Our Looming Exodus...back to Boise!

Special guest post from Joe.

This is probably old news to many of you, but we are going back to Boise, Idaho this summer! I got an internship there for the summer, so we will be living back in the City of Trees from May to August.

First, a quick recap of last summer. Emily and I naturally spent a lot of time during my first year at law school discussing our future. What kind of law would I practice? What kind of job would I look for? Internships? Where were we going to live? As it turned out, that last question was the most important for us to ask. We talked about it and prayed about it, and out of the blue one day, I suggested Idaho. After a little time, it just felt right. So I landed an awesome internship working for the Chief Judge of the federal district court in Idaho, and we had a wonderful time. I was pleasantly surprised with Boise. My impressions of Idaho were generally composed of stereotypes from BYU and a handful of temple trips to Idaho Falls in high school. Boise was green and beautiful, with a prominent greenbelt along the river and lot of friendly people. It's a reasonable distance from our family members in Utah, and really splits the difference culturally between Utah and Montana, in my mind. Perhaps most striking of all was the feeling of space in the city. It feels like it's growing, and there's room for it to keep growing! Cities in the east, like Charlottesville or Providence, have lots of history, but they've run out of room. The streets are narrow, the parking is scarce, and there are trees everywhere you look. To a ranch-raised Montana boy, even the hometowny atmosphere of Cville feels a little cramped. Emily and I both loved the wide-open spaces (and streets) of Idaho.

Okay, so we fell in love with the city. I foolishly, recklessly...and successfully put all my eggs in the Boise basket and nailed an internship (technically an externship, since it's unpaid) with the U.S. Attorney's Office there. During my externship with Judge Winmill last summer, I discovered that I wanted to be a criminal prosecutor, and this externship with the USAO in Boise will be great experience for that career. Basically, I'll be working under the federal equivalent of a District Attorney, handling the prosecution of criminals in Boise and the surrounding area for federal crimes like racketeering, illegal immigration, and fraud.

As far as getting there goes, AJ will be flying with his Gammie and Potts just before his second birthday (so his ticket is still free). Then Emily will fly out, as long as her doctor checks her out, a week later. And I'll be all by myself in Charlottesville to take my finals and close up the house for the summer. Then, after a legendary road trip across the country with my brother, Keith, I'll arrive in Boise with enough time to unpack, buy some groceries, and...what was the other thing?...oh yeah, have a baby. I start work right after the baby's projected delivery date. Let's just hope he cooperates.

Well, we're definitely looking forward to spending the summer in breezy Boise. And we hope our loved ones in the West will get to see us before we come back for my last year of law school.