That’s right, we’re moving! To Denver, Colorado! But first, let me back up.

William’s job has always been a source of stress in our marriage. He worked in Houston in a huge architecture firm before moving to Champaign for graduate school. His plan was always to go back to the big city…but he met me and “got stuck” as he sometimes says. He’s bounced from small firm to small firm as we have moved cities been laid off due to a company’s lack of funds and he’s never been super – well – happy. And any married woman knows how much a man’s job really does affect EVERYTHING in a family. When we lived in Indiana, he decided to try and study and take his NCARB licensing exams. There are 7. I know right, he’s not a doctor, right?! But 7 exams it is. He can practice architecture in a firm without being licensed, but if he ever wanted to get into a bigger firm or practice on his own, he has to be licensed. He took 2 and didn’t pass and lost steam.

Well, fast forward to the fall of 2014. He felt like it might be time to start studying and trying again. While he loved the people he worked with and his boss who has been so good to us, he was growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of career opportunity he was going to be given at his firm. And frankly, at any firm in Champaign/Urbana. There was another gal, Whitney, in his office who also decided to start studying for the exams. So a partnership was formed. They made plans, studied at home separately and then talked at work and lunch about what they were learning. I think this was the KEY to the success they had in taking the tests. William wasn’t just sitting reading by himself, he had to learn it and reteach it. They took their first exam in October and both passed. The decided to change nothing about their process. The continued to study for about 6-8 weeks and then take a test. And little by little, they passed EACH ONE! It was not an easy year, let me tell you. We’d see him for dinner and a little of bedtime, and then he’d disappear into the basement. They gave 6-8 hours on the weekends as well. But seeing all those passes made every “single mom” moment worth it!

We both had agreed that when the time came, he would start his job hunt in Denver. If I have to move to a big city, it just made sense with the amount of family I have there. So he sent out a first round of resumes. We worked on his website (http://williamepool.squarespace.com) and then waited. He got a response from Craine Architecture pretty quickly and we got excited! He had 2 phone interviews that seemed to go really well.

But then we didn’t hear anything. Christmas rolled around. Then New Years. We thought it was done, so he started gearing up for another round of resumes and started looking around Austin. But out of the blue, he finally got an apologetic email that the guy had been busy with holidays and traveling and was still very interested in William. He was officially offered a position on Wednesday, January 20th and we accepted the offer that Friday.

I think I always knew in theory that we would move. But for it to be real is so overwhelming/exciting/sad/scary/every emotion you can think of. It had set a chain of events into motion that is not going to slow down anytime soon. House cleaning/purging, getting it on the market, visiting Denver, finding where to live. Do we rent or buy? How far away from William’s job can we handle? Do we want more space in a home and yard or more time with him? How do you research schools from far away? Can we see all the doctors/dentists/hair stylists one more time before we go? How do you possibly say goodbye to all your dear friends in literally 6 weeks?

We are so VERY sure that this is a God thing. But it’s still very surreal right now and I’m sure it won’t really hit me until I’m looking out my windows at mountains and not corn fields.

Denver, here we come!