Phil's Birthday Skiing

Our third week in Colorado brought freezing temperatures.  Quinn and I headed into Park meadows Mall, which is the kind of big mall you expect in America - it was amazing just to wander around, I think you could probably get lost in there! 

We drove in with our neighbour Mindy, and her little boy Ethan who is the same age as Quinn. It has all the department stores, like Macy's, JC Penny, Dillards and Nordstroms, and everything else you could possibly want. Our excuse was to get a birthday present for Phil, and we accomplished our mission. We had lunch at the food hall, the boys threw money into the wishing fountain, and we were home to pick up the big boys from school.It was a short week for the boys, as they had their first pupil free day on Friday. We spent the morning at home getting organised to go skiing. The boys were pretty good for most of the morning, and built a hangout area upstairs, which you can see in the photo - they made it pretty cozy!

  However, they did start to get cabin fever, so we headed up to Bison Park, which is a great park just up behind the boys school. We had a great time up there, it was really busy as it was a lovely clear day, and heaps of the kids form school were there. They climbed, ran and generally wore themselves out for the afternoon. When Phil got home from work we headed for the mountains, and our weekend skiing at Lovelands.

We stayed in Georgetown, which is a lovely little ski town only 10 minutes drive from the ski fields.  We arrived on Friday night, and found a great little Mexican place for dinner - it was really good food, with ski clips showing on TVs, and very noisy - perfect for us. The boys thought it was great, they had 'beer' with their dinner. Afterwards there was a basement area which had darts, ice hockey table and a pool table, so we all had a game of pool - I have not played for years!  On Saturday, the boys enrolled for their ski school.  They skied from 10am til 3pm, and had lunch with their skiing group.  They had lots of breaks with hot chocolate and cookies, and had pizza for lunch, so they had a great day.  I had a lesson in the morning, while Phil stayed with Quinn, then Phil had a lesson in the afternoon, and I stayed with him. 

I was advised that 4 years of age was the youngest that children could enrol in ski school, but I think that Quinn would have been fine. We will get him a lesson next time we go, as he was most upset that he was not skiing with the rest of us. Phil got him some hire gear, and he had a play around on his skis, and he did really well. He got his balance, and was figuring out how to turn. Then he found some little boys, and they all played in the snow building things, and kicking down ice mountains for the afternoon. He had absolutely had it by the end of the day, and after throwing himself in the snow with tantrums, he was asleep in the car before we even left the car park!

Luke and Ryan also had and a few tears from exhaustion, and it was an early night back at the Georgetown Inn for us. Phil and I were pretty happy with the cable TV though, and managed to watch a little of the Australian Open.   Sunday was Phil's birthday, and he was really keen to ski.  However, two days in a row was a bit too much for the first time skiing for Ryan, and I had not even gotten off the chair lift for my first run, and the ski school called to tell me that Ryan was in with them, and had decided he wasn't skiing for the day!  So he and I have a rain check on our lesson, lift pass and ski hire, so we will definitely have to go back another weekend.  Luke stuck it out in his lesson for the day, and Ryan and I skied the bunny slopes for most of the afternoon.  Both of them mastered the chair lift, which is no mean feat!  It was a bit scary though, as there is no safety bar which comes over you once you get on, you just have to make sure you sit your bottom back on the seat.  Ryan decided that the best way down the mountain was just to point your skis and pretty much fly down - I did not think he was going to be able to stop on a number of occasions, but he did, and he didn't take anyone out, which was pretty amazing!  We had to practice doing some big turns going down the hill....

After skiing for the day, we all went down to the heated indoor pool at the hotel. Phil, Luke and Ryan had been there the day before, while I stayed in the room with Quinn who had crashed out. There was an outdoor hot tub, and the boys were really keen to get in, so we all raced across to the hot tub, as it was freezing cold outside, and jumped in. It was all ours (surprise, surprise!) and it was about 38 degrees, so it was beautiful - until you had to get out!  On Monday we were going to have a look around Georgetown, as it is really quaint, and has heaps of heritage listed buildings, but it seemed everything was closed, as it was a public holiday.  We came back down through Idaho Springs, and stopped at the Hot Springs there, which are renowned for their healing properties.  We also went to the Information Centre which had displays showing the history of skiing, and gold mines in the area. 

We had a cake for Phil's birthday when we got home, and you can see the boys singing Happy Birthday, and helping him blow the candles out.  A memorable birthday, I am sure!

