Early – Mid 2008, How it started:

Bryan & I decided a year or so ago that we should try to get closer to our families in Texas & New Mexico. We scoped out Denver, CO but just wasn’t sold on it for some reason. So we started thinking about the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area. Much smaller than Denver, still close to mountains (very important to us) and some industry that would support employment and within driving distance of both our families… albeit a long drive but drivable all the same.


We kept stalling on making a firm decision and I even took a new position in February with Jones Lang LaSalle. Then after we started thinking about a potential move in Spring 2009, we were notified in April that as of June 30 JLL would lay off their employees on the Microsoft campus account after losing the account to other competitors. It was almost like fate intervened. Bryan’s first words (after, “You’re joking, right?”) was “Well, instead of looking for a new job here, let’s just plan to move by then”. And the race was on!


We spent the next two & half months doing all those “little things” that we kept putting off the past three years! Painting, re-carpeting, new bath fixtures, etc. We missed our deadline of listing on June 1 but managed to list by June 13. Again, a higher power had His eye looking out for us and after weeks of absolutely unbearable cold, rainy weather, the sky cleared, the sun came out, our magnificent view appeared and we had an offer the next day, a mere 11 days after listing!!!


The buyers needed a quick close as they had already sold their current house and asked for July 22 – only 30 days away! We were excited to be sure but also a bit flustered as we truly expected to be on the market for a few months in this market. We agreed and then spent the next month packing & purging like crazy people! We both gave notice at work and after one scary, little hiccup – we closed a week late – we were able to hit the road. I only cried from the house to Monroe… pretty good I thought.


Our ‘grand plan’ has always been to pay everything off, save enough, & get enough out of the house to be able to take some time off before we start new positions. Mostly accomplished, so we are hoping to make this a leisurely trip down to NM. Visiting sights here in the Pacific Northwest, heading over to Montana and then south from there. We don’t really have a plan or a schedule – just go when we get the urge, stop and see things along the way, and get their when we get there. Very weird for us as we’ve always been tied to week or two week vacations – planned to the nth degree on where we’ll be and when and for how long. Bryan was tentatively mapping out a route and kept saying, “well if we go this way instead that would shave a day off”, then he’d stop and say, “oh right… we don’t have to be anywhere by any certain time”. Very liberating and scary!


We’ve had friends tell us we need to do a Travel blog, so this will be our attempt at documenting our travels.