Hello,
I lived in Boulder for 8 years before moving to Louisville 4 years ago. We are expecting our first baby in October and could not be happier living in this area. There is so much to do with a baby and children. We moved to Louisville because it was just too expensive to buy in Boulder. It takes under 10 minutes to get to Boulder from where we live. I personally think that Louisville is the best Boulder suburb to live in with Lafayette being next and a close tie between Longmont and Broomfield. I base this on appearance, natural food markets, quality of housing and accessability to Boulder. But Longmont and Broomfield do have cheaper real estate and their are some nice areas. Broomfield is made up of many newer subdivisions, row homes, and strip malls. I could be wrong but I don't think it has a "downtown" area. Longmont is an older town that is starting to come around. There is lots of new construction along the outskirts and people are starting to fix up some of the old neighborhoods. Although a good portion of Longmont is still run down and I personally would not want to live in those areas.
Regarding schooling, I am not there yet but do have lots of friends with school age kids. There are many Montissori and Waldorf schools in Boulder, lots of great pre schools and the public school are very good also. You will have a lot to choose from. Most of them do open enrollment.
I am having a home birth with a midwife who I love. There are lots of HB midwives here who are all wonderful. I am a doula and find it to be very birth friendly here. We unfortunately don't have any nurse midwives practicing here in any hospitals. There use to be an OB practice in Longmont that had midwives on staff that just recently let them all go because of insurance reasons. Nor do we have a birth center. It is mostly all because of $$ and insurance.
But we are very home birth friendly and I love that.
If you come to Boulder you can't loose checking out Pearl Street. It is our big tourist destination. Full of overpriced but cute shops, street performers, places for the kids to play, yummy food (I'll talk about that later). The neighborhoods surrounding Pearl Street are so worth getting lost in. Beautiful houses, cottages, lots of big trees, creeks, pocket parks, etc. We have a wonderful farmers market on Wed and Sat's.
We have so many amazing restaurants here. Next to San Fran, Boulder is my favorite place to eat. If you want a really nice meal check out The Kitchen (on the west end of Pearl) or Mateo (on the east end of Pearl.) More casual and cheaper restaurants are Sushi Zanmai (on Spruce St) or BJ's Brewery (Pub food on Pearl), you really can't go wrong. Except for the chains. I think the only big food chain on Pearl is The Cheesecake Factory, yuk. With so many good local places to choose from, don't go there.
Take a drive down Mapleton St. It is a few block north of Pearl St between 11th and 3rd. It is a beautiful boulevard with lots of big houses. Get out and walk around. My husband and I love taking walks in that area. He is an architect and we love looking at all the places. If only we had millions!
We have a great creek (Boulder Creek) that passes through most of Boulder. A good place to start is at the Boulder Public Library at 9th and Arapahoe. It is so pretty and a great place to get cool if it is hot outside.
The weather here is amazing! Sunny all the time, mild winters, if it snows, it is usually melted the next day. We may have a few cold weeks where you need a winter jacket and winter gear, and a few hot weeks in the summer but most of the time you can always be outside. My only complaint is how dry it is. I grew up on the east coast 2 blocks from the ocean and I feel totally land locked here. My husband travels to SF a few times a year and a good few days at Ocean Beach will hold me over for a while.
Hope that helps, feel free to ask me anything else!
