The Goodrums

That is how I would describe us, especially after this weekend. Right now, I am on a plane headed to DFW en route to Amarillo. I was planning to read some documents for work, but I forgot to transfer them from my network drive to my hard drive so I will have to do that tonight. Perhaps I can find a WIFI connection in DFW and make a quick transfer before the flight to Amarillo but will have to see because my connection time is short. Since I won’t be able to read, I decided to work on a blog entry instead (Jen has been telling me I should do another for a while now).

This weekend we traveled to Denver to hunt for a house. We arrived Wednesday night after a long day of travel (note to selves, do not travel to the same destination from the same departure city on different airlines) and airport difficulty. Now, you are probably wondering, as any sane person would, why we flew different airlines if we were going to and from the same places. Well, the short answer is Jennifer’s loyalty to Continental. The longer answer is that airlines have caught on to consumer demand and now allow multi-city flight itineraries. As you’ve noticed, I had to go to Amarillo after Denver, and the only way to do so for a decent price was to fly American, otherwise I would have been on Continental too. So, anyway, who knew that Newark could be such a mess? Jen’s flight into Newark was delayed because of Newark, but she caught an earlier one that was delayed to almost her original departure time, and then proceeded to spend THE DAY in Newark. Yeah, her flight to Denver also was delayed for several HOURS and she ended up arriving at about 10:00pm rather than her scheduled 8:13pm. Now, this could have been great had my flight not been delayed also. I was scheduled to fly through O’Hare (yes, asking for trouble I know) and arrive in Denver at 9:30pm. Well, I got to the airport and arrived at the gate about an hour before my flight and all was normal. Then, at some point, they decided to delay the flight two hours without notifying anyone. Thankfully, they rerouted me through DFW (I was kind of upset because I’d never been through O’Hare before), but I did not arrive in Denver until 11:00pm to a very sleepy Jennifer. Of course, I found out later that my original flight didn’t make it in until almost midnight so it was not so bad. So that was our travel; rough, but we got there.

Anyway, we had a great weekend. In efforts to keep this post shorter, I will summarize. We spent a few days looking at houses in the Denver area, I met my Denver co-workers, got a cool cell phone for work (with just about the easiest number to remember, [pause] ever), had a great time at our office holiday party, and best of all found an awesome house! Whoop! God has been good to us. I have often wondered if I made the right decision in changing jobs and everything (whether I was forcing my plans or if God provided us this opportunity), but I think it was because God has really just done amazing things for us since then. Several things in the timing of the job and stuff have been just great, and so far I have really liked all of my co-workers and have enjoyed the work I am doing. The way our house sold in Jackson was just awesome and now we’ve had the chance to live in Boston for a few months before moving to Denver. This is in many ways the realization of a dream and I am thankful to God for it. Now comes the part about the house. Now technically, we do not own it yet because we have not closed, but we have taken a big step toward ownership with a contract. The house is more than we ever would have expected to get. Given the price of homes in Denver, we were confident that we would not be able to afford anything as nice as the house in Mississippi. As I said though, we have been blessed, and we (Jennifer and our realtor) were able to find a house that is quite comparable. I will include pictures in a separate post (unless Jen beats me to it) for you to see. Timing. It could not have been better basically. We are entering the market in Denver while it is “soft” and, essentially, saturated. In other words, a buyer’s market. At the same time, or contributing to the soft market, there are a lot of builders/developers with fairly large inventories of new homes that they would like to sell. This has led most builders to offer significant incentives in order to meet their sales goals for the year. What all this means is that we were able to find a new home, which was something we never even thought would happen given the prices. Now, about the house.

We found a new home in Highlands Ranch, CO, which is a community located at the southernmost edge of the Denver metro area. The house is located right at the edge of Highlands Ranch and sits right next to a huge open space (8400 acres), which is just great. It has spectacular views from basically every room in the house and just makes you feel like you’re in Colorado. There is a great view of an awesome bluff to the front of the house, great views of the open space to the side, and great views of the front range from the rear. Best of all, the houses around it are completed or near completion so the views should not be obstructed by other houses. That pretty much sold us really; it’s hard to turn down views like that. The house itself is really nice too. It’s a two-story with a full basement (room for guests!) and is almost the same size as our house in Jackson (not including the basement, which is unfinished). It is great inside too, with a nice open plan, great natural light, and a sort of rustic feel. Plus, the fireplace turns on with the flick of a switch, how cool is that? It is also only a few miles from a light rail station, which happens to run within a mile of my new office, so I should be able to conveniently ride the light rail to work (I’ve been converted to mass transportation after living in Boston). I would definitely rather read a book on a train than navigate rush hour traffic any day. We can also ride the same light rail into downtown and avoid potential traffic and parking frustration. The house is also close to a really cool mall, Park Meadows, which, as Jennifer proclaimed after reading the directory while waiting for a table at The Cheesecake Factory, “has everything.” So we have had a great weekend. We have been blessed with a house we would never have imagined and had a good time in Denver too. Although at times things have been uncertain and seemed stressful, God has definitely taken care of us and shown us favor.

Sorry this post was so long; the next one will have what you’re really interested in, the pictures.