First week at school

We have just completed week one of work and school.  Everyone had a great week - Phil is doing amazingly well and getting up and out the door for his 7.30am starts, especially considering that is not his favourite time of day!  He tells me that he sees his students riding to school, as he is driving to work.  They are on a bike track: but they are riding in the dark, as well as it being below freezing a lot of the time - they must be crazy.  At Mesa Middle School, where Phil is teaching, they have a fifteen minute 'connect' each morning, which is where they get school notices and mark the roll, then go off to class to start the day at 7.45am  The school is of similar size to Camden Haven High, with 900 students, but they are all Year 7 & 8 - so it is all 12 to 14 year olds!  There are seven, fifty five minute periods each day, and lunch is staggered depending upon the grade from 10.30 - 11am.  There are no bells, just three beeps to mark the start of the day, and three for the end of the day.  So Phil has to be checking his watch all day, to ensure that he is on schedule for each class.  He is teaching Geography, and teaches the same lesson all day, to five different classes, which contain about 35 students each - that is a lot of different names to remember!  School is over at 3pm.

The boys are attending Clear Sky Elementary, which has about 750 students - a bit bigger than St Agnes.  This is a photo of them on their first day, with their friend Avery, a little boy who lives in our street, and is Kindergarten at their school.  Luke is in Grade 2, in a 1/2 composite class, and Ryan is in Grade 1.  Both boys are really happy with their teachers, and Luke's teacher, Mrs Morgan arranged for us to come up and meet her on the weekend before school started, so the boys could have a look around the school before everyone got there.  They got to see the Library, the Gym, the Cafeteria, and their classrooms before everyone returned to school. The boys line up outside at 8.55am - there is no play before school, and no supervision so they are not allowed to get there any earlier, then their teachers come and get them and take them to class for 9am start.  They have a snack in their classroom in the morning, then everyone goes to the cafeteria to eat their lunch, but when the whistle goes they all have to finish eating, and go outside to play.  We have had to adjust our lunchbox menu, as the boys were not getting time to eat everything, which they were not pleased about!  They are also allowed an afternoon snack in the classroom, and finish school at 4pm.  If it is really cold, like this morning, it was 2 degrees Fahrenheit - or minus 17 Celsius, everyone lines up in the gym, rather than waiting outside, and they are not allowed to go outside to play.  Luke told me it was boring, but Ryan was OK about it, as he brought home some paintings that he had done.  The boys tell me that they cannot go to the bathroom at lunchtime - they can only go during class time (the opposite to in Australia).  However, there is only one person allowed out of the classroom at a time, and if you are not quick, you miss out.  So there have been a few afternoons where we have had to get home really quickly, so that they could race to the toilet!  The weather was a little warmer last week, so we were all walking to and from school each day - we only live about five minutes away, which was really nice.  There is still a lot of snow and ice around though, and the boys insist on walking on, and through it, and we have had quite a few slips on the ice.

Quinn and I attended a trial music class, with a local mums group during the week.  There were some candy canes, which had obviously been Christmas decorations, that had not been put away.  They were enough of a distraction for Quinn, that he really wasn't interested in shaking a maraca, or playing a triangle - he just wanted to know about the candy canes!  Needless to say, I don't think we will be going back there.  I have a trial 7 day pass at a local gym, which Jen, one of our neighbours attends.  I am enjoying getting back into some exercise, and Quinn seems happy at the creche - especially when Jens' boys, Brodie and Avery are there, so we will see how that goes.

As we only arrived a few days after Christmas, and Carl and Jessica had very kindly left some presents for us under their tree, the house was still all decorated.  We finally packed away all of the Christmas decorations, and then we had to dispose of their Christmas tree.  Paintbrush Park is close by, and if you take your tree there, the local authorities then come along and turn it into mulch, which you can then go and get back in February/March, to put on your garden once the snow is gone.  A pretty nifty little system!  The park is a pretty good climbing park, and the boys couldn't leave without having a go on some of the equipment.  However, it was freezing cold, and everything was icy, so it was a quick go, before they turned into little ice statues, or someone slipped over and did themselves an injury.  We will definitely go back once the weather is warmer, and I am sure they will have a lot more fun.

