A little Colorado love

So it turns out we like to make memories in July. We started dating on July 1st, got engaged on July 4th, and got married on July 11th. This next week, we'll be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of our move to Colorado.

This move has been a long time coming for us. Ever since I spent my first year of college in Fort Collins, Chicago was slowly killing my sense of adventure. We prayed for years that something would come up when the time was right and I was done with school, and after making us fidget for a few months, God came through with an amazing job for Ben out of thin air. And here we are!

Our first year of life here has been a struggle, but the best kind. We came with hardly any friends, almost no family, and half the jobs we needed. I looked for work for months, went from temp job to temp job, and struggled in the meantime with missing my best friends and family members back home.

But a year later, I feel like we've finally arrived. We've fallen in with an amazing crowd at Northern Hills Church, at a young adult service called theMill. We're bursting at the seams with lovable buds now, and even having trouble keeping up with them all. I have two jobs I love, Ben is kicking butt at his, and we seriously can't get enough of this state.

So below is some love to Colorado, and some of our favorite memories so far in this incredibly beautiful state!

Driving down 93 on our first week in town, we couldn't believe we actually lived here

From our first Colorado hike in Golden Gate Canyon

Vail visit, Ben's first time up here

From a glorious afternoon bike ride in the middle of the winter

Some sunset slacklining and North Table climbing

Our first ever moose sighting during Date Day at Rocky Mountain National Park

And finally, showing a little love to my husband on our second Golden Gate hike

Aspen Anniversary Weekend

I can hardly believe we're already past the year marker. It seems like last week that I was frantically throwing final details together and feeling like the day would never get here. But now that it's come and gone, I can look back and say that marriage has been a thousand times better than I ever dreamed it would be.

We celebrated with a long weekend in Aspen. It was a first time visit for both of us, so we went into it with no plans and no expectations. What resulted was a super relaxing yet adventures weekend, with hiking, fancy (and incredibly overpriced) meals, and hours of browsing in stores we will never make enough money to shop in.

Our favorite part of the trip by far was our hike of the Maroon Bells just outside of town. This is a gorgeous area, with Bell-shaped 14ers flanked by a lake, surrounded by rushing water and wildflowers (it's one of the "most photographed spots in Colorado"). We did a short hike around the lake, where we were in such awe of the view that it didn't seem real.

We finished the celebration back in Boulder, with a tradition we'll be partaking in until the end of time: free Slurpees on our anniversary (7-11).

When a torrential downpour started at 5:15 (just like it did before our outdoor 5:30 wedding last year), we just laughed. We did hear that a rainy wedding day was good luck!

Why We Jumped Ship

We're blogspot newbies, transfers from over at Tumblr, and we've decided to make this our new blogging home. While we enjoyed our time there, we think we'll have an easier time connecting with and learning from other newlywed bloggers in our new diggs.

So feel free to check out our old blog here. If you'd rather stay local, here's a quick update on who we are.

We're the Mercuri's. We're Newlyweds (just passed the first year mark this week!), and Chicago natives (sort of). Ben (husband) is a graphic designer with Crocs shoes and a photographer in his ever-waning spare time. I'm a ex English Lit major turned Social Responsibility coordinator (which I also do at Crocs), and I sell outdoor gear to Coloradans at REI on the side.

After our wedding last year, we decided to take the plunge, and move away from our family and friends to live out our dream of moving to Colorado, where we are now currently adventuring near Boulder.

So that's us. We'll be here sharing whatever comes our way!