As many of you may know, my wife, daughter and I recently
moved to Copper Mountain, Colorado and that move was rather spontaneous. We thought that someday we’d move out
here, but never imagined it would be so soon and that we’d leave our beloved
Chicago. We hoped this would be a
great place to raise our daughter with all of the outdoor activities and the
more laid back culture. So far, we
absolutely love it. The natural
beauty of the mountains is breath taking.
The ability to get lost in nature either on a hike or while skiing is
ever prevalent and it is a change we adore. The people are incredibly warm and welcoming, where every
time that I go running people I don’t even know wave and smile at me. I know that’s a rather small gesture,
but it’s a nice one. We may still
be in the honeymoon stage and who knows what the future will bring, but for
now, our move to Colorado has been a positive change
.
A few weeks ago the three of us went on a hike from
Breckenridge and it was truly majestic.
When we hike with Neyla, we strap her onto my by using a Bjorn and she
loves it. Usually she’ll sleep,
but when she doesn’t she sings.
It’s really hilarious; she will just stare at the nature around us and
starting inaudibly singing. She
loves being outside as do my wife and I.
On this particular hike all three of us were truly mesmerized by the
nature and solitude around us. I
had never experienced anything like it and it made me understand the 19th
Century Romantics much better. It
reminded me of a quote I saw here not too long ago, “I’d rather be outdoors
thinking about God in creation, than in a building locked away from it.” It’s so true, the miraculous nature of
the mountains truly does inspire one to think about God and the world in
different ways.
We have this image of Neyla growing up hiking, horseback
riding, golfing and skiing; and not playing video games and texting her life
away. We hope she is as inspired
by the creation around us as we are.
This may be really naive, only time will tell, but we feel it will be
much easier to balance technology in our lives living here with this sort of
culture.
Yesterday Colorado voted to legalize marijuana in our
state. Many people would argue and
have argued that this has made Colorado a worse place to raise children. I disagree. I don’t smoke marijuana, never have and probably never will,
but this shows the progressive nature of our state. It makes an amazing amount of political and economic sense
to do this. The amount of money
our state wastes on arresting and prosecuting people who smoke a plant that is
less harmful and dangerous than alcohol and tobacco makes no sense. Furthermore, the black market for this
drug has empowered terrorists all over the globe and allowed drug cartels in
Mexico to wreak havoc south of the border and in many border states. In no way do I support the legalization
of other illegal drugs, but it is finally time that we rethink our broken
policy on drugs in America and the consequences of those policies.
I know that raising a child is never easy and there will
continually be challenges, but we love this challenge so much and we love
Neyla. We made a difficult
decision to move to Colorado, but we believe that this opportunity came up for
a reason and we can’t wait to find out what it is.
