I had been working in Healthcare Facilities Maintenance on the East Coast for 10+ years when we visited Colorado Springs for a week in 2002. When we got back, I turned in my 2 weeks notice to my employer, put the house on the market, packed what-would-fit into a 24′ Penske truck and we drove out with our boys (then 1 & 2 yrs) and Elvis the Golden Retriever. That fast, we were gone.

We ended up renting a place in the middle of The Springs. The place in Jersey sold about six months later and shortly thereafter the home we were building was ready for occupancy.

Eventually, in the Spring of ‘06, some opportunities with my employer at that time opened up and we moved to Thousand Oaks in sunny, Southern California. - Bad move. Good experience.
(Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.)

By Sept 2006, we were on our way back to the home we built Colorado. I took a job as a with a civilian contractor at a local Army base. Steady pay, good benefits. Eventually a position opened up at the local Electrical Generating Power Plant. I’m still there and loving just about every minute of it.

Now it’s starting to feel like home for me. Maybe this time we’ll stay for a while.