Welcome to our on-line family journal! ��Mike and I moved from Mississippi to Denver, Colorado in January 2001. � It was really hard for us (Mary Katherine especially) to leave our families behind in Mississippi and Alabama, and this journal is our way of giving our families a glimpse into our daily lives here in Denver. � Come now and join us...

Saturday, February 03, 2001

Daniel's first time climbing mountains

Daniel has been begging all week to go climb a mountain, so Mike and I decided to take him up into the mountains today. Mike planned to take us out west on I-70, but I talked him into going up towards the Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park (near Boulder). He took us first up near Evergreen to see the huge mansion he is building, then from there we went up through Central City. Not far outside Central City we ran into a pretty good snowstorm. The roads were wet but not icy (yet), but after we stopped for lunch near Nederland, Mike decided that the snow up in the National Park might turn into ice before we were able to get all the way through. So we turned and went through Four-Mile Canyon towards Boulder. It was along this road at Boulder Falls that we saw some guys ice-climbing up the frozen falls so we stopped. We all got out, bundled up (David in the baby sling with me) and headed out across the frozen river to the frozen falls. When we made it up to the falls, I stayed at the base of the falls with David, and Mike and Daniel went on up to talk to the ice-climbers. We weren't there maybe ten minutes when Mike and Daniel came back down. Mike said the wind up there was so stiff that it almost knocked him down. OK, so Daniel's first mountain climb was not more than 500 feet, but at least it was pretty, and it WAS on the side of a mountain... And he liked it, and that was all that mattered.
posted by Mary Katherine Johnson 6:49 PM

Our new jobs

Mike has begun a new career in the construction business. He is learning how to build houses, and his first house to work on is a 1.5 million dollar mansion up in the mountains. He says he really enjoys the work and is learning a lot from the job and from the people.

I have taken a position as a performance specialist with Bonfils Blood Center in Denver. I begin next Monday, Feb 5. After I complete 8-12 weeks of training, I will be training new employees and keeping current employees updated on procedure changes. My department will be Distribution. Blood donors donate blood at our local blood centers, then the blood is processed (screened for disease, tested for blood type, and divided up into components such as red blood cells, platelets, and plasma) by the Manufacturing Department. The Distribution Department is in charge of getting the blood to the hospitals where it is then given to the patients who need it. My job (after I finish training) is supposed to be mainly a paper-and-desk job and not so much a getting-my-hands-dirty job. We'll see... I'm excited but still a little nervous. But I think I am going to like it.

The kid's school

Both David and Daniel have started daycare/preschool at a place near my work. They started this Tuesday. They were supposed to start on Monday, but we woke up Monday morning to 10 inches of snow on the ground! This is too much for my Mississippi mind! Both kids seem to really like it. Daniel is in class with about 20 other kids basically his age. They are divided into two or three classes, but they all pretty much interact and play together. David's room has five "babies". I've actually seen three babies and two or three kids around one year old. One little girl, Hannah, is just a little younger than him and started the same week he did. The teacher says David seems to be interested in Hannah already. Hmmm....
posted by Mary Katherine Johnson 6:39 PM

Friday, February 02, 2001

Why we moved to Denver

Hi! I realize that this journal posts in reverse chronological order, but I wanted to put this in "first". Mike and I first visited Denver in January 2000 when we attended the Basic PSI seminar. It was a long weekend of self-exploration and discovery that would eventually change our lives. (For more information, visit www.psiseminars.com.) It was on the way home from Basic when Mike first revealed to me that he wanted to one day live in Denver. Mike's brother Mark lives out here, and Mike believed that not only would it be nice to live near Mark for a change but that Denver would also offer us more opportunities in life than we would find in Starkville, Mississippi. I admit that I was "resistant" to the idea at first. After all, I had a great job that I really loved at Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine, I lived close to my family and fairly close to Mike's parents, and besides, we had finally sold our double-wide trailer and bought a "real house" just four months earlier. Plus I was 5 months pregnant! No way was I going to move! (Famous last words...) When Mike returned from PSI VII in February and PSI MLS in March, I realized how serious he was about actually moving to Denver. Mike had lost his job with Advance Check Express in Starkville in January, on the night we left town for Basic, and he was ready for a career change (among other reasons...) To make a very long story short, Mike announced in October that Mark was going to Alabama in late October to pick up his dad's car and would be driving back to Denver, and Mike had decided to go back to Denver with him to find a job so we could move out there. I'll not include all the messy details here, but we put the house on the market two days before Mike left, and our move out here began. The kids and I spent 2 months in Starkville waiting for the house to sell. My mother, Louise White, practically moved in with us to help me with the kids. Daniel turned four at Thanksgiving, and David was 6 months old (with five teeth and crawling) when Mike returned home for Christmas. My parents, my Grandmother Whitten, Mike's parents, and his Grandmother Johnson all spent Christmas with us in Starkville this year. I began packing up the house two days after Christmas. I returned to MSU the first week in January to finish out the rotation I had begun, and it was my last week to work. We signed a contract to sell the house just after Christmas, and leaving the realtor to deal with the closing paperwork, we left Starkville for our new life in Denver on January 9th.

The move

It took us three days to get out here. We took the "scenic route" from Mississippi on US 82 up through Pine Bluff, Arkansas with our destination a little town just inside Oklahoma. We made it to Fort Smith, Arkansas before we had to stop for the night. Good thing, too, in retrospect. We had intended to travel up Oklahoma into Kansas then west on I-70, but Mike and I ate dinner at a small cafe where we talked to a trucker. He told us that Kansas and parts of Oklahoma were expecting icy weather the next day, so we took his advice and drove all the way across Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas then up from there to Limon, Colorado. On the night of the third day, we finally made it to Mark's house near Boulder, Colorado. We stayed the night there then moved into our rental house on Saturday morning. Luckily our neighbors, Larry and Mary Halstead, and Mark's roommate Dean helped us move in. Our second day out David developed a sinus infection, so the stress of his illness was added to the normal stresses of moving. Both of my parents came out here with us to help us with the kids. My mom took care of David for me while I unpacked, and my dad both helped move boxes and furniture and helped keep Daniel entertained. Sunday night it began snowing. By Monday afternoon, we had our first really good snowfall. We got 3 - 5 inches, and my mom and Daniel made snow ice cream. It snowed enough where Mike worked that he was able to come home after lunch. My parents stayed with us until Friday of that week then went back home so my mother could go back to work on Monday. Now we were "on our own" in our new life. Now what?

posted by Mary Katherine Johnson 10:32 PM