Rocky Mountain High

Peter has been looking for a job ever since he started his senior year of college in August 2009.  He spent numerous hours attending conventions and meetings to hopefully get his name and resume out there.  By March we were both feeling very frustrated and dejected because he hadn't found a job yet.  My concerns were steadily growing as I looked at the student loan debt and wondered what we were going to do about it if he didn't have a job when we needed to start making payments on them.

One day out of the blue, Peter received a phonecall from the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison National Forest.  They had seen his resume at the Society of American Foresters convention in September and wanted to know if he would be interested in applying for the Lead Forestry Technician position that they had available.  Peter was, of course, interested in the job, and after nearly a month of holding our breath and wondering whether or not he got the position, we finally got word on Thursday.  He got the job, and we've been celebrating ever since!

As most of you have noticed, there has been a poll on my blog for the last few weeks.  Only one person guessed correctly that we would be moving to Colorado, and that was my coworker Jennifer!  I'm so glad her guess was correct, and that we won't be going to the Poor House instead!

Although this job is a career position that comes with benefits, it is what they call a 13/13 which means he is guaranteed work for 13 of the 26 pay periods in a year.  That's only half, but they will most likely keep him working as long as they can.  It all depends on the snow.  It's a step in the right direction, though.  He's required to stay at this position for two years and then he can apply non-competatively to other positions.  The biggest trick to the Forest Service is getting your foot in the door.  Peter has finally accomplished that and hopefully after he has worked for two years we can find a more permanent year-round job.

Now the real work begins.  We have only three more weeks of classes and finals before Peter graduates on May 8th, and then he is supposed to report to his job on May 11th.  Graduation weekend is going to be crazy busy, and all of my free time between now and then is going to be consumed with packing.  Thankfully we don't have to worry about finding a place to live immediately because they have Forest Service housing that we can stay in until we get settled.  We're both very excited about our upcoming adventure, and if any of you ever want to come to Colorado, you'll have a place to stay!