Last Week of School

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Monday was Memorial Day, which is equivalent to our Anzac Day.  There was red, white and blue everywhere, and everyone was saying thanks to anyone who had served in the military.  They are very patriotic, and do honor anyone who has served in the armed forces.  At most of the baseball or basketball games we have been to, they will get somebody out of the crowd who has served, and give a brief rundown of where, and how long their tour of duty was. We didn’t really know anyone that marched, but it did seem to mark the start of summer, and all the ads were for people to go out camping, or ‘grilling’ (what they call our BBQing). 

It was also the weekend that the pool opened at ‘The Grange’.  We live in a covenant-controlled community, which means that you are subject to a lot of rules and regulations.  This includes what colour you can paint the exterior of your house, you can’t have a garden shed, you can’t have a clothesline, as they are not aesthetically pleasing – we have to put all our washing through the dryer (thankfully, electricity prices are much cheaper here than in Australia).  Also, if you do not bring your bin in quickly enough on bin day, you will get a letter – we haven’t had this yet!  On the upside, is that they provide a number of facilities for people who live in the community (ours is called the Meadows), including a community swimming pool.  It has a water slide and baby splash area, four swimming pools and a really nice community hall, which can be hired for functions.  They also provide community events, such as orchestras and music concerts, plays and community functions at very low prices.  A nice way to meet your neighbours!  You have to sign up to use the pool each year though, so we had to take a copy of our lease agreement, which Carl & Jessica that we have exchanged with left for this purpose, and have our photos taken. It is free for us to use the pool, and we can take visitors, for a fee.

Ryan and his friends Grant and Gavin

Since Memorial Day on Monday was a public holiday, we decided to go up to Red Rocks to have a look around.  It is a natural, outdoor amphitheatre, which has converts.  Ideally, we would like to see a concert there.  U2 have played there, and this year John Mayer, Sting and Mumford and Sons are all playing there.  The problem for us, is that most of them play during summer, as that is obviously the best weather (they get snow during winter), but we are away for most of the summer.   So just in case we don’t get to see a concert there, we went up to visit. There are lots of hiking trails around the amphitheatre, and we went for what we thought was going to be a short hike, but it turned into a long one!  It was a beautiful day, although Quinn was on Phil’s shoulders by the end of it, as he frequently tells us – he is a really fast runner, but he just can’t walk as fast as us!  We do forget that his legs are a bit shorter than ours, and it takes a bit more energy for him to do what we do.  In the amphitheatre it was a hive of activity!  There were fitness freaks everywhere running up and down the seats, and people with personal trainers do workouts.  Phil and the boys thought that they should join them!

Luke and his school friends Davis and Briten

 Phil only had Tuesday, and then the students were finished school at 10.30 on Wednesday.  The teachers had staff meetings and admin to complete, then they were done for the year as well.  They teach in teams at Mesa, which means that each group of around 170 students only deals with about 5 teachers, for the two years that they are at middle school.  There are increasing student numbers, so Phil has been moved to a new team for the 13/14 school year which will teach Grade 7 and 8.  This also means that he will be moving classrooms, so he spent the last few days of term playing cricket with his students, while getting them to help him move equipment from his old class room with the Polar Bears, to his new class room, the team which will be called the Glacier Bears.

Luke and his Grade 2 teacher, Ms Morgan

The boys were not meant to finish school until the first week of June, but as Phil finished on Wednesday the 29^th of May, we took the boys out of school early.  They were meant to go through until the 7^th of June, but they had a field trip to Denver Zoo on Monday, and then they were putting on plays, and having a class party on Tuesday, and then were finishing school on Wednesday, as Thursday and Friday were pupil free days.  They are both in the same school district, Douglas County, but the schools can choose whether to follow a conventional calendar, or a modified calendar.  At Mesa, where Phil teaches they follow the conventional calendar, and the boys at Clearsky are on a modified calendar.  Basically, they have different holidays!  It means that the boys get two week breaks for Spring and Fall breaks, while Phil only gets one.  Then at Summer Break, the boys get 8 weeks holiday, while Phil as 10 weeks, which makes up for the two he misses out on through the year.  

We left for our summer vacation on Saturday morning. We were packed on Friday night, and thought since it was such a long drive, we would try leaving at 4am, thinking that perhaps the boys might sleep (something we had not tried in Australia).  It was not a huge success – we hadn’t been in the car thirty minutes, when Quinn asked how long it would be til we got there, and Ryan was inquiring as to whether we were going to go right to the top of the Statue of Liberty!  I think they were a bit excited, which is a good thing, but they were still relatively quiet until we had our first stop at the Colorado Information Centre, right on the border of Nebraska, at about 7.30am. It was full of wide open spaces....

 Our next stop was at the Pony Express Museum, at Galesburg, Nebraska.  It was a tiny little museum that Phil found interesting, as he has to teach this in American History at Mesa, for the next school year.  The boys got to get out and kick the soccer ball around, so they were happy.  Our next stop was at a little place off the highway, called Beaver Crossing, because Quinn desperately had to go to the toilet.  There were no public toilets to be found anywhere, so we went into a service station, which was run by Ma and Pa, and looked like it had been there for 100 years.  Of course then, he couldn’t go.  Maybe it was because he had an audience – Phil said there were dogs inside!  Quinn was pretty impressed though, and told us that he only wanted to stop at toilets that have dogs in them.  I don’t know where we got this animal/bug/creature-loving fanatic, that we call Quinn!  On the way out of town, we came across this ‘sculpture’ in someone’s front yard.  Phil had to have a photo!  I am hoping they have a sense of humor, and weren’t serious, as in addition to the Beaver in their yard, they also had a street sign on their front porch, saying Elvis Presley Blvd.  It was the type of town, that you could not be sure!

Everyone travelled really well, as we were in the car all day.  It was over 8 hours to Omaha, in Nebraska, where we stopped for the night.  Everyone was pretty excited to have cable TV, as that meant we could watch the basketball playoffs.  Miami Heat were playing Indiana Pacers, and it is best of 5 matches to get a winner for the Eastern Divison.  Pacers won the game we watched, but Miami are now through to play the NBA finals series against San Antonio Spurs, who won the Western Division.  We should be in places that have cable, so we will be able to watch some of the finals.

On Sunday we left Omaha, and travelled nearly 8 hours again, through Iowa, and into Illinois to arrive just outside of Chicago, in Kankakee.  Four states, and 1,045 miles in two days is a pretty big effort, for anyone!