we moved across the country during a pandemic at christmas time

Hey! So...the title of this post pretty much says it all right? Can you imagine? I know if you had asked me at the beginning of 2020 what the new year had in store for me my answer most definitely would not have included a worldwide pandemic, quarantine, face masks or uprooting our entire family to move multiple states away during the Christmas holidays. But, here we are.

Hotel stays during a pandemic.

Packing up my classroom.

After spending months trapped in our home, avoiding people and crowded places I had Marie Kondo'd my house and finished all of my home renovoation projects. My home was finally in a place of contentedness and I revelled in the fact that I didn't have any projects to be tackled. We spent our quarantine in a somewhat weirdly magical state filled with family time, gardening, trips to a secluded creek and a little too much television and food. 

Then it was back to school and we struggled with the idea of sending our children into an elementary school that would not require masks for the students. While I had no choice but to return to the classroom at the high school level. We chose to keep them home with a babysitter attending zoom classes. It wasn't ideal but, we were surviving. Then the babysitter situation didn't work out and they had to go back to school. Thankfully, none of us got sick and although life was strange, it was slowly feeling a little less bizarre. Then, our entire life was upended.

Things at my husband's job changed and we found ourselves in need of a fix. The good news? The world was our oyster! Well...the parts of it that would allow Americans to enter. In October of 2020, the majority of developed nations would not allow Americans to enter and the job market for the US wasn't in the best shape. Luckily, my husband is a software developer and I am a Spanish teacher so, we did have options. We settled on Colorado Springs because of the weather, tech jobs and we had friends and family living there. Then the real work began. We listed our finally finished house and began the job searches. It was a miracle that we were both able to find new jobs, sell our home for asking, find a suitable rental and move across the country all in less than two months and right before Christmas during a pandemic. 

I managed to find us a furnished apartment that allowed cats and dogs! We stayed here for a little over a month while we found a house to buy.

Hiking at Garden of the Gods.

It was weird and difficult living in a small space with three kids during Christmas. But we made it work.

On our way to visit for the first time.

 We chose Colorado Springs but I had never actually been there before. We needed to find a place to live temporarily and I needed to sign my contract so we made a trip over Thanksgiving break to get a feel for the city and do some business. We had a really nice time hiking and visiting with our friends who had moved to the springs a few years ago. I also managed to find us a suitable apartment for temporary living until we bought a house. We went back to Arkansas to finish packing feeling pretty good about the move. That feeling didn't last long though.

We chose a storage trailer system for our move and after a phone consultation they said we would need one large trailer for our entire house. They were wrong. We packed the trailer as full as possible as though we were playing real life Tetris and still had tons of stuff left. We ended up renting a small trailer the day of our move and had to be selective about the items that we took. We made 4 huge donations to our local donation center full of all sorts of furniture and other items that we couldn't take. Moving day was a shit show even though we had been packing for weeks. Our neighbors came over to say bye and saw our disastrous state. They offered their help and worked late into the night to get us out of the house. We had planned on leaving around 2pm but instead we stayed at a hotel and took shifts with the kids to wrap it all up.

Derek realizing that we would not get out of the house before the sale finalized.

Our sweet neighbors helped us move out when we realized we would not get it done in time. They helped all day and late into the night!

Finally finished emptying our house at 1am. We ended up staying in a hotel in town instead of hitting the road like our original plan.

A few students came to help us load our moving truck. They are the sweetest!

I took the kids to the hotel while Derek finished up at the house. The hotel had a Santa package that we took advantage of that included hot chocolate and snacks and breakfast with Santa the next morning. It definitely made it feel more magical and less traumatic for the kids.

We even got to see our neighbors the next morning at breakfast as a final farewell!

We drove both vehicles the 18 hours from Arkansas to Colorado Springs. Derek had a trailer and I had all three kids, the cat and the dog. It was rough.

Family elevator rides at our overnight stop. Cat and dog included.

After two days of driving, countless energy drinks and road food. We made it to the apartment and celebrated with Chinese food. We began house hunting the next day with a realtor we had already been in contact with and had lined up houses for us. After a week of looking we found two houses we liked but got spooked about the housing market and thought we wouldn't get our favorite house due to two other offers. So, we made a mistake and bought a brand new house that we thought was great until buyers remorse set in that night. I literally had a melt down because I realized it was totally wrong and didn't have a bathtub in the master! I take baths multiple times per week and was seriously hyperventilating about this monumentally bad decision we had just made.

My view for 2 days on the road. Following the mini van and trailer.

In front of the house that we accidentally bought and then returned.

We made it!

At the ice cream/coffee shop around the corner from our dream home the day we found out it was ours.

Luckily, our realter was able to get our earnest money back and we suffered no penalties! We then made an offer on our dream home and hoped for the best. Out of three offers, they accepted ours! We were elated and relieved!

Wearing my new school gear.

My new boss even came by before Christmas to give me a yeti tumbler with the school logo on it.

Even though it's been a whirlwind of a time, we genuinely think it will all be for the better for many reasons. including improved health for my allergy ridden four year old. Did you know that Colorado is one of the top places to live for allergy sufferers in the U.S? His eczema has cleared up almost entirely and he no longer has to take daily allergy medications. We are also excited about how stinkin' pretty it is here and all of the future family hikes we will be going on. We are also looking forward to the educational opportunities provided here and are already really happy with our new school.

Showing off her valentine art at her class party.

I love that I am in the same building with them and get to be more active in their school lives.

Students showing off their work in my classroom.

Me and CocoLoco.

So, I'm now an elementary Spanish teacher and tech coach which is a huge change but is definitely an exciting one. They literally created this job for me and it is as close to my dream job as I could hope for. I get to teach Spanish to little people who are still excited to learn and haven't developed a jaded mindset towards learning like many teenagers. They're also really fun. I use a puppet to teach content with who lives in a magic box and is named CocoLoco. The kids love it. The other half of my week I am a dedicated teacher tech coach and I get to help with technology issues as well as inspiration for projects and other cool stuff. It's an exciting change and I couldn't be happier. My new co-workers are also super nice and have welcomed me and my kids with open arms. Did I mention it's a Spanish immersion school? It is so refreshing not to be the only language teacher and for my kids to have the opportunity to learn and use the language regularly.

An improptu Vday photo shoot

Not to sound to mushy and overly positive but, after this insanely upsetting year it just goes to show that out of darkness can come light. My life has completely changed. It was an extremely unsettling and worry-filled time but, now that we have had the opportunity to get comfortable with our new life, I am glad for the changes.

​Going forward I think we will be happier and we will be able to live our best lives. I am also aware at how lucky we have actually been. Even though we had to make changes, those changes happened quickly and financially we did not suffer unlike many during these difficult times and I will be forever grateful for our good fortune.