It may seem as if we dropped off the face of the earth, but I can assure you that we have not.  After New Mexico (which I have yet not finished blogging about), we’ve been staying with friends and family to celebrate the holidays, escape the cold nights, and plot our next move.  We spent Thanksgiving in Colorado with Alan’s family, spent another week in Denver with our dear friend, Andrew, drove out to Michigan to visit with my family, and then have spent much of the last three months in New York with my parents (THANK YOU, MOM AND DAD!!!).  Between lots of grandparent time for Van, we also spent a couple of weeks down in the DC area to see friends and (drumroll) have spent some time house hunting and visiting friends in our intended new home of Western Massachusetts.  Yup, after traveling the country, we are winding up right where I used to live fifteen years ago.

For those of you following our journey offline, you know that we had put an offer in on a house that was accepted.  Unfortunately, the results of our inspection demonstrated that instead of buying a serious fixer upper, we would have been buying a tear down.  Back to the drawing board for us.  To make our house search easier and to get to know the area better, we rented a partially finished room in an unfinished basement of a lovely and lively artist.  She described it to us as camping indoors and almost wouldn’t show it to us since she didn’t think it would be suitable for a family.  Little did she realize that we’d been living out of our car for the last year.  Camping inside?  With access to running water, heat, and electric lights?  Sold!  It’s a temporary situation, so if we don’t have a new home by the summer, we’ll have to find a new temporary home.  But, the thought of not having to move every few days makes this dark basement seem like a luxurious retreat.  And the area around the house couldn’t be more beautiful.  The views from her studio are stunning, and there are multiple hiking trails that leave within a quarter-mile of the house.

And through all that awaits us, I look forward to continuing to share it right here.  But, before I start writing more about what we’re up to right now, I’ll be walking back a few months in time and writing a couple more posts about our wonderful month in New Mexico.  Easily one of the highlights of our trip.