one year in boulder | life update

In just a few days, Michael and I will have officially lived in Boulder for exactly one year! I can’t believe a year has already gone by since we drove our lives in a massive moving truck from Dallas to Colorado. For those of you who have been following me for a while (like since we lived in Dallas), I just want to say how much I appreciate y’all following along on this new journey. I know my content has slightly changed from being at Mi Cocina 3x a week, to content involving more mountains and activewear and travel! And I’m so thankful y’all stuck around through the transition and continue to support me!

If you’re new around here, my husband and I were born and raised in Dallas and moved to Colorado one year ago. [See my post all about why we moved here].

I think it’s safe to say Michael and I were both pretty horrified moving to a brand new city, away from family and friends where we knew nobody. I will never forget though when we first drove into Boulder (after the 15hr drive from Dallas)…I was in my car and Michael was in the moving truck. The song ‘you make me brave’ by Bethel came on, and I knew that’s what God was speaking to me. He was making me brave for the move, for the new season ahead of us. He called us to this move and He would carry us through it. And He has absolutely done that and MORE over the last year!

We have fallen in love with Boulder 100x more than we were expecting to. We’ve fallen in love with the active lifestyle here – the hiking, skiing / snowboarding, biking…the mountains and the weather here make you WANT to be outside and be active! We definitely didn’t have that in Dallas! We also love that Boulder is a much smaller town than Dallas. It takes less than 15 minutes to get anywhere you need to go, and there’s little to no traffic! There’s been something so peaceful about living in a smaller town.

This probably falls under the ‘active lifestyle’ category but I have become obsessed with running in Boulder. The trails here, seeing the mountains, the quietness…there’s something about it that’s brought me so much closer to the Lord and leaves me with no other response other than awe and worship! If we ever live somewhere else, I will greatly miss my Boulder runs!

We’ve found a church here that we love. It’s a much smaller church than what we were used to in Dallas [we went to The Village Church in Dallas and loved it!], but the community and faith there have been so encouraging, and such a blessing to have! A lot of you guys asked me about making friends in a new city, and I think a great way to make friends is by finding a local church you can call home!

Something else I’ve really appreciated about Boulder is how different the lifestyle + environment is from Dallas. Don’t get me wrong – I love Dallas and it will always be home! But, there’s definitely a pressure in that city to look a certain way, or dress up, or carry a certain type of bag, have your makeup done, etc. [Whether or not you let that pressure get to you is another story]. But that pressure just does not exist in Boulder! Most people here don’t wear makeup, don’t get dressed up…lululemon leggings and sneakers are pretty much the uniform here, and I actually love it. Granted, it’s provided a few challenges running a fashion blog in a city that doesn’t care about fashion LOL…but overall it’s been extremely refreshing, and such a nice change of pace. Unless we are going out on a date night or shooting for the blog…I literally never do my hair or makeup and it’s been so nice!

Another beautiful thing about moving to Boulder is the growth and fruit that it’s produced in our marriage. I can confidently say that our marriage has never been stronger than it is today (we’ve been married almost 4 years now), and I think that’s largely because of this move! Moving to a new city, away from our friends and family, where we knew absolutely no one brought Michael and I so much closer and made our relationship so much stronger in ways that I don’t think would’ve happened if we would’ve stayed in Dallas. The move also came with challenges in our marriage for sure…but overall it’s brought us to this really sweet place where we are each other’s best friends, biggest cheerleaders, and favorite humans!

All that to say…yes, we absolutely love Colorado with our whole hearts. But, we definitely miss family and friends back in Dallas! I’m one of 6 kids, and before we moved we lived nearly across the street from Michael’s parents. So, needless to say, we are both super close to our families who all live in Dallas, and love them dearly. That’s hands down what we miss the most about Dallas. We’ve been so lucky though to have family come up and visit SUPER frequently, which has been wonderful. And we’re trying to convince them they all need to move here!

So overall…this has been such an amazing first year in Boulder, and my heart is overwhelmed at how good and how faithful God has been to us every step of the way! We can’t wait to see what He has in store for us down the road. Thanks for reading friends!

xo Lauren