Broomfield, CO (1985-2004, summer 2005, summer 2006)
I lived on the same street from 0-18 years. Broomfield, CO is a special place. "Halfway between Denver and Boulder" was the typical description I used for our location (and still is if someone is somewhat familiar with CO), a phrase I can only assume I picked up from my parents, but perhaps it is what everyone from Broomfield says.
The elementary school was on our street, Bronco Park within the neighborhood, and 7 Eleven at the edge, it's no surprise that most of my childhood memories are contained within the bounds of Westlake. Church and King Soopers were across town, and belonging to the Boulder stake (church region) we traveled to... somewhere near Boulder for Stake Conference, but those were the outlying regions of my world.
As a teenager I ventured out of Broomfield more, exploring Denver, Westminster, Thornton, Boulder, Longmont, Arvada, Golden... still most often for a specific purpose I would wander, so I am not as familiar with the Denver Metro Area as you might think. It's humbling when I go back how much of my getting around needs a GPS.
I loved Broomfield, and learned when I left how truly nice of a place it was to grow up. The city has a lot of pride in their community, they take very good care of their parks and open space, it's clean and beautiful.
Provo, UT (2004-2008, minus a few summers)
I moved to Provo to attend Brigham Young University. I had never been to UT (okay... I think I actually stayed the night in a dorm room on BYU's campus one night on a family vacation with my best friend, but didn't even know what state I was in at the time). My parents drove me out and dropped me off at Deseret Towers, V Hall, 5th floor. I had no car, no job, very few friends and no family. I honestly still look back in awe that I actually did it. I have always been somewhat attached to home. Not a homebody, but a homesick person. I guess it was just the right path and so it opened up in front of me, I don't have another explanation for it.
My first memories here getting to my dorm room, meeting my roommate, Laura, and buying books. I remember staring at the Y on the mountain as we pulled up to the bookstore. I had no idea what lay ahead for me, and I'm glad.
I pretty much didn't leave campus except to donate plasma my entire freshman year. Oh, and one trip to Vegas. "South of campus" referred to the unknown nether regions where older students lived, and where my roommate moved halfway through the year to live with her sister. I spent the second semester alone and okay. I enjoyed myself quite a bit my freshman year, and certainly made mistakes.
Provo is a very unique place. BYU was an overall good experience for me, and I grew fond of the tight streets and small old houses, the layout of campus and the Crest on 700 N (a pepsi and a protein bar were my breakfast of choice). I moved home to Broomfield for 2 summers, then spent my next summer in Provo.
Vancouver, WA (summer 2008)
When Eric and I got engaged we decided to be married in Portland, OR for essentially two reasons: 1. my parents had moved from Broomfield to Montrose, CO a couple years before, so I felt like it would be hard to host it in Denver (not many family members left in Denver, everyone would have to travel there), and 2. that's where Eric is from so it's the obvious other choice. Eric still had his parent and 3 siblings that lived there with full families of kids, so getting married there logistically eased the travel burden for a bulk of people. I know it was tough on my family to travel to Portland, I'm grateful to those that did.
I digressed a bit, but when we decided on Portland, we also decided to move up and live there for the summer. We could plan the wedding while we lived there, and we both had free places to live so we could save money for those few months (read spend the money we earned on a wedding). Once again I found myself moving to a place I'd only been once (I'd met Eric's family while we were dating), at least this time I had a car and unlimited phone minutes!
This time, however, I thought I was going to live one place, and it didn't work out. I was stressed and felt homeless, and right when we got there Eric got a kidney stone (the first of many we've been able to experience together), he was so sick he didn't have a lot of resources to attend to me feeling comfortable. It was tough, but after that first week or so we settled in just fine. An angel of a woman and her great husband offered to let me live in their basement apartment, and I grew to love them very much.
I worked at the downtown Vancouver Hilton in housekeeping, Eric worked at Wells Fargo in collections. He did split shifts from 5-9am, then 1-5pm, and I worked 8-5 ish. Most nights I'd head straight to Peggy and Tom's after work and we'd have dinner together. Eric and I would plan the wedding, and then I'd head back to my place some nights or sleep in the open room at Glems, then we'd start all over again.
