So Natalie and I headed south from Fort Collins this morning with the intention of getting to Parker and looking at dressage barns. Well it was my intention, but I found out that Natalie hadn’t looked up any barns! After stopping at the So All May Eat Cafe, http://www.soallmayeat.org/, to say hello to my fraternity brother Brad (as much of a hello as my sick voice could muster) I started looking up barns in the Parker area with Samantha, our GPS.

I found a place called Trinity Sport Horse (I think) and headed that way, but just after getting off the highway in Parker I found a tack shop so I cut across 4 lanes and we went into the store to ask around for dressage barns in the area. The first place we tried ended up not existing, at least from what we could see. So then I looked up Stellar Stables using Google on my mobile phone, I plugged the address I found online into the GPS and we headed further south to see what we could find. We came across a big white barn on Daley road, at the place that the GPS told us that Stellar stables should be, but it wasn’t Stellar Stables, it was Saddle Up, http://www.saddleupfoundation.org/.

We stopped in there and met a lady named Sabrina who told us that Stellar was just up the road and that she boards there. She spends some time working at Saddle Up, which we found out is a therapeutic horsemanship barn.

We then headed up to Stellar Stables, home of the Dressage Dream team, www.dreamteamdressage.com, and ventured into the barn. It’s an amazing place. The trainer there is another aussie, and Natalie is excited about the potential learning opportunities that are available there at Stellar Stables. As of right now that is the barn of choice, so we started looking around Parker Colorado this afternoon for housing.

We ended up getting in touch with a Keller Williams agent, thanks Aunt Sandra for the connection! We got preapproval lined up through his mortgage guy and then spent a few hours driving around Parker looking at neighborhoods with the agent. We’re going to spend some time with him Wednesday looking at houses for sale and seeing what we can find in the area.

So far our opinions of Parker are that it is far more suiting for us than Fort Collins was. It is much more suburbia, like we are used to, with Denver only a short drive away. We haven’t stumbled on any trailer parks, which was something we couldn’t seem to get away from in Ft. Collins.

Our house hunting trip to Colorado is almost over, we’ll be back in St. Louis Wednesday at 10pm, barring any delays. We don’t expect to find a house in Parker just yet, so we will likely schedule another trip out here in April.

So the biggest question we’ve had from other people since we decided that we are moving to Colorado has been what will you do for work?

Well my answer is an easy one. I will continue to work for Engage Software, I just simply be working out of a home office for a while, with the intention of expanding the business with a new office out west as we grow even more. That will require growing our business in the region and then looking for talented people to fit whatever needs arise.

Natalie on the other hand is sort of in an unknown position. Currently she has her own business out here doing Dressage training. She loves what she does, but it takes a LOT of time and energy to do what she does. She is looking forward to not having to work as much after we move. She’s not quite sure what she wants to do, but I imagine it will still involve Dressage Training out in Ft. Collins, just not on the same scale as she is doing here in St. Louis.

So, that answers one of the biggest questions we’ve had when people find out we’re moving.

Natalie and I spent most of today looking around Ft. Collins. The first thing we did after breakfast and leaving the hotel was to head to Autozone to get the check engine light scanned on the Envoy. The code reported a problem with either the MAP or one of the hoses. I ended up resetting the code, and we drove the rest of the day, a couple hundred miles, without it coming back on. Perhaps it was just the altitude yesterday that caused a problem. After getting the Envoy squared away we started calling Dressage barns in the area and went and visited a few. We found one that I think Natalie really likes, Chatellen, I like it too, but mostly because of the beagle Joe. Well Joe and check out the view from their farm of the mountains.

If you were moving to Colorado, where would you choose to live? Please be sure to post why you pick where you pick. If you don't tell us why, it will be hard to sell us on a specific location.

Here are some of the requirements for our hunting for a location in Colorado.