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The two lawmakers preparing to join Colorado's congressional delegation spent the last month pivoting from their campaigns to learning the ropes on Capitol Hill and making decisions about the offices they'll assume when the 118th Congress is sworn in on Jan. 3.

U.S. Reps.-elect Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood and Yadira Caraveo of Thornton, both incumbent Democratic state legislators, have been traveling back and forth from Washington since winning competitive House races early in November, juggling new-member orientation and getting a jump on setting up their offices and their lives in D.C. and back home.

It's a crash course in representing roughly 725,000 Coloradans.

On their initial trip to Washington just days after the election, Pettersen brought her husband, veteran Democratic strategist Ian Silverii, and their nearly 3-year-old son, Davis.

Laughing that they appear to have been the only incoming members who brought a youngster along, Pettersen recalled the moment when it all sunk in that she is really, truly heading to Congress.

"There's so much happening that you rarely have a moment to really take it in," she said. "And then you're immediately trying to plan a trip to D.C. and figure out what you're supposed to be doing next because you get no information until you're elected. All you have is these 'hold' dates and you have no idea what it looks like. So, we get into D.C. and we get dropped off in our bus and the picture I posted on Facebook is us in front of the Capitol before going in with our official badges.

"It was really that moment where Davis was running around and I'm trying to pay attention to this guy and it just it felt like, 'Oh my gosh, this is real. I can't believe that I get this opportunity.' And I feel so lucky."

Caraveo said it was soon after arriving in Washington that it struck her.

"You know, I think the moment that you come in — and at the hotel they take a picture of you for your ID so that you can get through security, and the fact that it says 'member elect' on there — is really kind of the first indication that you have, that this is it, we're not in the campaign anymore. This is real," she said.

"And then they drive you over to the Capitol, and the second that you see that dome it really hits you. And getting to meet so many people that you've read about in news stories or seen on TV who are now your colleagues, and you're going to be able to work with on legislation to help your constituents. Every second really, every interaction makes it all the more real and really emphasizes the importance of this work and the importance of the the role that you're going to be taking on."

The two incoming House members will join six returning Colorado incumbents — three Democrats and three Republicans — and the state's two senators, both Democrats, in a divided Congress, with the GOP taking the House gavel in the midterms by a slim margin and Democrats widening their margin by an additional seat in the Senate.

It will be the first time either has served in the minority, but both said in interviews with Colorado Politics that they hope their experiences in the Colorado General Assembly — Pettersen served three terms in the Colorado House and is concluding a term in the state Senate, and Caraveo has served two terms in the state House — have prepared them to be effective.

"I will continue to build bridges with people where I can find unlikely allies. There's so many people where we have fought on a lot of things and then we'd find, like, the one issue that we would come together on," Pettersen said. "I'm hopeful that the people who are coming in, that we are going to have people that are also fed up with the way things have been running and be willing to come to the table and work together,"

"That was constantly in our trainings, how important that is, that you never know when you're going to need that person for whatever thing you're working on," she added. "It's just what we should be doing. It's actually rolling up our sleeves and working together."

Caraveo conveyed a similar message.

"What I've been proud of is to always approach things in a bipartisan manner when I could in the state legislature, and that's not going to change," she said. "Now that I'm in the minority, I'm really looking forward to getting to know more of my Republican colleagues — I've met quite a few of them already over orientation — and so that approach doesn't really change. I think that there will be all the more incentive to do that, to make sure that I am advocating for the needs of the 8th Congressional District, especially with it being a brand new district, no matter which party it is that's in charge."

Pettersen will represent the Democratic-leaning 7th Congressional District, covering Jefferson County and Broomfield, along with six mountain counties — Park, Lake, Chaffee, Teller, Fremont and Custer — and tiny slivers of a few other counties. She'll take over the seat from eight-term U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, an Arvada Democrat, who announced in January that he wasn't seeking another term.

Caraveo will represent the state's new, evenly divided 8th Congressional District, created last year to reflect Colorado's population gains in once-a-decade redistricting process. Stretching north of the Denver metro area, the district includes parts of Adams, Weld and Larimer counties.

While both races were initially targeted by the major parties' campaign arms, only the contest in the 8th CD drew significant spending, with nearly $18 million in outside money poured into the battleground district. Caraveo eked out a narrow, 0.7 percentage point win over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, while Pettersen cruised to a comfortable, 15 percentage point win over political novice Erik Aadland.

Among the introductions to their new jobs, Pettersen and Caraveo attended the bipartisan program for newly elected House members at Harvard University's Kennedy School last week in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In its 50th year, the widely lauded program includes seminars on policy and procedures, giving incoming lawmakers a rare chance to get acquainted with future colleagues from both sides of the aisle.

Caraveo said one of the bits of advice she heard helped put things in perspective.

"It was funny because at the Harvard Kennedy School, one of the the people said, ‘We have a very easy 72-point checklist of everything that you have to get ready before you're sworn in,'" she said with a wary laugh. "I've never seen a 'very easy' 72 point checklist before. So, I think that really sums it up. It's a whirlwind, with lots of decisions to make to set you up to be an effective member and advocate for your district."

"It's just been a whirlwind, getting to know the process, start making all the decisions that we need to in setting up an effective office," she added.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Caraveo will be the first Latina to represent Colorado. She'll also be the first pediatrician in the state's delegation and the second in Congress, joining Dr. Kim Schrier, a Washington Democrat who was elected last month to a third term. Caraveo said she got advice from Schrier about how to run as a pediatrician and is looking forward to having a fellow in the House.