One morning I'd slept at Glems and I went to leave for work (Eric was long gone). I walked out the front door and was surprised to see Tom, my soon-to-be FIL, standing on top of his RV. He yelled that he was so happy to see me! He had been cleaning or tidying or doing something and the ladder he used to climb up had fallen over, so he'd been stuck up there waiting for someone to find him.
The best things about living in Vancouver were all people. I got to spend time getting to know Eric's siblings and nieces/nephews, and really to get to know his parents. I cherish the time I was there.
Orem, UT (2008-2009, first stint in Orem)
Katie, Eric's sister that lived in UT at the time, found us our first apartment. We moved to Lakeridge in Orem. The first thing we did when we got into town was go to Best Buy and buy a TV. Life quickly turned into routine, we were still students, and spent a lot of time going to class, studying, and working. Often I'd come home from the library between 10pm and midnight, and we'd crash. We had a good life. Lisa (my sister, not Eric's) lived with us, and Jeff (Eric's brother) followed suit. Life with the four of us in that apartment was pretty good. Jeff and Lisa quickly became like brother and sister, and we all relied on each other.
When I think about our time in Orem, there are a few standout thoughts. First, I mostly think of "The Branch". We lived in branch instead of a ward in our church there, which is just a smaller version of the same thing. The Branch was a strange place, but we had a lot of memorable experiences there and met a lot of people. I was lucky enough to meet Malia there, and she is still one of my dearest friends.
Second, I think of Eric having cancer. That is all documented well, on this blog so I'm not going into details, feel free to go back and read through it.
Third, I think about school, graduating, working and settling into life as a family, for Eric and me.
Virginia Beach, VA (summer 2009)
We went to VA Beach to sell alarms. I worked at Pinnacle Security starting in 2007, and Eric had sold a couple summers before we started dating. Living in VA Beach was awesome. However, because of the short duration of our stay, we decided I wouldn't find a job. That was a challenge. I'd never had that kind of free time (and never have since) and it was bizarre.
They start selling around noon and are gone until sunset, but of course we didn't take advantage of the mornings together, we just slept in almost every day. Every once in awhile we'd head to the beach before Eric's work, but mostly when family was visiting. Eric would head to work and I would head to the gym. I'd elliptical for an hour, go home and take a shower, then make the difficult decision between the pool and the beach. I re-read the Harry Potter books, watched Friends on DVD, talked to my mom for 2-3 hours a day.
I lived on the same street from 0-18 years. Broomfield, CO is a special place. "Halfway between Denver and Boulder" was the typical description I used for our location (and still is if someone is somewhat familiar with CO), a phrase I can only assume I picked up from my parents, but perhaps it is what everyone from Broomfield says.
The elementary school was on our street, Bronco Park within the neighborhood, and 7 Eleven at the edge, it's no surprise that most of my childhood memories are contained within the bounds of Westlake. Church and King Soopers were across town, and belonging to the Boulder stake (church region) we traveled to... somewhere near Boulder for Stake Conference, but those were the outlying regions of my world.
As a teenager I ventured out of Broomfield more, exploring Denver, Westminster, Thornton, Boulder, Longmont, Arvada, Golden... still most often for a specific purpose I would wander, so I am not as familiar with the Denver Metro Area as you might think. It's humbling when I go back how much of my getting around needs a GPS.
I loved Broomfield, and learned when I left how truly nice of a place it was to grow up. The city has a lot of pride in their community, they take very good care of their parks and open space, it's clean and beautiful.
Provo, UT (2004-2008, minus a few summers)
I moved to Provo to attend Brigham Young University. I had never been to UT (okay... I think I actually stayed the night in a dorm room on BYU's campus one night on a family vacation with my best friend, but didn't even know what state I was in at the time). My parents drove me out and dropped me off at Deseret Towers, V Hall, 5th floor. I had no car, no job, very few friends and no family. I honestly still look back in awe that I actually did it. I have always been somewhat attached to home. Not a homebody, but a homesick person. I guess it was just the right path and so it opened up in front of me, I don't have another explanation for it.
