Our House!!!

Here are pictures of our new house! We just went under contract 7/28 and as long as everything goes well we will close within 45 days!! We will be in Englewood, CO just blocks from my hospital. This house was built in 1950, it is a bungalow style with a lot of charm. 4 bedrooms and 2 baths and plenty of space for entertaining guests!

This is the front living room

Front hallway

upstairs bathroom, it has been remodeled so it is clean and shiny!

There are two bedrooms off the living room and one off the kitchen

The third bedroom has a wall of bookshelves built in which would be fabulous for a cozy office/library space!

The kitchen is definitely a highlight, it has new tile counters and floors and a nice open layout. Plenty of counter space and cabinets.

Dining area

These are stairs to the finished basement. It was once used as a separate apartment. There is a separate entrance and a small kitchenetee down there as well.

Washroom
Downstairs bathroom

A fourth bedroom and another living space in the basement

The backyard space, all fenced in with mature trees

A convenient shed and then the back alleyway! We really like this neighborhood and hope to grow to love it once we move in and adjust to the area. Englewood is a quaint suburbu with a small town feel. The hospital is just South of this are and there is a college just north.

So now we are just praying that everything goes smoothly over the next few weeks as we go through inspection, appraisal and the loan processing. We'll let you know when moving day comes!!

The new phase in our life...

Well... we are staying in Colorado!! Many of you may already know this but Matt has decided to take a full time position at Colorado Christian University as the assistant grounds manager. We are both very excited as this looks to be an excellent opportunity and a great environment to work in. They are also very excited about him and seem so have a lot of goals for him in the next 5-10 years. It won't be too long before they have him in the head grounds position. CCU is also rignt in Lakewood where we live now and where we would like to buy a house!

So our lives have been a bit hectic but God is working everything out in his timing and it is going well. Matt moved all our stuff out here from Kansas City over the 4th of July weekend, fortunately we have a garage because we wouldn't be able to fit it all in our apartment! Plus we still have rented furniture until the end of the month. We also had to buy a car this week since we both are working now, and we have been house shopping for about a month now! whew!

The house search is slow going at the moment. Denver market is actually pretty competitive right now, especially in our price range. They have been predicting that Denver will be one of the first cities to rebound from the housing crisis, and I sort of feel like that is starting. I guess that means this is a good area to invest in, but we are just having to wait for the right timing and the right place for us. We don't have any rush, we just need to close by the end of the year, so that should give us some time!

I am still working as a traveller and just got offered a second contract at the hospital I currently work for. So I will stay there through the end of October as a traveller and then we will figure out what's next for me in my job situation.

So I guess thats about it, our travel nursing adventures will be over for a while at least. We had originally hoped to travel for another year, but with the economy and Matt's great job we just felt like God was saying it was time to stop. We have always wanted to live in Colorado and now we are getting our chance, it just feels like the right time. We are so thankful for this past year, we have learned a lot, had a lot of fun, met some wonderful people and will always look back and cherish this time.

We will probably keep this blog for a while, we have lots of people coming to visit this month which is super exciting and we are going on vacation with Amy's family to the Black Hills in South Dakota. As our house hunt continues I am sure we'll share pictures and we plan on being as much of ski bums as we can this winter! So keep in touch and we'll be updating this page periodically.

Part 1 of our wonderful weekend trip!!: Sand Dunes National Park, Awesome place!!

Last weekend we went to visit Matt's Uncle Joe and Aunt Kelly. They live about three hours south of Denver. They live in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, it is fabulous! We didn't have cell phone signal or internet signal and it was wonderful to get away for a few days.

The 2 hr drive to the Dunes felt like 30 min because the scenery was just magnificent. The below picture is just as we were driving up to the park!

We had done our research on the Dunes and came prepared to hike up and sled down! So we borrowed a sled from Diana and Jordan and started our hike up!

The Dune's just kept going and going. Just when we thought we were about to the top, we would reach a summit and realize we had yet a ways to go.

Here I am playing in the sand and trying to climb up a very steep section for fun!! We were covered in sand by the end of the day.

Here we are at the top, what breathtaking views!

Now it's time to start the fun part, sledding down the dunes!!

Matt went first, this hill looked so steep I was a little scared. But I quickly learned that sand and snow sledding are very different!

Coming down you can sort of skate down in the sand, it was a lot of fun and much easier than climbing up in sand!

My turn!

We slid down this bowl together!

And we conquered the hill without any major casualties!

Back at the bottom we played in the river that runs at the base of the Dunes. It is super warm and great sand for walking and wading!

Fun times playing in the sand! We didn't do this but we took a picture to capture the atmosphere!

We left the park and headed to Zapata falls next for a refreshing look at some waterfalls!

When we got there we realized that you have to hike up the river to see the falls and this water was cold mountain water.

Once you climb up the river a little ways the falls are hidden back in this little cave. Here we are just getting out of the falls, it was sooooo cold, that aching numbing cold! But very refreshing in the hot afternoon sun afterwards.

Trying not to fall in the stream

Leaving the park after a wonderful and rejuvenating day! We've decided this is our sort of amusement park, much better than six flags or Worlds of Fun! We hope to come back and camp with friends some day soon.