"She's been telling everybody now that when they ask for medical advice, they can get a second opinion," Caraveo joked.

She added that she intends to bring that perspective to lawmaking, like she did in Colorado's legislature.

"Most people who don't have experience having taken care of kids for 10 years don't necessarily think of healthcare topics or any other topic in that lens, and so I've been able to, in the legislature and even in some early discussions with colleagues, really point out how important different things are to to children's health, and I look forward to continuing to do that," she said. "You name a topic and basically you can correlate it back to children's health."

Pettersen has been public about helping her mother, Stacy, struggle with a decades-long opioid addiction and the road to sobriety. She said she hopes to bring her experience and expertise on how to tackle the crisis to Washington.

"What's really disappointing is how partisan it has become around how to address the opioid epidemic," she said. "It's very upsetting to me because people are unnecessarily dying every day because we have failed policies and the lack of willingness to come to the table to actually try to solve these problems and invest where we need to."

Amid the rhetoric, she said she wants to be "a voice of reason, around the opioid epidemic and what we can do to save lives now, and bringing thoughtful people together to be that voice because there's, unfortunately, going to be a lot of harmful rhetoric that's going to continue, and it stigmatizes those who are struggling the most, who have a disease and need the help, need critical support."

One of their first official duties was picking an office, in a lottery held among the next term's House members every two years. Both landed spots in Longworth House Office Building, a marble-faced Neoclassical Revival building directly south of the Capitol, completed in 1933, and one of three House office buildings.

Pettersen is set to take over an office from Republican Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and Caraveo will move into the rooms currently occupied by Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska — both incumbents are moving elsewhere in the complex — but they won't get their keys until the day they're sworn in.

Neither incoming lawmaker plans to sleep in their office, as some members have been doing in recent years. Instead, both have found living quarters with other lawmakers near the Capitol but intend to maintain their primary residences in their districts.

"I'm definitely not living in my office," Caraveo said with a chuckle. "That needs to be a space for work. I'm going to be living in a building nearby where a lot of members live, and so there'll be a good support system there for people to learn from and even just walk back and forth from the Capitol with."

"It is difficult financially to have two lives that you're paying for," Pettersen said. "I'm really lucky. I'm going to be in a house with two other members. We each have a different level, and then we have a shared living space and kitchen."

She said she'll be sharing the house with a returning incumbent and another freshman, adding with a laugh, "It's close to the Capitol and will be like being back in college, I guess."

Pettersen said she recently shared an airplane ride home from Washington with U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, the Lafayette Democrat elected last month to a third term.

"And he said, 'See, this is a difference. You and I are on the first flight home while there are people that (fly) the next day, or whatever.’ So, it's what people's priorities are. Some people don't have to come back as much, and they choose to be there longer. This is where my community is, my family. This is the place that I love. So, it's doing my work, focusing, and coming home as quickly as possible."

Both said they're mindful of the tension between spending enough time in Washington to be an effective lawmaker and enough time at home to be an effective representative.

"We've had many people give advice around that and even have had lectures around it," Caraveo said. "It is trying to balance getting to know your colleagues, making sure that you're learning from them, that there's collegiality there and the ability to communicate with each other, while making sure that you are in district as often as possible to hear from your constituents around the district and make sure that you have your fingers always on the pulse of what the 8th District needs. So, I look forward to learning that balance."

Pettersen said the decision was easy.

"There's some people who are grappling with moving there full time right now just to their family can be together," she said. "One member said, 'You know, if I lose my election because they go after me for living in D.C. to be with my kids, then I lose my election.' For me, I want Davis to grow up in Colorado. There's no place better than Colorado. And we're going to work hard to make sure that he's still is part of our adventure in D.C., as well."

Along with the other freshmen, Pettersen and Caraveo put in their requests for committee assignments earlier this month, though they won't know the results for a while.

Pettersen is hoping to land a spot on the House Appropriations Committee — the last Coloradan to sit on the plum panel was Democrat John Salazar, a dozen years ago — but pegs that as a more long-term goal once she's built up some seniority. Her first choice this term, she said, is the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, followed by the Education and Labor Committee. Caraveo said she listed the House Energy and Commerce Committee as her first choice, followed by the Agriculture Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure.

Both are in the midst of hiring staff and deciding where to locate their district offices.

"We're in the process of really starting to look at that as we continue to step up," Caraveo said. "But, really, the goal is to have offices and office hours all over the district so that people have really easy access to constituent services and letting us know what they need and feel that we are going into all corners of the of this brand new district to learn about their needs and make sure to take care of them."

Pettersen said her main district office will be centrally located somewhere in Jefferson County — which makes up nearly three-quarters of the population of the 7th CD — with a satellite office in Cañon City, near the sprawling district's southern point.

"And we're going to have extensive outreach all throughout the counties and in rural parts of this district," she said. "I'm gonna fight for them and the things that are going to make their lives better. We might disagree on some of the issues that divide us, but overwhelmingly, the issues that I ran on are very popular, even with Republicans. That's what I'm going to continue to do."

Added Pettersen: "I'm not naive,. I know it continues to be more contentious and more partisan — and in a presidential (election year) it will be — but I'm going to bring our Colorado style to Washington."