When I graduated from Hinton High School in 2001, my plans were to go to college and move to a large metropolitan area. After living in Eastern Iowa for 6 years, those plans changed. My husband and I seriously contemplated moving to a big city after college but we couldn't help but stare wide-eyed at the cost of housing, transportation and entertainment. Finding employment was another challenge. We would be competing against hundreds of other applicants for most of the jobs we were looking to apply for. In 2007 we came to the conclusion to move back to Sioux City after visiting a friend in Phoenix, AZ. Even though our friend lived in a huge city, most of the places they frequented were within a small radius of where they lived or worked, similar to the size of Sioux City. We both made the commitment to move back where we would be closer to family, didn't have to sit through hours of traffic, could afford to buy a home and really get involved in the community. My husband and I picked up our entire lives to move back home to Sioux City. We both dropped great jobs and moved back with our parents (in the middle of a snow storm to top things off). After only two months we were able to buy a house, find employment and joined several volunteering groups. Three years later and I'm so glad that we made that decision. It's always fun to visit places around the country but in the end, I'm always happy to come home.