Our Time in Colorado

Well it seems like months since I have been on a PC. It has been awful being off the air so to speak. We finally received our air shipment yesterday, which was about one week later than was estimated, so we were starting to hang out for some things like more clothes (I can't believe I didn't pack more shorts, but then I never expected the weather to be this warm either), toys for Amy and Kyle and the PC me.

Anyway everything we had sent by air arrived safely and it was a bit like Christmas with toys spread everywhere. It was good to have some more reminders of home and it is good to have some of our things around.

As I said already the weather has been very mild. We are in T-shirts most days and like Burra the nights get cool but the days are clear and sunny. The suburb we are currently living in is about 10-15 minutes from Craig's work and 5 minutes from Amy's pre-school. The road system is good if you understand it. We live near 92^nd Street and to get to somewhere on 88^th street should be a breeze if you apply logic. But these street numbers here practically go all the way across the state so when I find an address that says 88^th street I expected it to be 5 minutes away but in fact depending where on 88^th street you need to go it could be an hour away. Does that make sense? What I do now, wherever I have to go I ring first and say near which corner are you and then I work out how to get there. The other thing is that although 88^th street may go forever if has breaks in between so it isn't a matter of just getting on 88^th and driving in one direction, it may mean going around 10 different ways to get back onto 88^th. I am sure this isn't making a lot of sense but I just wanted to let you know that it is a bit difficult getting from one place to the next. Also if you ask for directions they will say "go east on 90^th until you hit 74^th, turn south for 2 blocks and then head west", yeh sure. We now have a couple of good maps so I don't ask for directions anymore.

I have probably told you all about the trip over by now so I won't bore you with that anymore. The first week we were here our time was spent shopping for a car and looking for a pre-school. The car experience first. We went to every dealership around here looking at what they had to offer. When we decided what we liked then we started talking to the salesmen. We eventually decided on a Chevrolet Venture, a type of mini-van (probably similar to the Toyota Tarago back home) that is great for touring as well as the short trips we do each day. When we started talking to the salesmen they would launch straight into the rehearsed sales pitch (I think they must memorise it because if you interrupt them and ask a question they have to back track a bit before they can go forward again, a bit like a tape recorder). Anyway they were so funny and obviously the best selling items in cars over here are the number of cup holders (our car boasts 17, I haven't found them all yet), automatic opening doors, tyres that fix themselves if you get a puncture (how do you know if you get a puncture if they fix themselves). Anyway the less you have to do obviously the better. When Craig asked about the engine capacity or fuel consumption the little salesmen would have to run off and ask someone else because that obviously wasn't in the rehearsed speech. It was such a giggle I can't tell you. At one dealership we were practically rolling on the floor with laughter as the salesman told us about how strong the tail-lights were, they were made of the same plastic as that on aircraft windows. As he was saying this he kept thumping the tail-light to make his point. Well, it cracked didn't it, he obviously thumped it a bit too hard and everyone in the showroom must have heard the crack, it was so funny, but do you know he didn't miss a beat and just kept going with his sales pitch. That was the Dodge dealer and fortunately we didn't like the car anyway.

As it turned out a friend at Craig's work knew of a good Chevrolet dealer at Fort Lupton (great name) which was about an hours drive from where we live so we drove out there and gave him our business. We picked up our car last weekend and it is great. It isn't a four wheel drive (surprise, surprise), it is only a two wheel drive because they are supposed to be better for the winter road conditions. Also from what we now know you don't even need a 4WD to go camping because all of the popular camping spots have excellent roads to allow people to get in with their huge motorhomes, and believe me they are huge. Another reason was the 4WDs are much more expensive than the 2WDs. I will send photos soon.

