Carrie and I have talked about getting this blog started for about a year now, and now it's finally happening! The year apart made it difficult to coordinate and post things, but now that we're together again it's going to pick up some steam.
So this is the first in a hopefully long series of posts chronicling our incredibly interesting lives ;) We hope to give a small snapshot of the past year that I spent in Austin finishing my doctorate while Carrie was in Ft. Collins - I couldn't figure out how to post-date entries in the blog, so please bear with this one as I attempt to recap the past year and get the blog rolling for real.
August 17-21, 2007: Our first visit after I moved to Austin! We went to San Francisco for a psychology conference where I was presenting some research from my dissertation. Carrie met me there and we explored the city for a few days. We also went to wine country one day, which was a blast! Another highlight of the trip was my giving up veganism after sticking with it for four years...my first non-vegan meal was olives and bread with brie - amazing! Then Carrie persuaded me to go get sushi and it was all over.
September 4-6 and 22ish, 2007: Came back for Labor Day and to see Carrie's new place,
which we called "our place" from the beginning to make it feel more like a temporary absence - which it was. Had a really good time with friends and family - I was missing Ft. Collins pretty badly at that point. Badly enough to come back again a couple of weeks later for my birthday too!
Thanksgiving 2007: We went to Phoenix, AZ for Thanksgiving and to celebrate Carrie's grandmother, Gigi's, birthday. It was great for me because I got to meet many more of Carrie's family on her Mom's side. They were amazing hosts and hostesses and showed us a great time in Phoenix. The food was wonderful and my team won the annual bowling competition! As a bonus, it was nice and warm, making running a breeze for me - I'd been training for the Dallas
Whiterock Marathon all fall and was getting down to the last few long runs. It 
was also a great trip for us because we got five days together instead of just a weekend like usual.
December 9, 2007: Marathon time! Carrie flew down to meet me and provide some much-needed support for the race this weekend. I was feeling pretty good and had trained hard over the fall - I think running was my support system and anchor for the first few months after leaving Carrie and Fort Collins, so I put a lot of energy into it. We took the drive up to Dallas and checked into a nice little hotel in downtown the night before the race, then spent the rest of the night watching TV and compulsively checking the weather for the next day. It ended up being rainy, cold, and windy - not great when 10 miles of the race are around a big lake - plenty of time to feel that cold wind coming off the water. I ended up running about 20 minutes faster than my first marathon though, and Carrie managed to get herself in a few prime positions for cheering throughout the
race. The weekend was tinged with excitement because we both knew that our next visit would be for a couple weeks during Christmastime.
Christmas 2007: What a trip! Finally we got to our "halfway point" (even though technically halfway was at the end of February)! So I flew from Austin to Fort Collins, where we spent a
couple of days getting ready for our trip back to South Carolina. We also made a birthday dinner for Carrie's brother-in-law Ryan with a Mediterranean theme. To prepare for Christmas, we baked a ton of cookies and put them in tins for everyone before getting on the plane for South Carolina, where Carrie was going to meet my family for the first time. Once we got there she fit right in - everyone loved her (of course)! We ate a ton of good food and I 
took her on a tour of my little home town while we were there. We stayed for about five days before heading back to Denver to celebrate with Carrie's family.
Christmas Day was spent half in South Carolina and half in Denver with Rae Ann, Bethany, and Jeff - Carrie's mom, sister, and brother. For New Year's we stayed with Amber (Carrie's other sister) and Ryan at Copper Mountain and did some snowboarding - the only days we'd get in this year :( But we had a great time with them - most importantly, I got to sample Rae Ann's famous cheese dip for the first time!
Spring 2008: Spring seemed to fly by - in looking through pictures to post, we skipped from
January to March without taking any somehow. Carrie made a couple of more visits to Austin and we got a chance to check out a couple of parks around the area for hiking and trail running. A driving force throughout the spring was my searching for a job - it began in February with an application for a faculty position at the Univ. of Northern Colorado - this process would dominate the next few months and put quite a bit of stress and excitement into our lives. After the initial application I went through a phone interview and on-site interview with the existing faculty and students - I had
a pretty good feeling about, and we were both busy creating a life that could exist when/if I had the job. Then in late April we found out that they offered the position to another individual :( It was very disappointing for both of us but we tried to adopt the "one door shuts so another can open" philosophy - but at the moment it felt like all doors were shut! We were sure that we didn't want to leave Fort Collins so I kept looking for something in the area...
In the meantime we celebrated Valentine's Day, had spring break, and put on a sushi party at our place in Colorado with Emily and Doug - starting to count the days til I got back!
