Finding the Perfect House: Part One

Once our house was on the market, we decided it was a good idea for me to fly out to Colorado to look at houses. The idea was for me to check out several different cities and start getting a better idea of what area best suited our family.

I was really looking forward to seeing the area. Even more, I was looking forward to seeing Rick and having a little time with just him. The plan was that I would look at houses during the day with our agent, Jan, while Rick was at work. In the evenings we would have a little time together.

Bob and Cathy were kind enough to watch the girls for us. This was my first time being away from Fiona for longer than 24 hours. The only time I've been away from Gwen longer than one night was when we were at the hospital having Fiona.

So..I was a little nervous. I arrived at Bob and Cathy's extra early to get the girls' rooms set up and to make sure they were settled. I also had to go over my several-page instruction manual with Cathy.

Once it was time for Bob to drive me to the airport, Gwen started to cry. That, of course, made me start crying and I didn't stop crying until about 10 minutes into the drive. There is nothing better than riding in the car with my father-in-law while crying.

Jan's husband, Jerry, picked me up from the airport. He was in his 70's and totally darling. He talked about Jan the whole time and it was obvious that he is still enamored with her after all these years of marriage. It was so cute. He is also in the real estate business and told me about the work they've done. As it turns out, they were the official agents for the Denver Nuggets as well as many other prominent people. I was wondering how we got so lucky to get such an experienced agent.

We picked up Rick at work and then met up with Jan at her office. We were very interested in seeing homes in Highlands Ranch because many people mentioned what a great area it was. Since Jan lives/works in Highland Ranch, she planned to show us a few houses there that evening and to show me houses more houses there the next day (Thursday). Friday we would look at a few houses in some other areas in the morning before Rick and I had to fly home.

Since it was late in the evening, we only saw 3 or 4 houses. We also stopped by one of the rec centers to look around. While we were there, we spent a few minutes at the batting cages.

Later that night we had an awesome dinner at Rick's nice hotel. After telling the server how much we enjoyed it, he brought out the chef for us to meet. It made me feel kind of cool and grown up.

The next day Jan picked me up early in the morning and we looked at tons of houses. By 3:00 pm I was convinced that I wanted to live in Highlands Ranch. I told Jan that I didn't want to see any of the houses in those other cities and asked her to change around the schedule to show us only Highlands Ranch houses the the next day.

Why Highlands Ranch? Let's see...it's in a great school district, it's only about 30 minutes from Denver, and it's just awesome. They have left lots of open space (2,000 acres) with 70 miles of trails that wind throughout. There are tons of parks and they are all kept up really nicely. My favorite part are the rec centers. There are 4 rec centers in Highlands Ranch and they are all completely free for residents to use. The rec centers have all the amenities that a gym has, plus a whole lot more. They have awesome kiddie pools with splash features, lazy rivers, and water slides. So cool.

Anyway, after seeing a couple of the rec centers and everything else, I knew our family would love it.

Back to our day...my agent had an appointment in Castle Rock (just south of Highlands Ranch) so after we spent hours looking at houses, she dropped me off at the outlet mall while she went to her appointment. After that she dropped me off at Rick's work.

It was nice to meet everybody that Rick will be working with. Afterwards, we went to the 16th Street Mall in the heart of downtown. The mall is basically a series of shops and restaurants that line both side of the street for several blocks. The road is closed to traffic with the exception of buses that run up and down. You can get on and off them whenever you want and they are free! It was really fun people watching and browsing the shops. After dinner, Rick and I saw New Moon. He hadn't seen it yet and was curious. He's going to be mad that I just told the blogosphere that he wanted to see it. Oh well.

The next morning, I looked at some more houses with Jan. Then it was to the airport with Rick so we could fly home and see our babies.

As it turned out, they survived and were just fine. Boy were we happy to see them!

You might be wondering if we found any houses with potential. There were a few that sparked my interest a little, but nothing that I had to have. Rick went to see a few of my favorites later the next week. He liked a few too, but we felt like "our" house was still waiting for us.

Wow that was long. I bored myself to death just writing it. My apologies to those who actually read this whole thing.