My first memories here getting to my dorm room, meeting my roommate, Laura, and buying books. I remember staring at the Y on the mountain as we pulled up to the bookstore. I had no idea what lay ahead for me, and I'm glad.
I pretty much didn't leave campus except to donate plasma my entire freshman year. Oh, and one trip to Vegas. "South of campus" referred to the unknown nether regions where older students lived, and where my roommate moved halfway through the year to live with her sister. I spent the second semester alone and okay. I enjoyed myself quite a bit my freshman year, and certainly made mistakes.
Provo is a very unique place. BYU was an overall good experience for me, and I grew fond of the tight streets and small old houses, the layout of campus and the Crest on 700 N (a pepsi and a protein bar were my breakfast of choice). I moved home to Broomfield for 2 summers, then spent my next summer in Provo.
Vancouver, WA (summer 2008)
When Eric and I got engaged we decided to be married in Portland, OR for essentially two reasons: 1. my parents had moved from Broomfield to Montrose, CO a couple years before, so I felt like it would be hard to host it in Denver (not many family members left in Denver, everyone would have to travel there), and 2. that's where Eric is from so it's the obvious other choice. Eric still had his parent and 3 siblings that lived there with full families of kids, so getting married there logistically eased the travel burden for a bulk of people. I know it was tough on my family to travel to Portland, I'm grateful to those that did.
I digressed a bit, but when we decided on Portland, we also decided to move up and live there for the summer. We could plan the wedding while we lived there, and we both had free places to live so we could save money for those few months (read spend the money we earned on a wedding). Once again I found myself moving to a place I'd only been once (I'd met Eric's family while we were dating), at least this time I had a car and unlimited phone minutes!
This time, however, I thought I was going to live one place, and it didn't work out. I was stressed and felt homeless, and right when we got there Eric got a kidney stone (the first of many we've been able to experience together), he was so sick he didn't have a lot of resources to attend to me feeling comfortable. It was tough, but after that first week or so we settled in just fine. An angel of a woman and her great husband offered to let me live in their basement apartment, and I grew to love them very much.
I worked at the downtown Vancouver Hilton in housekeeping, Eric worked at Wells Fargo in collections. He did split shifts from 5-9am, then 1-5pm, and I worked 8-5 ish. Most nights I'd head straight to Peggy and Tom's after work and we'd have dinner together. Eric and I would plan the wedding, and then I'd head back to my place some nights or sleep in the open room at Glems, then we'd start all over again.
One morning I'd slept at Glems and I went to leave for work (Eric was long gone). I walked out the front door and was surprised to see Tom, my soon-to-be FIL, standing on top of his RV. He yelled that he was so happy to see me! He had been cleaning or tidying or doing something and the ladder he used to climb up had fallen over, so he'd been stuck up there waiting for someone to find him.
The best things about living in Vancouver were all people. I got to spend time getting to know Eric's siblings and nieces/nephews, and really to get to know his parents. I cherish the time I was there.
Orem, UT (2008-2009, first stint in Orem)
Katie, Eric's sister that lived in UT at the time, found us our first apartment. We moved to Lakeridge in Orem. The first thing we did when we got into town was go to Best Buy and buy a TV. Life quickly turned into routine, we were still students, and spent a lot of time going to class, studying, and working. Often I'd come home from the library between 10pm and midnight, and we'd crash. We had a good life. Lisa (my sister, not Eric's) lived with us, and Jeff (Eric's brother) followed suit. Life with the four of us in that apartment was pretty good. Jeff and Lisa quickly became like brother and sister, and we all relied on each other.
When I think about our time in Orem, there are a few standout thoughts. First, I mostly think of "The Branch". We lived in branch instead of a ward in our church there, which is just a smaller version of the same thing. The Branch was a strange place, but we had a lot of memorable experiences there and met a lot of people. I was lucky enough to meet Malia there, and she is still one of my dearest friends.