May 2008: May was a big month for us - we celebrated Carrie's birthday and I had my faux
graduation celebration (walked the stage, had a party, but didn't really graduate officially until later in the summer). Carrie's birthday was a blast! Her family and Alicia came up for a hike at Grey Rock on Saturday morning, followed by presents and margaritas at the Rio - a great day to say the least. Then on Sunday we ran a 10k with Emilie and Doug to continue the fitness-themed birthday weekend. Little did we know that this would be the first of many running experiences with them...
Graduation was great - we actually have a separate post about it so I won't go into too much detail here. We had a ton of fun and mine and Carrie's families got to meet one another, which was important for both of us.
Summer 2008: At this point the countdown was really on - it felt like after graduation time just sped up to the nth degree, which was fine by both of us. We had a couple of more visits back and forth from Austin to Fort Collins and vice versa, but we were really focusing on finding me a job and planning our road trip for when I moved back. In the end, I was deciding between a post-doc at a private practice in Wyoming or a post-doc at CU-Boulder's counseling center - after much deliberation and a little budgeting, we decided that the Boulder post-doc would be the best fit for us. With that settled, we started planning the road trip more seriously now that we had a time frame to work from. We figured that Carrie would come down to visit on the 18th of July and stay til the 24th, when we'd take off on the open road. After 8-9 days on the road, we'd get back to Fort Collins around August 1...Carrie would be back at work on the 3rd, and I'd start my new job on the 13th.
A big highlight from the summer was July 4th - Rae Ann just bought a new house and was very
excited to host us all with her massive decks (plural) and amazing back yard - perfect for a 
barbecue! We started around noon (maybe a little early...maybe) and soon found ourselves full and sleepy from the food and sun. After resting a bit we played some volleyball, painted rocks for her rock garden, and scouted out some fireworks. Fireworks....so disappointing! We hiked up to the top of a hill to catch some of the shows in Denver and hopefully at Red Rocks, which is just up the road from her house, but after an hour of barely-visible flashes, almost all of us headed down. Almost.
Those who stayed just five minutes longer were treated to a great show at Red Rocks while the rest of us were giving up and going back. There was definitely a lot of disappointment in the air and vows were made to never miss the fireworks again. The next morning Carrie and I hung out with Carrie's good friend Holly and her ridiculously cute kids. That's Lauren on my back - we took them on a hike among the red rocks, and when it started to rain she sang me the "It's
raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring...." song while I freaked out and ran back to the car to keep her from getting struck by lightning. Naivety is a gift sometimes.
Another highlight was the visit from my good friends G(rant) and Nick Holliday on the weekend of the 19th. These guys are really close friends of mine and it felt meaningful for Carrie to get a
chance to meet and hang out with them. We tubed the Comal river, south of Austin, went out a couple of nights, and rented a boat to cruise along Town Lake. The pictures can't convey what a great time we all had.
So that's a quick snapshot of our year apart! While I wouldn't ever want to do it
again, it felt like a good time for us to grow together while learning how to live independently. Now we're excited to be living together again and adventuring together on a daily basis!
September 4-6 and 22ish, 2007: Came back for Labor Day and to see Carrie's new place,
which we called "our place" from the beginning to make it feel more like a temporary absence - which it was. Had a really good time with friends and family - I was missing Ft. Collins pretty badly at that point. Badly enough to come back again a couple of weeks later for my birthday too!Thanksgiving 2007: We went to Phoenix, AZ for Thanksgiving and to celebrate Carrie's grandmother, Gigi's, birthday. It was great for me because I got to meet many more of Carrie's family on her Mom's side. They were amazing hosts and hostesses and showed us a great time in Phoenix. The food was wonderful and my team won the annual bowling competition! As a bonus, it was nice and warm, making running a breeze for me - I'd been training for the Dallas
Whiterock Marathon all fall and was getting down to the last few long runs. It 
was also a great trip for us because we got five days together instead of just a weekend like usual.December 9, 2007: Marathon time! Carrie flew down to meet me and provide some much-needed support for the race this weekend. I was feeling pretty good and had trained hard over the fall - I think running was my support system and anchor for the first few months after leaving Carrie and Fort Collins, so I put a lot of energy into it. We took the drive up to Dallas and checked into a nice little hotel in downtown the night before the race, then spent the rest of the night watching TV and compulsively checking the weather for the next day. It ended up being rainy, cold, and windy - not great when 10 miles of the race are around a big lake - plenty of time to feel that cold wind coming off the water. I ended up running about 20 minutes faster than my first marathon though, and Carrie managed to get herself in a few prime positions for cheering throughout the
race. The weekend was tinged with excitement because we both knew that our next visit would be for a couple weeks during Christmastime.Christmas 2007: What a trip! Finally we got to our "halfway point" (even though technically halfway was at the end of February)! So I flew from Austin to Fort Collins, where we spent a
couple of days getting ready for our trip back to South Carolina. We also made a birthday dinner for Carrie's brother-in-law Ryan with a Mediterranean theme. To prepare for Christmas, we baked a ton of cookies and put them in tins for everyone before getting on the plane for South Carolina, where Carrie was going to meet my family for the first time. Once we got there she fit right in - everyone loved her (of course)! We ate a ton of good food and I 
took her on a tour of my little home town while we were there. We stayed for about five days before heading back to Denver to celebrate with Carrie's family.Christmas Day was spent half in South Carolina and half in Denver with Rae Ann, Bethany, and Jeff - Carrie's mom, sister, and brother. For New Year's we stayed with Amber (Carrie's other sister) and Ryan at Copper Mountain and did some snowboarding - the only days we'd get in this year :( But we had a great time with them - most importantly, I got to sample Rae Ann's famous cheese dip for the first time!
