter! Craziness. I've gone running several times. We've gotten J registered for school. The kids have discovered the joy of running through a grass yard in the summer as opposed to the rocky desert landscaping they were accustomed to. While I was unemployed I spent so much precious time with my kids. This has been one of the best summers ever, despite all the stress and the fact that we're kinda broke.

So.

Right now, it's almost midnight, and I'm up writing this blog post because I'm at my new job. I am now officially an Emergency Vet, which is kind of a big change. I'm loving it so far. The hours are weirdly compatible with my desire to spend more time with my husband and kids. The medicine is pretty cool. The bosses are great so far. After almost a year of feeling adrift in my career after being laid off, I finally feel like I might be where I belong.

And now....I can exhale.