We've found raising a family the most wonderful part of our lives thus far. When you do this for so long and make it your priority, as it gradually ends you can't help but wonder, "was that what our life was about?"
Not that parenting ends, of course it doesn't. We watch our children grow into the most wonderful young adults and become families of their own, our life is so rich in this. Our main desire in life is to spend time with our adult children and theirs'.
As the children have left the nest, we have found ourselves a bit lost with what to do with our time and life. We found living in the middle of nowhere i.e. Sisters to be incredibly filled with solitude, so we sold our beautiful family home and moved to Bend. We always new it was a temporary fix to what would someday be a move from Central Oregon.
Yes it's a beautiful place to live, the simpler paced life is quite wonderful and it's country that is surrounded with the beauty of creation. It's a fantastic place to live if:
you ski
you snowmobile
you hike
you mountain climb
you mountain bike
you fly fish
you love extreme outdoor sports
you desire to drive a subaru
your fashion sense includes snow pants, keen shoes and jeans for dress up
you love craft beer
you enjoy cold weather most of the time
Yes Bend, it's the Good Life, even the Washington Post says so.
As the bumper sticker claims, "Your vacation is our life." Um not me, I would never go anyplace like this on vacation and it's not because I live here, its because these are the last things I'd like to spend my time doing.
And this my friends is where the rub lies. I have tons of free time and I have the most difficult time figuring out what to do with it, honestly I find it incredibly boring here. I do apologize, I know this is a very well loved community and I do understand that. It's simply not a lifestyle we enjoy at all.
we love the theater
we love museums
we love art
we love fine dining
we love riding bikes leisurely
we love being close enough to city life to take it in often
we love basking in the warm sun
we love hot weather
Albiet Bend does provide some of these on a very small scale, not enough to convince us living here is what we want for the rest the time we get to experience the life we've been given.
It's been two years now that we've researched where we'd like to relocate to. I admit we have been very picky knowing the enormity of this decision and it's nothing we have taken lightly at all. It's been interesting to go through the process and have others inform us of the things we need to be considering in this decision. I suppose that's the whole reason I feel the need to compose this blog, me fearing what others will think. bah That said, we've considered a lot and our final decision has been made taking a magnitude of things into consideration. We even seriously thought about buying a second home and living in two places simply to please people that think we are nuts for leaving. We don't have that kind of money and since we are ready to permanently move on from Central Oregon it seems a bit ridiculous.
In the end, we are making this decision for us. Makes sense right? We are the ones doing this and we pretty much know ourselves better than anyone else.
The many places we have considered relocating to are:
Portland
Sacramento
Granite Bay
Marin County
Santa Rosa
Napa
San Francisco
Pleasanton
Modesto
Century City
Santa Monica
Palos Verdes
San Diego
Oceanside
La Quinta
Rancho Mirage
Indian Wells
Scottsdale
Yes we have researched, visited (almost all) and seriously considered each of these places for various reasons. Yep, it's been exhausting and an emotionally challenging two years.
That said, we made our decision in June (when I began composing this post) and plopped a hunk of money down on what we think is a great area for us, a decent home for us, the simple lifestyle we prefer yet close enough to cities that we enjoy and warm almost all of the time; super warm.
Since the week we made the decision our life has been in complete turmoil, filled with one challenge after another, along with tremendous responsibilities BUT topped with a huge helping of sweetness due to the perfect four days we spent enjoying family, friends and Michael & Claire's beautiful wedding.
We have questioned our decision numerous times but knew we had no choice but to move forward, we had bought a house and sold our house (the day we listed it, not what we expected at all.) We choose to work through the challenges and continue forward since turning back seemed quite impossible!
So here we are ending the summer, hoping life calms to a somewhat reasonable pace and yes relocating late next Spring to Rancho Mirage California. Today we say goodbye to Celilo, the uber cool house with the awesome view and a kitchen only Wil could do justice to. We enjoyed having it for our home the few years that we did.
We say hello to our winter cottage, it's cozy and sweet in a lovely neighborhood that we hope to enjoy these next few months.
Then next year we move on to Via Noela, what began a desolate dusty lot with a fantastic mountain view.
It's growing and changing day by day and one day will be where we plant our lives for the next chapter.
Via Noela today.
So there you go, we are coming out in a sense. We intended to do so much earlier but life began heading at the speed of a locomotive and we had not the time, energy or gumption to share our story.
We know we are nuts we also know we are bold. Change is a lot of work yet it's something we enjoy so we are doing this. It may not be forever, maybe we will melt, we shall see. For now, those of you who need to escape winter for a time, we welcome you to visit. We will have a tiny Guest Casita to keep you and your's and our planned backyard pool should be quite a splash. Maybe our kids will even come & visit!