What next, Amy's pre-school. All of the actual pre-schools in the area were booked out because of the time of year we arrived. I found a very nice pre-school/day care centre (similar to Cuddly Bears in Queanbeyan) that had a vacancy. This is her second week of attending and she loves it. We still have to get a wellness check done by a pediatrician, but apparently that is only a formality. It is to check that the ratio of one teacher to 10 children is adequate for Miss Amy's abilities. I don't know how they test this so I will let you know when it has been done. I had to sign many forms including the use of a particular brand of baby wipes, I had to agree that if Amy needed to wipe her hands it was okay to use these certain wipes. I also had to sign a co-agreement that if I believe Amy is being abused at pre-school I can report it to the County and likewise if they believe Amy is being abused at home they can report us to the County. I was a little overwhelmed by the paper work and it makes me a bit nervous about looking at school for her next year. The other thing was the immunisation schedule. The only difference in the immunisation schedule is Hepatitis B. It is mandatory over here to be immunised for Hep B so I will have to look into that too. After all that they have excellent facilities and lots of resources, including computers in the pre-school room. Oh I forgot to mention Amy starts pre-school at 7.30am 2 days per week. At first I thought no way that's too early but as we are only 5 minutes away it's a breeze. She is up most days at 7 so it is plenty of time to drop her off after getting dressed and breakfast. The centre opens at 6.30 and the pre-school program runs from 7.30 till 12.30, so that’s 5 hours 2 times a week. I could drop her off later but they have nap time at 12.30 for all those children that start at 6.30 and they plan most of the activities to be done in the mornings.

Kyle has also started an activity, he goes to gym once a week and has a wonderful time. It is very similar to Gymbaroo, it is even called Gymboree. They use similar equipment and ideas for development and although at the moment Kyle hasn't the patience to sit on the floor and get involved in the songs, etc neither do some of the other boys that attend, so I don't fell too bad that I have the only delinquent. His nickname is still the "pinball" because he continues to race around from one accident to the next. Nothing major to note, just a constant barrage of knocks and bruises. On our first trip to Gymboree a few of the mothers just stood with their mouthes open as Kyle would run up one slide and then dive down the slide on the other side head first. And then he would jump up with a big grin on his face and go straight around and do it again. Craig is still wondering who his father really is…..

The rest of our time has been spent looking at apartments and houses. We have seen so many now that we are getting them all mixed up. What we have decided though is that we definitely need a house. We need the room for kids to run around and we need more space to store our gear. The apartment idea was good in that we didn't have to worry about maintenance but the designs were all screwed up. I still can't comprehend why a 3 bedroom apartment needs 3 bathrooms. Apart from the cleaning what it means to the design of the apartment is that there isn't much room left for living space and even less for storage. We had difficulty finding an apartment that had a dining room big enough to fit our dining table in. We don't have a large dining table I don't think so it gives you some idea of how small these places are.

Anyway we did find a nice 3 bedroom apartment that had a double garage but they were asking $1735 per month. Sure you get access to a pool, gym, playroom and office facilities but you didn't get any space. So anyway we then decided to look at houses. We saw some new ones and some old ones ranging from $1300 to $1500. There is a group called Housing Helpers that are helping us find a place by letting us know what is out there to rent and yesterday we went to see 4 houses, one of which was really nice. It had 3 bedrooms, and open plan kitchen and dining area, a formal lounge and a family room. It also included a basement (most houses have basements here, which is where they put the washer and dryer and furnace, and it could also be a playroom in the winter). As we were looking at this house I noticed a sign about 3 houses down "FOR RENT" and a phone number. I rang the number when I got home and we went back out today to look through it. For the same price it has 5 bedrooms, a bigger kitchen and the basement is finished which I now know means it has carpet and plaster walls. It is two storeys with 4 of the bedrooms upstairs. The basement is where the 5^th bedroom is with a bathroom and storage area. We would definitely not need the 5^th bedroom so it could be a great playroom for Amy and Kyle. It is in a new estate which means it doesn't have any established trees which is a shame but it does have a good view of the Rocky Mountains. There seemed to be lots of young children playing in the street when we were there yesterday and there is a school within walking distance. It is located 2 1/2 to 3 miles from Craig's work so being a one car family means it isn't far to drive him to and from work when I need the car. At the moment I think we might go with this one unless something outstanding turns up.