Second, I think of Eric having cancer. That is all documented well, on this blog so I'm not going into details, feel free to go back and read through it.
Third, I think about school, graduating, working and settling into life as a family, for Eric and me.
Virginia Beach, VA (summer 2009)
We went to VA Beach to sell alarms. I worked at Pinnacle Security starting in 2007, and Eric had sold a couple summers before we started dating. Living in VA Beach was awesome. However, because of the short duration of our stay, we decided I wouldn't find a job. That was a challenge. I'd never had that kind of free time (and never have since) and it was bizarre.
They start selling around noon and are gone until sunset, but of course we didn't take advantage of the mornings together, we just slept in almost every day. Every once in awhile we'd head to the beach before Eric's work, but mostly when family was visiting. Eric would head to work and I would head to the gym. I'd elliptical for an hour, go home and take a shower, then make the difficult decision between the pool and the beach. I re-read the Harry Potter books, watched Friends on DVD, talked to my mom for 2-3 hours a day.
We had one car and it overheated often, so it made it hard to go out and do anything. We made some amazing friends that I wish we were still close with, but we aren't (they moved back to England right after that summer and never came back).
This was the summer that Eric got sick, but went undiagnosed. He was misdiagnosed with shingles in VA Beach, and his rapid weight loss occurred there, along with night sweats. We did the best we could with what we had, and we still enjoyed ourselves immensely.
Orem, UT (2009-2013, second stint)
We moved back to our old apartment, and lived in and out of Lakeridge for the next few years. When Eric was sick we got kicked out of our apartment because our landlord's daughter was getting married! So we moved to Provo for the summer (cheap men's student housing), that apartment was 1000 degrees. Then we moved back to Lakeridge to a bigger apartment and stayed there for awhile.
We left Lakeridge for good the first time we did IVF and it didn't work. We had planned on getting pregnant. We sold our jeep (I'm still mad about that), bought a crib that we had to sell, and were thinking about buying a house. I was also serving as RS President at the time, and the emotional burden I was under was completely overwhelming. The wheels were in motion, so we left. We probably could have figured out a way to stay, but I think I needed the fresh start. So we moved to Siena Villas in Orem, close to the Provo border on State Street.
We laid low there and enjoyed our brief time there (about a year and a half). I actually loved that apartment, and I'd probably be fine to still live there, but it was expensive and not worth paying as rent.
Salem, UT (2013)
One day Eric mentioned to me offhand that our friend's parents were going on a mission and looking for someone to housesit for them for a year in Salem. I didn't know where Salem was, I had literally never heard of it.
Much to Eric's surprise, I said let's do it! I was still itching for some change. The rent was cheap and the house was beautiful. Salem is a quiet, commuter community, tucked up against the mountain between Spanish Fork and Payson. It feels like you've traveled back in time when you visit, and it was perfect to be there for a year. I loved that ward. We loved it so much we actually did look for houses down there, but it is far! I work in American Fork, so the drive was over half hour (anyone from CA, or Denver, or anywhere else is laughing as they read this), I was looking for a shorter commute if I could. It's just annoying because it's tucked away so you exit, but still have 12-15 min left to drive into town.
Springville, UT (2014-present)
We house-hunted from Salem to AF, and landed in Springville. I used to think of Springville as a country kind of place, not somewhere I would have looked twice at, but we liked the house so we bought it. We are so happy with our decision. I love our house, and I love our neighborhood. I love that our community feels safe and clean, and that we still live close to everything else we need/want to get to in UT County.
We have a yard and we are getting a fence soon. We have a house and we are getting a baby soon.
----
My favorite so far? Even though I have really enjoyed every place we've lived, I'd have to say Springville. Maybe it's just because I'm there right now, maybe it's because we own our home and feel invested in the community. But I love it.
Does it just blow you away to see how much LIFE you've lived already!? I liked the "talking to Mom for 2-3 hours" part.
ReplyDeleteWow you've moved a lot.
ReplyDelete