On the weekend, we had to go and get the boys' school supplies. We got a list from their teachers of what they needed. As they are starting in the middle of the school year, it was a shortened list, and Jessica had also left us a lot of stationery, so we were quite lucky in that we did not have to get a lot. A trip to the shops with the five of us is always an adventure, and we went to the Office Supplies store, and then to Walmart. Walmart is the equivalent of our Kmart, however, it sells everything from tyres, to guns and sporting equipment, to ipads and groceries - hours of entertainment!  Needless to say, we walked out of there purchasing a lot more than we intended.  The boys had been out in the cul-de-sac with Ryan, Avery and Brodie who were driving a remote control car through the snow and on the ice, and when they saw some in the shop, (see the picture left, playing with them down in the basement) they just had to have them.  They purchased them with some of their Christmas money.  It is fun watching them make their purchases - Luke bought some Lego and a book on how to draw cartoons, and has been very considered, not buying anything else yet.  Ryan is a bit more hasty; he sees something, and decides then and there that he has to have it.  He has purchased a 'Mario' soft toy, the remote control car and 'Dr Dreadful Zombies, Snot Shots'.  The snot shots are beautiful - it is a bit of a science experiment, which makes snot and ear wax candy, which they can then eat.  They wanted me to try them, but I told them it was all theirs!  Quinn has purchased a 'Captain America' soft toy, from the Avengers, an Avengers poster, the little remote control car in the picture, and a toy python, which is about 20 cm long, and we have put it in water, and apparently it grows to about one metre long.  He keeps asking me when it is going to turn into a real one...

The weather turned really cold last Friday, and we have not had temps above 30 Fahrenheit, or -1 Celsius.  It is expected to get up to 40-50, or 5-10 degrees towards the end of this week.  Anyway, it was only really good weather for staying inside (don't be fooled by that lovely sunny background in the photo - it is shining off snow, and freezing!) We had a yummy breakfast of pancakes on the weekend, and the boys are getting better at playing inside.  The Denver Broncos, the football team, played the Baltimore

Ravens on Saturday, in Denver. It was a really big match, as the Superbowl is only a few weeks away.  The game is made up of four, twenty minute quarters.  However, they stop it for interchange, flags (fouls), to measure distance - all sorts of things.  So an eighty minute game, goes for considerably longer than the eighty minutes.  It was a really close game as well, and it went into overtime (golden goal).  Unfortunately, the Denver Broncos did not come out winners, after about four hours of watching the game.  We were hoping to be in Colorado when the Broncos were the Superbowl champions, but it is not to be. 

 The picture to the left shows the Honda Odyssey with a sprinkling of snow on it, which fell on Saturday night.  We drove out to Colorado Springs on Sunday, to have lunch with Jack and Lyn Barber.  They are members of CITEL, the Colorado International Teachers Exchange League, who organise the exchange between Australian teachers, and those in Colorado.  The League is extremely well organised, and seem to have linked up each of the exchange parties with locals who have taken part in the exchange program at some stage.  Jack and Lyn are both now retired, but did two exchanges to Australia, and have visited eight times, so they seem to like Oz!  They made us very welcome, and had a lot of information to share with us about what to do while
we are here, and things to expect and look out for. They also invited over some friends of theirs, Del and Pete.  Del is an Aussie, former PE teacher, and Pete did an exchange to Adelaide some years ago, which is how they met.  It was really nice to travel to somewhere different, as well.  It was not far of the I25, but the houses were all on big blocks, and Lyn and Jack's house backed onto the golf course (not that you could tell with all the snow around!)  There was also a lot more snow around, than there is around our house, and it looked very 'wintery', like what you expect on the postcards.   We were there for a few hours, so the boys and I got out and went for a little walk while we were there, to go and play in the snow!
 

 

 

We arrived!

On Saturday the 29th December 2012, we left a sunny 25 degree Sydney, and after 16 hours in the air, and a 5 hour stop-over in LA, we arrived in Denver to a chilly 3 degrees.  The boys had a pretty good flight - Luke and Ryan loved the in flight entertainment, played on their i-pods and slept.  Quinn had his afternoon nap shortly after boarding at 3pm, then proceeded to stay awake for the next 13 hours, falling asleep just as they were serving breakfast, before we landed in LA!  We got off the plane in LA to rain, ice and wind, and poor little Ryan only had his thongs, as he had outgrown his runners which we had packed for the flight.

We met up with Carl, Jessica, Sienna and Max - our exchange family, at LA airport, and it was lovely to have a few hours chatting and discussing what each of us could expect when we arrived at our destination.

