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!