Denver or Bust!   ?! 

Let's start at the beginning of this crazy adventure. 
Back in May of 2015, Rod had a very fortunate conversation with his friend who offered him a fantastic job opportunity out in Denver, and a place to stay until we got on our feet. It was his dream job, my dream state, and we were over the moon with excitement! It was scary and crazy, but we took a leap of faith and embarked on an adventure of a lifetime! 

We planned for months, saved and scraped all the money, said goodbye to our jobs, our friends, our lives in Lawrence, and shoved our cats into the front of a Budget rental truck for the next 12 hours. It was quite the sing-a-long all the way to Colorado, lol! 

Our first day in Colorado was a dream. I met up with some friends in the mountains, we ate some good dinner, and we finally relaxed..... for about 5 minutes. 

Two days after our arrival, it was made aware that we werent exactly welcome to stay. The woman of the house was not fully made aware of our arrival, even though we were told "The more the merrier". 

Thank goodness my cousin lived out here, and gave us refuge for us and our kitties. Unfortunately, her job was transferring her back to Utah, and we only had two weeks to find a place of our own.  We started looking for apartments right away, but they wanted proof of income. So Rod goes to his "boss" and asks him to write him an offer letter, stating what he intends to pay him. Things got suddenly akward, and he then realized he had not done the due diligance of making sure he could actually afford an employee...so there was no job. THE whole reason we moved out here was for that job, Rod's DREAM job. We were devastated. 

We were conflicted. Go back to Lawrence or stay and try to make it work? We decided to stay and at least give it a shot. Atomic Photography still had a chance at the new studio, so we wanted to at least TRY. Luckily I had a few friends out here who helped Rod find a job, but it has not been able to pay him what it costs to live here. I found a few jobs bartending but I still could not make enough to pay our outrageous rent. Denver is one of the most expensive cities to live in, and even though we knew this, we budgeted for a different income. We did not anticipate things to hit the fan so fast, and we thought things would be so different. Our spirits were crushed as soon as we got here, and we have tried like HELL to stay positive, and keep on keepin on, but sometimes you gotta know when to hold em, and know when to fold em. 

It's been three months, and we have gone through all our savings, I have  almost maxxed out our credit cards, and we are about to lose our apartment. I have been trying like crazy to sublease it, but no luck. Every day seems to bring another set of problems. 

We were set to move in with my parents this weekend, but my step-dad's truck has decided to break down, and now we can't leave. We had already quit our jobs, packed all of our stuff, and now we can't even leave for at least two weeks.

Our cupboards are almost bare, we are rationing the cat food, and I fear they are going to start eating us! 

We have swallowed our pride and are ready to ask for help! We just want to go back to Lawrence, where we are loved and cared for! We miss you all like crazy, and we just want to put this whole mess behind us. Asking for help is probably one of the hardest things for me to do, so here we are, ready to crawl back into the busom of Lawrence. 

Any amount makes a huge difference to us, and if you do donate, I will personally take a million photos of you and your family and Rod will sing you a song! He's Australian remember!

Thanks friends, this has been the most humbling experience of my life.