Two(ish) Months

A lot has happened for us over the past month or so since we last posted. So, I’ll try to bring the main highlights here.

New Rental House: On Feb 7th, our lease started in our new rental house (our 4th resting spot since New Years). We moved from our 1 month rental in Boulder to our longer-term option in Broomfield. It’s a small ranch house with a finished basement and a nice backyard that backs up to a park. The basement has two offices, so it’s much better set up for us to work from home than where we were before. Lauren, Tom, and Debbie all helped us move – and how nice to have enough stuff that you actually need help moving! We rented a U-Haul cargo van, and had enough stuff to pack it full! Yay!!

Back to work: We’re both very grateful to our companies for giving us ample time to get things together, and we both went back to work full-time on Feb 14th. It’s been a busy time, but it’s nice to have a bit more of a normal routine in place. The kids have been able to consistently go to school (for the most part), so we’ve been able to actually start to catch up on things at work a bit. There’s still a lot going on in our non-work lives right now, but we’ve been able to get some things done for work between calls with insurance, picking out furniture, submitting documents and making plans for…

A new house!!!!! – Burying the lede a bit, we are in contract on a new house! We found a house we liked, made an offer, and after some minor negotiations, we were chosen to buy the house! The market here (as you might guess) is a little crazy at the moment, but we’re so happy we managed to squeeze in just in time. The house is just about 7 minutes from our old house, right near the kids’ daycare, and a great location near trails, biking, etc. It has more space than our old house, and it just felt right. We’ll close on the sale this week – but then the sellers will stay for a few more weeks before we move in. They are actually building a townhouse nearby, but had some small delays because of smoke/wind issues from the fire. So, we will move in at some point in early May (or a bit before) depending on their timeline.

First New Bike: With the new house super close to daycare, I decided to splurge and invest in a new cargo bike as our first major post-fire purchase. Several other parents use these bikes to bring their kids to school, we just previously lived a bit far away for this to be a great daily option. But now, the short distance from the new house to school will make family biking a perfect fit. We’ll also be able to bike to the community pool and other fun spots when the weather is nice.

Our Lot: I’ve gone back to visit the old lot a few times over the past month. Mostly just to see what’s happening, but also because this is all still very sad and sometimes it just feels like the right thing to do when driving past. On a recent visit, I noticed that the VW is gone! We didn’t think the insurance company was going to be able to get it until FEMA cleanup started, but they apparently did. It seems they must have just dragged it out, but with it came the huge steel beam that was on the hood, and the engine block seems to have fallen into the driveway.

They have also completed “hydromulching” the lot, which basically means they’ve sprayed it with some junk to keep the ash down in winds. This will help prevent harmful substances kicking into the air until things are cleaned up.

What’s Next: When we close on the house sale, we’ll definitely feel one step closer to normal. We still have a lot to figure out with our Muirfield lot (do we pay off the mortgage? plan to sell the lot? rebuild the house? sell a rebuilt house? build a simple house? fancy house?), and there are a lot of intermediate steps that are huge question marks right now. The cleanup process for the whole community is delayed because some jerk (who worked for FEMA under George W. Bush) is suing the county (our cul de sac is the second photo on the article) and trying to make things difficult for all of us. Please step aside, sir.

A week ago (Feb 25), there was a “Builders Expo” where dozens of builders, architects, etc. held an event for all impacted families to come learn about options. There wasn’t much real information to be had – we just heard that our lot will pretty much accommodate any model house from any of the main builders our neighborhood is considering. The highlight was getting to see some more neighbors and check in on them.

We still have many to-do items (#64 Buy a car. #935 Decide what color plates to buy. #1563 Measure the length of the wall in Theo’s new room), but knowing we have a new house to move into soon has given us SO much comfort. Several of our neighbor friends have also bought new houses or are in the process of shopping for one. The two or more years it will take to rebuild just doesn’t make sense for many families, and we’ll see how it all shakes out over the next few months.