Trading the desert for the soggy PNW

Well, after four wonderful years in Arizona, we've decided to make our way back up to the northwest! We've had so much fun the past four years, learning so much about ourselves, our relationship, and what we want in life, that we decided it's time to move back "home."

I'm so fortunate to work for a company that allows me to work from home, and with that, allows me the flexibility to really work from anywhere. Stefan has been wanting to get back into juvenile probation and with his contacts up in Washington, he has a much better chance of doing something he loves up there. Since we've been down here, the juvenile court/Maricopa County has been on a hiring freeze with no real timeframe for when they'll start hiring again. With Stefan not working right now, we figured there was no better time to head back up to Washington.

The decision seemed sort of quick, but we've been talking about it for a while now. We knew that Arizona was somewhat temporary, and ultimately we wanted to be back in Washington. After our trip home a couple weeks ago for Stefan's dad's retirement party, we realized that nothing was really keeping us in Arizona and Washington was our home.

As soon as we got back to Arizona, I talked to my boss, looked at some houses online, my parents went and looked at them for us, taking lots of pictures, and we made it official once I got the final okay from my work. Our moving truck gets here on September 26th and we'll be in Washington the first part of October!

While we're really excited to be closer to our families, we're still sad to leave our friends and life in Arizona. We've met some amazing people over the last four years, and it's going to be really tough to say goodbye to everyone. I'm not thinking of it as a "goodbye" anyway, because I know we'll be back to visit, I'll be back for work, and I'm pretty sure we're going to want to escape the rain at some point. After several weeks of 100+ temperatures, I'm really liking the idea of rain right now though!

A few things we're going to miss about Arizona:

• Our friends in AZ - We never thought we'd be able to find "new" friends like the ones we had back home, but I can honestly say we've truly met some amazing people down here that we'll miss dearly (and that better come visit us)!
• Our house - No need for a pool in Washington, but we really did love the home we made for ourselves here

• My work - I love the people I work with in Arizona and am so thankful I got to work with each and every one of them!
• Hikes - I used to think the desert was ugly because it's so brown and lacks greenery and water, but we've gone on several hikes in Arizona and the scenery is absolutely gorgeous. Different from evergreens, but beautiful in its own way.

• Grimaldis & Oreganos - The two best pizza places........ ever.
• Eating outside 9 months out of the year
• Spring Training
• Monsoons
• Doggie Daycare - We were so lucky to have such wonderful people take care of our pups the last few years, they treated Brooklyn & Bentley like their own dogs and we'll miss all of them so much!
• Flower - Our cleaning lady
• Sedona

• My Arizona Stella & Dot girls
• Our favorite bartenders at The Keg, Drew & Megan
• Lizards! I love seeing them run all over the back wall in our backyard
• New Years Eve with Alli & Bronson at Ruth's Chris
• Being able to drive to Vegas for the weekend
• The sunrises and sunsets

A couple things I won't miss:

• The bugs - I'd gladly trade in the large "crunchy" bugs in AZ for slimey slugs of the PNW any day!
• The summer
• Houses that all look the same
• The Arizona Cardinals
• The newscasters
• Sheriff Joe 
• Gross hard tap water!!

It's been such a wonderful experience and we're so grateful for the time we were able to live here. We're going to miss our friends so much, but know we'll be back to visit very soon!