Trying New Things and Starting to Believe In Better

This was a long-anticipated weekend… and it actually lived up to every expectation. I am so happy right now!

(Cue Pharell’s “Happy,” which I was humming the entire length of my flight back to Dallas this morning.)

On Friday, I boarded a flight from Dallas to Denver, with three suitcases checked and one more in carry on. Whenever I see people checking a bag, my snarky reaction is always to imagine asking “oh, you’re moving somewhere?” (Seriously, people, there is no reason to check a bag if you’re traveling for less than 21 days.) But this time, I was indeed moving. Thursday night, I had been really excited about the move, but now that it was here, I was much more low-key… and a little bit more nervous. Would Colorado be everything that I hoped?

My move-in wasn’t scheduled until Saturday, but I headed to my apartment complex anyway, since I could work from the clubhouse and also take a few minutes to sign any remaining paperwork and be all set for my move. I wasn’t able to get the keys until the office opened at 10am on Saturday (I would have preferred 8am to get going early), so I wanted to have everything settled before then so that I could quickly grab the keys and start moving in. I was going to have a really packed day!

Friday night, I stayed with my old NYC roommate Kelly. Kelly moved to Denver (Arvada) a few years ago, and she and her husband, Den, have pretty much started an all-out campaign to get all their friends to move out there as well. It didn’t take that much convincing for me – more just logistical planning and actually nailing down a date – but Kelly and her husband were amazing in providing all kinds of help with my move. They let me stay at their house as part of “sell Laura on Denver!” trips and also apartment scouting expeditions, and despite Kelly having a 6am flight to Israel on Saturday morning, they insisted on having me stay at their place one last time on Friday night before I officially moved in. We went out for sushi and a wine toast, and then headed to their daughter’s school for the semiannual talent show.

While I was really excited to see the kids performing, Kelly and Den both tried to warn me about the talent show in advance. “Talent is not exactly a prerequisite for participation!” Sure enough, there were three renditions of “Let It Go” (from Frozen, not from The Full Monty as I originally thought in horror when I read the program), and indeed, every other song seemed to be from that movie. Apparently I should go see it? The mom next to me though whispered to me that at least it was better than last year’s song of the year, “Call Me Maybe.” Oh gosh, I can’t even imagine listening to that repeatedly! But I did actually really enjoy the show, and my fondness grew when I discovered that the post-show party was being held at Lowry Beer Garden, which had a great vibe and a stellar beer menu. Maybe parenting isn’t that bad after all? (Though for now, I’ll stick with just attending my friends’ kids’ stuff or meeting them at the bar after.) I had a long week, so by 10pm MT, I was falling asleep while trying to watch basketball with Kelly and Den… so I headed to bed. Big day of moving in the morning!

The next morning, fueled by a donut for energy (happy Fasnacht Day!), I was at Target buying a doormat so the movers wouldn’t track dirt all over the apartment when the movers themselves called. They were already at the apartment, 30 minutes early! (Now, when does that ever happen?!) I headed over as soon as I could to open the POD, but since the leasing office didn’t open until 10am, I couldn’t get the keys to the apartment until then. Luckily, since it was the movers’ own doing that they were 30 minutes early, they didn’t start the clock until I gave them the pod keys at 9:50, and they were able to start moving stuff up to the apartment exterior in the 20 minutes before I could get back with the apartment keys. Phew!

The short version of the rest of the move? The apartment looked like this when I first walked in:

And like this when I gave up on unpacking last night and saved the rest for next weekend:

While this room looks like a disaster (and other rooms look similar) I did manage to completely unpack the kitchen. I also got my bed set up and found some sheets and a comforter for it. However, pretty much everything else is waiting till next weekend. C’est la vie!

So why didn’t I get more packing done? Well, I dashed out of the apartment pretty quickly after the movers left because I had been invited to a blogger event at River Yoga, where I’d get to take a yoga class and then learn about and sample Fair Life milk products! Some of my NYC/Dallas friends told me I was crazy to be scheduling an event on moving day (and with very little buffer, to boot), but I figured the unpacking could happen anytime; it was much more important for me to seize the opportunity to start meeting people in my new home.

River Yoga is in downtown Denver, and I was pleased to discover that the drive there from my apartment was nice and easy – even though it was snowing. Welcome to Denver? I was worried about finding parking downtown, but there turned out to be plenty available, so that wasn’t an issue. When I walked in, the Fair Life reps were really friendly, but I found myself feeling a little bit out of the loop. All the other bloggers seemed to know each other! So I became the nerdy teacher’s pet and befriended the Fair Life reps, who were eager to get to know the attendees.

The partner yoga was really fun and different than anything I had ever tried, and frankly, I sucked at it. So it was the post-yoga part of the event that was my favorite part 🙂 We got to try several really delicious smoothies while we learned all about Fair Life milk. I’ll be doing a full post on Fair Life next week (along with an awesome and insanely generous giveaway – stay tuned!), but for now, the biggest things that stuck out to me were the fact that Fair Life is higher in protein than regular milk, and that it lasts much longer in the refrigerator than regular milk. That last one is really crucial to me! With all the travel I do, I actually tend to not keep any dairy milk at all in the house. Instead, I substitute almond milk or coconut milk, since those are shelf stable and I don’t have to worry about them going bad when I go away for weeks at a time.

While milling around tasting the smoothies and taking photos, I finally got up the nerve to introduce myself to a blogger I recognized, Heidi Nicole. Good thing I did – she turned out to be amazingly sweet, and made it a point of taking me around to introduce me to all the other bloggers that she knew there! It seems like a fantastic bunch, and although I know it will take me a while to adjust to the altitude enough to be a decent runner (especially since I’m only in Denver three days a week to acclimate), I’m sure there will be some fun group runs in my future.

I spent the rest of Saturday packing and hitting the grocery store, but then on Sunday, I went for dinner in Boulder with my friend Caitlin and her husband. And all weekend, I was getting messages from a few coworker friends who live in Denver and are eager to get together! I am so pleasantly surprised at how welcome I already feel in my new home, and I can’t wait to explore more. The Fair Life hashtag is #BelieveInBetter, and I have to say that after this great first weekend, I am pretty confident that life in Colorado is indeed going to be pretty darn awesome 🙂

Note: Fair Life sponsored the yoga class and provided some delicious product samples and smoothies for tasting (plus a Magic Bullet blender to make them at home! Oops, guess I spoiled the giveaway surprise for eagle-eyed readers who bother to read this disclaimer), but I received no other compensation for this post. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.