It all started with a dream

10 years ago, 10 years ago this week to be precise. Our honeymoon gift from the mother in law was a trip to Arizona. At first I thought she must not like me much if she's sending us into the desert in the middle of summer! :D
But.. we made our first visit to the wild west and fell in love. I dreamed of living here for several years after that initial visit. We planned on moving here when we retired. But in the middle of one of those miserable nor'easter storms my sister called me from the equally cold south side of Chicago and said let's move to Arizona.

Let's move to Arizona

The dream was rekindled to a roaring flame and it wouldn't leave. Could we just up and leave our frigid abode in the mountains of Massachusetts. No jobs lined up, no real reason to move to AZ other than just "wanting to move".
I bounced the idea around in my head for a bit, I bounced the idea off my husband for a bit, we bounced the idea off of his mother and she in turn bounced the idea off of her daughter. We all wanted to move!

So within 6 months 3 families had packed up all their belongings and traveled cross country to move to Arizona. We had no connections, have I mentioned that, no jobs lined up. Other than 2 scouting visits to decide where we would settle in, we had no idea what we were in for out here.

What were we getting ourselves into!