We're headed to Boise!

After 10 years of medical training, Kim is finally accepting his first job (and hopefully his last) in Boise, Idaho. He'll be working for a group called Gem State Radiology. Although we've felt led there and really good about it, it was a very hard decision because the other places where we had offers were either gorgeous, in our home state, or had really nice and wonderful people in the radiology group. We also have very close friends in two of the cities. All said and done, we felt supremely grateful that Kim has a job in this hard market, and that we feel very excited about our final decision. It's going to break my heart to leave the Triangle area of North Carolina, but I'll deal with that when I have to.

So I just wanted to say that if you're not familiar, Boise isn't what you're thinking. It's not a desolate place in the middle of Idaho where everyone is a cowboy. Not to knock cowboys because my grandpa falls into that category, and I loved me a cowboy or two as a young 'un. We'll be living in Eagle, ID, which is basically a suburb of Boise (sorry Eagle peeps!) of around 11,000 people. Kimball covers the western part of Idaho so that will lessen his commute each way a good 20 minutes. But back to Boise. It's really clean, even right in the downtown and it's also very safe. We compared crime rates of all the cities we were considering and Boise was the lowest, even lower than Salt Lake City, which wasn't that low. hee. We stayed in a hotel downtown for the interviewing process, and I have to say it felt Twilight Zonish to go outside in the middle of a downtown where everyone was friendly and we could walk around at 9:00 p.m. and things were still beautifully tidy and safe.

I know you're going to need proof, hence the pictures. Some of the other great things about the Boise area -- it's super affordable. The homes are not expensive, and the taxes aren't bad. Milk is not $5 a gallon, which is what it was when we were living in Denver. The schools are great. The high schools in almost every area are rated really well, which can't be said for all cities. In fact, one gorgeous and charming city we considered, had a 50% drop out rate for its high school. Other areas, you had to be careful where you lived to get into the good high school, which is pretty much par for the course in every city. The city is progressive and has wonderful farmer's markets, a big local eating movement, and other green developments that I really appreciated. Although the big mountains aren't in view, from the city, they have some really striking foothills in Boise. At certain times of the year, they are covered with yellowish-bronze grasses that make them look a shimmery gold color. The sunrises and sunsets bounce off of the foothill angles more dramatically than they do mountains with large slopes. Do I wish I had larger mountains? Yeah, that would be the one thing that I'd change. But, there are beautiful rivers, trees, and grass doesn't struggle to grow. Did I mention there are lots of mountains in ID within driving distance?

They have a nice zoo that we visited, and lots of family activities. We went to an "Art in the Park" in the downtown and it was amazing how easy it was to navigate around the people. The population isn't huge so we felt like the airport was our personal jetpad, and parking wasn't an issue anywhere. I know the Boiseans complain about their traffic, but after living in Denver and in the East for most of my married life, it just wasn't "traffic" to me. To top things off, we're only five or so hours from where are parents live, and we loved that we have a good-sized community of our religious faith, without being the majority. So, everyone move to Boise! Or at least come visit us -- we're close to Sun Valley and the Tetons, not to mention countless other little resort areas. :)