Megan Morrissey (Miller)

High school and Los Alamos seem like another life to me. The past 20 years have gone by so fast. But I don't at all feel like the same person I was in high school. Boy did I have some growing up to do. I went off to California and was just shell shocked. I still remember thinking how crazy it was to be somewhere that you had to stalk a person walking to their car to get their parking spot. After transferring to Ft. Lewis in Durango I realized I loved the mountains, it was where I belonged and I would never leave.

After graduation, I went to work for a local software company in Durango as one of the first employees. I remember being onsite at Hughes Aircraft in California programming around the clock and thinking there had to be more to life than this. Like I knew anything at 24 years old! So I quit my job and went to get a masters degree. Sad part is the people that stayed became very rich when the company went public. But I wouldn't trade any amount of money for happiness I have found.

I came back to Durango and married my best friend Mike and my biggest supporter in 1996. I will never forget seeing some of you there. It really meant a lot to me. Fourteen months later the most amazing person in the world was born, our daughter Natalie. It took being a mom for me to realize what was really important in life and how wonderful my parents were and are. I still to this day tell people Los Alamos was by far the best place in the world to grow up and now know my parents were one of the reasons I feel that way. Mike's parents live in Durango and mine live in Moab, so going to see family is like mini vacations.

I found a great job opportunity in Vail, Colorado with a web development company. So we moved to Vail on July 4th, 1999. Everything about Vail has seemed to fall into place for us. We bought a house in a wonderful town 30 miles west of Vail, Eagle and had another baby in 2001, a boy named Luke. He is amazing and has more energy then he knows what to do with. He makes me laugh harder then any person I know.

When I lived in Durango I adopted a husky that taught me to love running. It became my passion. In Eagle, I found an amazing group of people that I meet at 5:15 in the morning to run the most incredible trails that hardly anyone knows about. They are my best friends and as passionate about running as I am. I ran my first marathon last summer in San Diego and had dinner with Josh Jackson and his family the next day, his wife ran the marathon too. It was GREAT to see him and catch up. I am running Boston this spring, but would much rather run 50 miles on the trails then 10 miles on the road. But I will continue to run marathons to travel and see great places. I would love to run the Leadville 100 in the next few years.

I did have to give up my job when I realized I was more focused on it then my family. But that also turned out meant to be when the company folded 6 months later. I now work in the IT department for Eagle County and just started a web development company with a great partner on the side. But I have found an incredible balance in my life and will never put my family second again.

I hope I can make it back for the reunion. I still have not seen Los Alamos since the fire and need to close that door. Following that and the Durango fire the next summer through the news was very emotionally draining and hard to explain to people that didn't live there. I do envy those of you that still live in Los Alamos because I do feel there is no better place to raise a family.

Megan

Running 2006's Colorado Relay (Megan's footage starts at 4:10 in the video), if you would at all be interesting in donating for this year's race please email me. It is for a great cause! Not to mention great time!