I got a call last Wednesday to say that they will have to move us out of our current apartment into another one as this has been leased out again as of next Friday. When we arrived we read that they had only booked it for 30 days and told them straight away that no, we had it for 60 days to allow time for our sea shipment to arrive. Not a problem they said, they had now changed it to 60 days. Then why the phone call to say we have to move next Friday, who knows. Craig is still trying to chase them up today. Anyway now that we have found a house (which is vacant now) we are going to suggest that yes we will move next Friday if you set us up with the existing furniture in the house and pay the first months rent. It would work out better for the corporate housing people anyway because the rent on the house is cheaper than the apartment we are currently in. Stay tuned to see what happens. Either way I think our address and phone number will be changing soon so I will let you know what it is.

Other than that life is pretty normal. I still get Kyle to bed by 7.30, Miss Amy gets to stay up till 8pm. As they share a bedroom at the moment if I put them to bed at the same time there is too much frivolity and they could still be awake at 9pm. Not good for them or me. Kyle still has his afternoon nap, between 2-3 hours. I still have problems not being able to put clothes on the line and I keep thinking about the good drying days that go to waste. I have spent a great deal of time looking at the labels on clothes and I am surprised by the number of things from home where the label says do not tumble dry. All of the clothes that I have looked at so far in the shops here all allow you to tumble dry.

Everything here is designed for your convienence, from the drive up ATM machines at the banks, to the drive through mail boxes at the post office and the drive thru drop off points at the video stores. Once you get in your car there isn't a lot you have to get out for. There are so many choices for take away food, all with drive thru service and the McDonalds stores all have these enormous indoor play areas for the kids. I happened to be at one today and I had an argument with a big fat American woman, I am not being mean she was enormous. I was running about 30 minutes early to meet this lady and go through the house so I stopped at McDs to get the kids a drink and let them play. There were these 2 girls playing as well and one of them grabbed Kyle by the shirt and pulled him out of a tube thing into all these balls (it may not make sense). Anyway Amy told these girls to leave her brother alone (never thought she would stand up for him) and these girls picked up balls and threw them at Amy and then Amy threw some back. I was about to go and say something when this fat woman stood up and yelled who owns this child with the braid (Amy, her hair was in a plait), and I said she's mine, well this woman starts going off at Amy and I and I quietly said well madam if your daughter hadn't dragged my young son this would never have happened. She then told her daughter to get out of the play area, it was too dangerous to stay, well the daughter wouldn't would she. I nearly said it’s a pity you can't control your children but I thought she might beat me up. I asked Amy and Kyle to please come with me (which they did thank god) and I put their shoes on and left. As I was putting their shoes on another lady came up to me and said she had told her daughters to get out too because of these other girls being nasty. She then said that the fat lady was too busy talking to another woman to notice what her kids were doing and it was only one split second that she looked up and saw Amy retaliate. Anyway I said good on you Amy for looking after Kyle but you perhaps don't have to fight back in the same way. Bloody woman. Oh its fun isn't it….

What else can I say at his stage. We have done some touring around most weekends and have seen some wonderful places. There is a four day weekend coming up for Thanksgiving and we are planning to drive south to New Mexico and have a look around.

Miss Amy quite often reduces me to tears as she makes little comments like "I miss Isabeau and Navarre", or "I miss everyone at Burra". We all miss everyone a lot and the reason we might sound busy is it's the only way to keep going. It is hard not to pick up the phone and ring everyone. Now that we have a mini-van when you all come for holidays and visit I have a car large enough to drive you around. Also if we get the house we will have room for you to stay.

Please don't forget us too quickly, we do miss you all. I will keep writing to let you know of our adventures and to make sure the McAuliffe's don't become has beens (oh yeh, I remember them, they used to live in Burra).