Spring 2008: Spring seemed to fly by - in looking through pictures to post, we skipped from
January to March without taking any somehow. Carrie made a couple of more visits to Austin and we got a chance to check out a couple of parks around the area for hiking and trail running. A driving force throughout the spring was my searching for a job - it began in February with an application for a faculty position at the Univ. of Northern Colorado - this process would dominate the next few months and put quite a bit of stress and excitement into our lives. After the initial application I went through a phone interview and on-site interview with the existing faculty and students - I had
a pretty good feeling about, and we were both busy creating a life that could exist when/if I had the job. Then in late April we found out that they offered the position to another individual :( It was very disappointing for both of us but we tried to adopt the "one door shuts so another can open" philosophy - but at the moment it felt like all doors were shut! We were sure that we didn't want to leave Fort Collins so I kept looking for something in the area...In the meantime we celebrated Valentine's Day, had spring break, and put on a sushi party at our place in Colorado with Emily and Doug - starting to count the days til I got back!
May 2008: May was a big month for us - we celebrated Carrie's birthday and I had my faux
graduation celebration (walked the stage, had a party, but didn't really graduate officially until later in the summer). Carrie's birthday was a blast! Her family and Alicia came up for a hike at Grey Rock on Saturday morning, followed by presents and margaritas at the Rio - a great day to say the least. Then on Sunday we ran a 10k with Emilie and Doug to continue the fitness-themed birthday weekend. Little did we know that this would be the first of many running experiences with them...Graduation was great - we actually have a separate post about it so I won't go into too much detail here. We had a ton of fun and mine and Carrie's families got to meet one another, which was important for both of us.
Summer 2008: At this point the countdown was really on - it felt like after graduation time just sped up to the nth degree, which was fine by both of us. We had a couple of more visits back and forth from Austin to Fort Collins and vice versa, but we were really focusing on finding me a job and planning our road trip for when I moved back. In the end, I was deciding between a post-doc at a private practice in Wyoming or a post-doc at CU-Boulder's counseling center - after much deliberation and a little budgeting, we decided that the Boulder post-doc would be the best fit for us. With that settled, we started planning the road trip more seriously now that we had a time frame to work from. We figured that Carrie would come down to visit on the 18th of July and stay til the 24th, when we'd take off on the open road. After 8-9 days on the road, we'd get back to Fort Collins around August 1...Carrie would be back at work on the 3rd, and I'd start my new job on the 13th.
A big highlight from the summer was July 4th - Rae Ann just bought a new house and was very
excited to host us all with her massive decks (plural) and amazing back yard - perfect for a 
barbecue! We started around noon (maybe a little early...maybe) and soon found ourselves full and sleepy from the food and sun. After resting a bit we played some volleyball, painted rocks for her rock garden, and scouted out some fireworks. Fireworks....so disappointing! We hiked up to the top of a hill to catch some of the shows in Denver and hopefully at Red Rocks, which is just up the road from her house, but after an hour of barely-visible flashes, almost all of us headed down. Almost.Those who stayed just five minutes longer were treated to a great show at Red Rocks while the rest of us were giving up and going back. There was definitely a lot of disappointment in the air and vows were made to never miss the fireworks again. The next morning Carrie and I hung out with Carrie's good friend Holly and her ridiculously cute kids. That's Lauren on my back - we took them on a hike among the red rocks, and when it started to rain she sang me the "It's
raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring...." song while I freaked out and ran back to the car to keep her from getting struck by lightning. Naivety is a gift sometimes.Another highlight was the visit from my good friends G(rant) and Nick Holliday on the weekend of the 19th. These guys are really close friends of mine and it felt meaningful for Carrie to get a
chance to meet and hang out with them. We tubed the Comal river, south of Austin, went out a couple of nights, and rented a boat to cruise along Town Lake. The pictures can't convey what a great time we all had.So that's a quick snapshot of our year apart! While I wouldn't ever want to do it
again, it felt like a good time for us to grow together while learning how to live independently. Now we're excited to be living together again and adventuring together on a daily basis!
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