Colorado momma's!

[jenniferadurham]

So....hello there! I'm in TX, have been for almost 22 years. However, lately...it may be the hormones talking here(I am due in DEC)...I can not stop thinking of Colorado. Both of parents LOVE it there...I have never been there though, well I might have been there when I was little but i don't remember it.

I want to move there SO bad. And that is ODD for me to say bc I have said my entire life that I will never move ot of TX. I just keep seeing my family...me, DH, and kids....living there. In a log cabin(like DH wants), and wearing fall/winter clothing all the time. Let me again say how weird this is for me to be saying this...I LOVE TX. My dad is thinking of retiring either now or in the next 2-3 years and has said over and over how he would end up somewhere like CO.

So tell me everything GREAT about where you live in CO...please... I want to hear everything. And what the weather is like right now...bc here it's still sometimes in the low 90's...

[sacredmama]

I live in the front range mountains near Boulder at 8500 ft. At 6 pm it is 60 degrees, we are having an Indian summer. It doesn't get above 85 here in summer. In Dec. it will start snowing and it will snow for 5 months with a continuous cover of white on the ground. It gets to below zero here for about 2 weeks in the winter.

I have a garden that I plant mostly cool weather crops that are very happy right now, but my tomatoes and basil are sad and fading.

Our house is very cabiny on 3 acres bordering national forest. We can walk out our back door into the wilderness and hike over the continental divide. We also trail run and backcountry ski out our back door as well. We are 20 minutes from the closest store.

I love where I live.

[jenniferadurham]

Originally Posted by sacredmama

I live in the front range mountains near Boulder at 8500 ft. At 6 pm it is 60 degrees, we are having an Indian summer. It doesn't get above 85 here in summer. In Dec. it will start snowing and it will snow for 5 months with a continuous cover of white on the ground. It gets to below zero here for about 2 weeks in the winter.

I have a garden that I plant mostly cool weather crops that are very happy right now, but my tomatoes and basil are sad and fading.

Our house is very cabiny on 3 acres bordering national forest. We can walk out our back door into the wilderness and hike over the continental divide. We also trail run and backcountry ski out our back door as well. We are 20 minutes from the closest store.

I love where I live.

I'm so jealous of you right now. lol

That sounds loverly!

I think that I'm just too stressed out and I want to hide. Colorado seems that place to me! Too bad I'm having a baby soon or I'd be begging DH to go on vaca there! We are thinking about having our summer vaca there with my parents and brothers and their families. I can't wait!

[ChristaN]

The temps totally depend on the part of CO. One thing that will be consistent throughout the state is that we are a high plains desert. It is very dry here, especially compared to TX. We do notice a difference in our hair and skin here vs. CA, where we are originally from.

I live at about 6000 ft east of where the pp lives. It gets into the 90s here in the summer and has been ranging from the 70s to 80s for the last few weeks. Nights are in the 50s and low 60s right now. It starts snowing by October although the first snowfall can be in Sept or late Oct, depending on the year. Colorado weather is very erratic. The local joke is that if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change. I've honestly seen one cloud moving up the street hailing on one house at a time.

In the winter, the average daily temp is in the 30s, but it can range from a high of 0 degrees one day to a high of 50 the next, so it isn't consistently 30. I'm much less rural than the pp and live in a town of 125,000+. We can get to a national park within 45 mins, though and to the river within probably 30 mins. It's generally a nice place to live, but I'd do some research on the job market before relocating. Again, it is going to depend on the part of the state, but well paying jobs can be hard to come by at least where I am (in the northern part of CO).

[jenniferadurham]

Originally Posted by ChristaN

The temps totally depend on the part of CO. One thing that will be consistent throughout the state is that we are a high plains desert. It is very dry here, especially compared to TX. We do notice a difference in our hair and skin here vs. CA, where we are originally from.

I live at about 6000 ft east of where the pp lives. It gets into the 90s here in the summer and has been ranging from the 70s to 80s for the last few weeks. Nights are in the 50s and low 60s right now. It starts snowing by October although the first snowfall can be in Sept or late Oct, depending on the year. Colorado weather is very erratic. The local joke is that if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes and it will change. I've honestly seen one cloud moving up the street hailing on one house at a time.

In the winter, the average daily temp is in the 30s, but it can range from a high of 0 degrees one day to a high of 50 the next, so it isn't consistently 30. I'm much less rural than the pp and live in a town of 125,000+. We can get to a national park within 45 mins, though and to the river within probably 30 mins. It's generally a nice place to live, but I'd do some research on the job market before relocating. Again, it is going to depend on the part of the state, but well paying jobs can be hard to come by at least where I am (in the northern part of CO).

That weather sounds wonderful as well. I think I have lived in Tx so long I forget that other people's weather is so diff.

Job wise...my DH is a nurse with a MBA in business. I'm sure wew wouldn't have that hard of a time finding him a job. I stay home with the kiddo's.

Thank you ladies so much! Even just reading your posts, I'm in such a better mood...now I want to go up there and I can't right now, but in a better mood LOL!