Other small things we have noticed -

The butter is white in colour and the cheddar cheese is orange,

With cable TV there are about 60 channels and some nights there is still no point turning the TV on;

They do american voice overs on shows like Noddy and Thomas the Tank, and even the Mad Max movie;

You can buy blue green algae vitamins????

Mail is delivered on Saturdays;

They are big users of cheques here, we opened a bank account and the minimum number of cheques we could take was 200. They arrived in the mail in a box.

More to follow……

Well I am now sitting at a desk in the spare room writing to you. We moved into our house last Friday and oh what bliss to have some room to move. The relocation went well (we didn't have a lot to move this time) and it is sooo good to have the extra space. The new neighborhood is much more sedate as we are further away from a major shopping centre and major highway. We are yet to meet any neighbors as everyone drives into their garage and shuts the door behind them. As Craig cooked a curry for tea, Amy, Kyle and I went for a walk around the block and listened to the noises of suburbia, just shows you how long it is since we lived near anyone. One guy was yelling at the umpire in a Denver Broncos football match and in another house a mum was yelling at her kids (see it doesn't just happen in our house). There seems to be a lot of children in the neighbourhood as every second backyard has this amazing play equipment but there were no children out playing, maybe they were all indoors watching the football.

We are back to being a one car family so it is back to driving Craig to and from work, all of 5 minutes away. It is causing a problem being close to things because I am nearly always early, I am so used to leaving 30 minutes before an appointment that it is hard to get out of the habit.

We are now in the process of finding everything in our new area. So far we have found tennis courts, a pool, a school, lots of playgrounds and no shops or fast food outlets. Give it time, it is only a new area. The shops and restaurants are located just over the freeway in Louisville, about 7 minutes away.

Miss Amy transfers to the Louisville pre-school this week and she is keen to attend their Halloween party on Friday. I am not sure what attending means, it may mean we have to go and buy a costume (1,000s to choose from) and dress her up. I am looking forward to Xmas if Halloween is anything to go buy. People go all out and dress up their houses and their children. We are thinking of going out the night of trick or treating because I haven't brought any candy (not called lollies over here, and boy I miss the blocks of Cadbury and Nestle dark chocolate). Anyway back to the houses, most have huge pumpkins sitting on their doorstep, one has condemned signs all over it with skeletons hanging in all the windows, another has gravestones in their front lawn covered in cobwebs with skulls popping up out of the lawn, just amazing. At Xmas I intend to spend a few nights driving around just to look at all the decorations.

As there are so many things close by we have decided that Craig and I need to buy a bike each (no Geoff, not motorbikes). Craig is even convinced that he can ride to work it is so close. We went looking at the weekend and it has been a while since I have ridden a bike but boy it was fun. It will mean that I can go out with Amy and Kyle on their bikes although there are a few hills around here so I already have visions of Kyle speeding downhill with his feet in the air.

Last night we went to the pre-school Halloween party. Miss Amy didn't want to be a pumpkin or a witch, she just wanted to be a fairy princess. It was good fun with lots of games for the kids and prizes. Amy seemed to have a great time and made some more friends. The person that I happened to talk to was, yep you guessed it, from Australia. I couldn't believe it. She is from Cairns and married an American she met whilst in China. She has a two year old (he is bigger than 4 year old Amy) and a 5 week old baby. It was great to chat to someone in a similar situation, she has only been in Colorado a couple of months.

Well the weather has turned this weekend and they are predicting snow. The mountains have received a big dumping of snow, but none here locally as yet. Everyone says it always turns bad on the Halloween weekend.

We have planned our 4 day thanksgiving weekend, we are heading down south to Buena Vista and Pueblo. The Great Sand Dune Monument is down there, supposed to be good to see. We are staying in a B&B which when I thought of the idea I didn't really consider what staying in a B&B would be like with Amy and Kyle. Oh well they didn't say no we don't allow children so we'll see how it goes. We will head down there the last weekend in November.