Our neighbour, Ryan, picked us up from the airport, and drove us to our new home for the next 12 months.  The boys were really excited to finally be here, and were outside in the snow at 10pm at night - just because they could!

We were very warmly welcomed by our neighbours with a gift basket and presents, and met a lot of the neighbourhood at a pizza night, kindly hosted by Jen and Ryan.  We are living in a cul-de-sac with a lot of young families, and most of them have little boys, so we have done nothing to even out the gender bias.  It snowed for us on Monday, and the boys loved it.  They were trying to make snow balls, and managed a bit of a snowman.  It was actually quite difficult to do, as the snow is really dry, and hard to mould.

 Everyone was enjoying having fun in the snow, but for the first few days they were in and outside, like they are at home.  Occassionally they would forget that it is not as simple as walking out the door - that you actually do need to get on your snow boots, gloves, hat and jacket before you walk out, or it is not that pleasant outside!  So after 5-10 minutes of getting all that on, they could go out to play.

Phil was the first one to brave going out to drive on the 'wrong' side of the road.  It was a bit difficult at first - your first instinct is to veer to the left side of the road, particularly when turning corners.  However, it doesn't take too long to get used to is - my biggest problem is knowing where I am going!  I have become very good friends with Google maps, and have lots of notes on where to turn to get to certain destinations.

On Tuesday we went sledding at Bison Park, which is up behind the boys school.  It was lots of fun, and it didn't take long before the boys thought they should try a bit of impromptu snow boarding.  They actually did really well.  It got a bit tough for Quinn walking back up the incline each time, and trying to keep up with the older boys, but he managed. 

On Wednesday we made the big trip into Denver, to the Museum of Nature and Science. It is a huge museum over four floors, with an imax theatre, and heaps of interactive exhibitions on everything from Space, to Dinosaurs (two of our favourites) to Wildlife, Health and Egyptian Mummies.  There was also a temporary exhibition on Pompeii, which Phil found particularly interesting, and the boys were facinated by a volcano erupting.  There was also a volunteer there who had a booth "Ask me about volcanoes",

which Luke just had to go and visit, and then delighted coming back and sprouting off all these facts about volcanoes!

Thursday saw Phil head into the 'office' for his first visit to Mesa Middle School, with one of his colleagues who kindly volunteered to give up a day of his holidays to show Phil around. We enjoyed being at home, and the boys were playing with Avery, another little boy who lives in the street. 

We headed up to the Rec Centre on Friday, and all went swimming - as you do, when it is freezing outside!  It is a great setup with an indoor pool, and water slides for the kids.  They have lifeguards on duty, and Quinn had to take his floaties off, as they were deemed a hazard if they were to deflate - go figure!  Unfortunately, we had not been there more than thirty minutes when the lifeguards blew their whistles, and everyone had to get out of the pool.  Someone had had an accident, and the pool was going to be closed for an hour while they put chemicals in, and cleaned it all up.  We were able to go to the lap pool next door and play for a while.  They had a basketball hoop in the pool, so the boys were happy shooting baskets for quite some time!

On Saturday the weather was starting to fine up - it got to 46 F (about 7C), so we thought we should make the most of it, and headed out to Colorado Springs.  It is only about a half hour drive.  We went along the highway, but later found out there is a more scenic route - next time.  We stopped off at the Air Force Academy, which was interesting, with all the cadets around.  It is a huge institution, and is also the site for the Olympic team to train at altitude.  The picture to the right shows the famous Cathedral in the background, which is a pretty funky piece of architecture!

We went into the city of Colorado Springs, and went to the Pioneer Museum.  The boys want to know why there are so many museums in America (we have been to two!) but had a really good time in there anyway. They had a part of the museum where you could dress up in 'old world' gear, and take photos.  As you can see, we have the usual suspects who are more than willing to show off for the camera, and our more reserved little man who was not at all happy to be a part of it!  Note the attitude excuding from the baby of the family - I am planning on it not being as fierce, next time you all see him.  He is certainly testing me, and all those who meet him in Colorado. 

There was also an exhibition outlining man landing on the moon, and it was all done through Snoopy going to the moon, so it really appealed to the boys.  They got a worksheet from the front desk, and had to find things that were on their worksheets, in the exhibition, so that kept them focussed for ages.  We thought it was going to be a quick visit, but it turned into a couple of hours, which was a good way to pass a cold, Saturday afternoon.