Fairplay, Colorado...

I have moved us three times in the last five months.

My last roommate was ready for us to leave about a month prior to my girls finishing their school year.  Linda was very sweet and honest about it and we have no hard feelings between us.  She had just had her fill of our big family in her space.  This was in April (2011).  

I had to figure out how to keep my girls in their beloved school for the next four weeks.  I moved our belongings into my dad's garage and stayed with my dad for a short time.  He lives about an hour away from their school.  We stayed in his tiny two bedroom townhouse, my dogs in his garage and us all in one room for about a week.  I love my dad and he is amazing, but my size family in his space is hard on everyone.  And I was really trying to hold it together, but finding myself super stressed.  I wanted a space we could spread out, with no roommates, so the kids could just do their kid thing without me in the background saying, "Don't touch the walls, stay in the kitchen with that so it doesn't spill, careful...."  Right when I was about to burst, my girlfriend calls and says she is on vacation and I can go up to her beautiful mountain house (my sanctuary) and stay there for the next three weeks to a month!  Yay!  The only concern was my girls.  This house was three hours from my girls' school.  Not sure how that was going to work out, but we were going.

I went to the girls' school to update them on our situation and both of their teachers (who happen to be husband and wife) simultaneously said, "Well, I guess they are coming to stay with us until school is out."  ;)  What a great little community!  Those teachers and I had been so close and such good friends, I was instantly okay with that.  When the girls found out, they were ECSTATIC!  They loved their teachers and knew it was going to be a blast.  They were happy to be able to finish up their school year, too.

The girls would stay with their teachers during the week and I would get them on the weekends.  What a trip... it was like I had visitation.  We had never been apart that long.  It worked out well, though.  The girls ended up leaving there with some great memories and got to finish the school year with all of their friends.

On the last day of house sitting for my girlfriend, I knew I wasn't going back to my dad's to stay.  That just couldn't happen.  So, I ended up looking around in the town my girlfriend lived to see if I could find a place I could afford that would take all of us.  I wanted a place with no one above or below us, no roommates, so the kids could finally just live.  A place where we could be a family and spread out.

I found one on my way out of town!  It was a trailer home, but it was affordable and decent.  No close neighbors and it felt great to be able to have our own space!  Yay!

Now I had to tell the girls we had moved out of the area of their favorite school into a town I wasn't really familiar with.  That wasn't going to be easy.  But we had our own home!

Yeah, they were not happy.  They were going to miss their teachers and friends and didn't want to live in this new town so far from everything.  Tiana was pretty upset with me.

That's part of doing my mama thing, though.  We really just needed a place that was ours and Fairplay, Colorado happen to be where we landed.

Little did I know about this town that we now lived in.  Wow...