We have been in our house for one week now and we are still deciding whether or not to get cable TV. I don't think we'll bother, without it you still get six stations, which is more than enough. The house we are renting came with all the white goods which was such a saving, it included a fridge/freezer, a washer, dryer and dishwasher. The only thing we are going to buy is a microwave. The good things about being in the house - the extra room, being able to shut the laundry door, having a fridge that makes crushed ice and that is big enough to hold a 1.75lt bottle of margarita mix (that one is from Craig); the bad things - the extra housework (we have 3 1/2 bathrooms, the 1/2 being the toilet and sink on the middle level). We also have a gas log fireplace, it is such a giggle. You turn it on with a flick of a switch and up come these flames around these manufactured logs, complete with red glowing coals under the logs, and all of this is behind glass. We haven't really used it yet except to see what it looks like. The house has central heating that is controlled by a thermostat, so I don't have to do anything (I think I am becoming lazy). The furnace (I call it the heater) is down in the basement.

As yet we don't have the ability to make long distance calls. There is a local service provider but in order to make a long distance call (within the States and O/S), you have to nominate a long distance provider and in order to do that we need to provide a hefty deposit because we don't have a credit history here in the States. Anyway I decided to ring Telstra before we left our apartment last week and asked them to provide us a letter stating that we were a good paying customer. Hopefully this will be sufficient for them to waive the deposit. It is so hard to get anything done here without a credit history and there seems to be an inability to go outside of the US to find information. Even our bank here, who we are getting Visa cards from, rejected us saying sorry but you don't have a credit history. Craig went back to them and said we told you that when we opened the account, you need to check it out in Australia. Oh they said. We still don't have a Visa card.

I hope all is going well for the Burra fair and that the weather does the right thing. We went out for dinner on Halloween night and with the time difference it meant that the fair would have been up and running while we were eating so we there thinking of everyone back home.

Thanks to everyone that responded to my last email. It was great to hear news from home. I hope to have a modem soon so that I can respond to emails a bit faster. At the moment I have to transfer my mail to disk so Craig can then send them from work. We have been waiting for Craig's pay to arrive so that we can go and buy some things we need. Last we heard the cheque was in the mail, ha ha ha.

Other little differences (the things that make this country interesting):

Americans vote this coming Tuesday, the papers are saying that if they get 38% to turn out and vote it will be excellent. They actually have to vote for individual positions, like who will be the attorney general, treasurer, county sheriff, etc; as well they vote on about 20 amendments such as should these millions of dollars be allocated to education to hire more teachers, should Colorado's water to be sold to other states, should Broomfield become another county; no wonder people are reluctant to go and vote.

Paul Hogan still does commercials over here, radio and TV.

Miss Amy's pre-school teacher asked me if we speak English in Australia (she had asked Amy to put something in the trash, and Amy translated it and said to her teacher 'you mean the rubbish bin').

Some amazing advertisements in the newspaper - become an egg donor and you can earn $3,000; also they advertise children up for adoption, complete with photos.

1.5 billion dollars was spent on Halloween costumes across the country this year. We contributed $9.99 to this total.

Colorado's state animal is the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, we haven't seen one as yet.

It happened. It snowed this morning and the whole of the Front Range is covered in it. Looks great and the kids had a ball. Everyone (including Craig) was out early clearing snow from their driveways and people went off to work as usual. The roads were soon starting to clear as cars kept rolling by. It reached a top temperature of 2 C today so it was a bit chilly. Our car has a temperature gauge in it and all it could say today was "ICE". Fair warning I'd say.

We need to gear up soon with more appropriate clothing. Kyle was snug in his snow boots (thanks Des and Jenan, I bet you didn't realise how well worn those little boots would be), Miss Amy was a bit chilly in her gumboots and woolen gloves just don't cut it at all. They still managed to build their snowman before the onset of frostbite and he looked pretty cool with his carrot nose and cookie (their not biscuits, a biscuit is actually a scone) eyes, Akubra hat and Bananas in Pyjamas scarf.