Our New Apartment

I'm writing this from our new apartment in Fort Collins. An apartment that I did not even know about or could have imagined when we were packing our suitcases in Quito and saying goodbye to good friends there.

Here is what I can tell you: Fort Collins is green. Both in the eco-friendly sense and in the foliage sense of the word. Most of Colorado around this time of year is brown, beige, and yellow (trust me, we just saw this scene last week when we flew in). But Fort Collins feels like a little oasis. There are streams and rivers in the city. Huge trees line many city blocks. Even in our new apartment, we've got a huge green lawn that we look out over. Scoots keeps watch over the numerous dogs that frolic in the backyard.

The apartment we choose is by far the smallest place we have lived in together. It's a one bedroom on the ground floor with a patio that lets us walk out on to the lawn. It is cozy and peaceful. I'm unashamed of my love for the dishwasher after two years of hand washing dishes almost every single day. We are right next to an organic grocery store with reasonable prices, a vet, a pet food store, and a little neighborhood coffee shop.

This apartment will be our transition place to a house as we get to know Fort Collins and potential neighborhoods we'd want to live in. We already have bikes and Greg is going to build a bike trailer that we can take to run errands and more. We still hope to live without a car, although we are seriously considering an ELF. So many people bike here! There are nice wide side streets and bike lanes as well as beautiful trails along rivers.

I hope you all will hear more about our new location, but maybe this time in person rather than through the blog!