Our Story - Adjusting to Altitude

July 5, 2017 forever changed the trajectory of our lives. We were sitting on the porch watching our kids play with the neighbors when the phone rang. My husband answered and his face turned stoic, I thought someone had died. He said very little in response to the caller, then hung up and all he said was, “we have to move”. 

Our boys were 12, 9 and 6 that summer. My husband had recently changed careers and I had just taken a contract role at a tech firm, but had been out of work for several months prior. Trying to raise three boys in the Bay Area had become nothing short of overwhelming. I think we had both secretly dreamed of a life outside of the chaos, but with all of our family, friends and everything we had ever known being within 15 miles of our house, we couldn’t even imagine what that might look like. 

We had lived in our house as renters for 10 years and our landlord had never raised our rent, so we were living in somewhat of an altered state of reality, paying way below the market. We simply could not afford the current rent in our area. We lived the next few days in what felt like crisis mode, you know that feeling when your world stops but you know that everyone else’s is still spinning? We tried to come up with a way we could stay in the Bay Area and make it work. We spent time talking with family and friends about possible options and praying that God would lead us to the best decision for us and our boys. We talked about Northern California, the Pacific Northwest, Texas and Colorado.

Although I was incredibly thankful for the blessing of the home we had in San Jose and the dear friends we had made in our neighborhood, I often found myself dreaming of the day we would own our own home. In my dream there were big mature trees that lined the street, well manicured front yards and a house that was free from visitors who loosely resembled Mickey. In my dream my kids could play outside, ride their bikes and walk to friends' houses safely. Someplace that didn’t cause me to live in fear of that dreaded phone call ever again. Someplace that was ours. 

Within a week of the call, we had decided we needed to fly to Colorado to look for a house. We landed late on a Thursday and had until Sunday night to put an offer on something in a town we had never seen before let alone ever heard of. We looked at house after house, neighborhood after neighborhood. Nothing felt right. Finally, our realtor said she had one more to show us. She said she saw my whole body relax the minute we walked in. Our boys sometimes ask how we knew we needed to move to this tiny town in Colorado. God simply gave us green light after green light, it was as simple as that. 

Here we are, seven years later, our family has deeply rooted friendships, our boys are thriving doing things they are passionate about, and we have all found ourselves adjusting to altitude!