[Realrellim]

We live in a NW Denver 'burb, a 15-minute bus ride to downtown. I'm very happy here. I can bike to two natural foods stores (and a third is being built right across from one of them, yay!). We back to a bike/walking trail that connects to a number of others so I generally can get out and exercise easily year-round. It gets plowed after it snows more than a couple of inches, and generally is clear. We have decent winters down here: some snow, some beautiful 50-degree days.

I like being halfway between Boulder and Denver. I love the bus system and use it for commuting to both cities. It's not the most fabulous mass transit I've ever encountered, but if I'm trying to head home from Boulder there are buses every 15 minutes during rush hour (every 30 otherwise) so it's not bad either.

It's been a little warm this week: upper 70s and low 80s. It was cooler last week--maybe in the 60s and low 70s. (Or maybe it was warm and I've already forgotten, LOL.)

We like the Granby area too and spend quite a bit of time up there in the spring/summer/fall. It's always more mild in the summer, though it was up in the mid-80s and even reached 89 or 90 a few times while we were up there this summer. It didn't used to get quite as warm, but I've heard some of that has to do with the dead trees (from the pine beetles). It wouldn't surprise me. It's getting chilly up there now, with the mercury dipping below freezing at night. We had some nice fires in the fireplace the last time we were up there. We want to retire up there. If we didn't have family in the area (my sister lives two miles from my house, and my parents live about an hour away), we might consider moving up there full-time.

[LeighB]

We are in Loveland, about 45 miles north of Denver. The weather has been perfect! about 65-70 today. Colorado just has the most beautiful Falls, I think.

[mochimama]

We live in the San Luis Valley in Crestone at 8000 ft. Lots of off-grid homes, alternative folks, community spirit. Very slow paced. Few places to shop and few jobs, but most people do something over the internet that allow them to live here. We've had a couple of freezing nights already this year, but days are stiill about 70 and even warmer in the sun. LOVE the fall in Crestone--the Sangre de Cristo Mountains are gorgeous this time of year.

[ColoradoMama]

If you want cool weather all the time - don't live on the front range. The summers are awful - so dry you'll never want to be out of the shade - ever. I'll stop there because I really don't like Colorado and want to move away so badly I can taste it. However, I am also pregnant, so we're staying put for a while. Oh, one plus those - the metro area has a ton of really super midwives!

[ChristaN]

lol! We've been wanting to move for some time, too, but circumstances keep keeping us here for the time being. We've been considering various places further west -- like Oregon.

[brandy111803]

I Love CO!!

I grew up on the western slope in Grand Jct but haven't lived there in over a decade. We are getting ready to move back though from a year in Atlanta and I can't wait!! We also moved from Boulder when we moved out here to Atlanta and we also lived in Greeley which is in Northern CO. So here's a bit about each from my experience, FWIW

Grand Jct - desert climate, surrounded by three very different and distinct mountain chains. You have the bookcliffs which are grey and look like "dinosaur backs" are peeking out. The color isn't terribly pretty during the day but wow! when the setting sun hits them....they take on the color of the sunset. PM me your email addy if you want me to send you some very recent pics I took when we vaca'd there this Aug. The other mtn that stands to the east of the valley is the Grand Mesa and that one is full of green trees and lakes. The Colorado Nat'l Monument stands the SW of the valley and it's all red rock and again, is amazing with the setting sun. All are wonderful for hiking. GJ also has the Colorado River that flows right by so there is a lot of rafting and canoeing right there on it. The summers are really hot since it's desert and it gets up to 100 degrees. They tend to have longer summers/falls than the eastern slope and it doesn't snow as much either. After all, you aren't that far from the Utah desert. I am also unsure of how progressive the city is now. When I grew up it was extremely conservative. However, I have a friend who lives there now (recently moved from Boulder) and her fam loves it. She said it's becoming a bit more progressive.

Greeley - Will never, ever move back. Sorry if there are any Greeley lovers on this thread, no offense meant to you. It's a very conservative area, no mountains that close by, more of the prairie lands feel. It snows but it's not glam like it sounds like you are looking for.

Boulder - Ah...Boulder....my real love. Mountains right there, easy to get to camping, hiking, mtn biking, kayaking, etc. Very progressive community, a wide variety of holistic care givers which I loved. The only thing is that housing is reallly expensive and cost of living is high as well. There aren't a LOT of things for children however but they were trying to begin adding more that appeals to fams with younger kids. People usually have to go to surrounding towns to find activities for kids if they aren't in to outdoor activities or don't want to simply go to Gymboree. There can be a LOT of snow depending on the winter and it also gets in to the 90s-high 90s during the summers. Fall and spring can be short just depending or they can be longer and lovely. CO is dry no matter where you are really though so you may find that a bit harder to adjust to.

We didn't realize how great we had it by growing up and living in CO until we moved to GA. We didn't realize that CO is actually a pretty progressive state...not THE most progressive but they do allow homebirths (Boulder has a lot of wonderful homebirth mw's and I had one myself there), allow homeschooling, having philosophical option for vaxs, etc.

Despite how I feel about CO, I have noticed though from talking to friends who have moved to Boulder from other places, that they pine for home just like I pine for CO. So you may find if you moved to CO that you end up missing TX when you didn't expect to. Or, you may fall in absolute love with it like so many others have.

HTH, good luck w/ your upcoming birth and I hope you enjoy your CO vaca next summer!!