The last few weeks of March and early April have seen Craig skiing every other weekend and Miss Amy attending birthday parties (it seems that everyone in her pre-school class is turning five). Then of course we were struck down hard by another bug, this time Miss Amy starting the go around. After a full week of feeling lousy I decided we all needed to head to the doctors. Having no experience with the medical system I rang our specified doctor (you need to define who your service provider will be in your insurance policy). Anyway as it was a Saturday no-one was there. Then I called the insurance company to see what we could do, no answer there either. By this time I felt too sick to worry so off we all went to an urgent care medical clinic (Miss Amy's temperature was again up over 102F). They accepted the four of us and all we had to do was each pay the $10 co-pay for the visit. We got our drugs and headed home for another week of recovery.
After Craig went back to work he received a call from our specified doctor to say that we didn't ring them before heading off to the other clinic. We tried to but no one was there we said. Too bad they said, you will have to pay the full payment because you didn't follow procedure. This will probably work out to $75 for the visit for each of us, so $350 later for one doctors visit, at least we felt better. Serves me right for going to the doctors on a Saturday.
Also this month we have had our camping trip away cancelled twice because of bad weather. We were heading over towards Utah with some friends to go bike riding but the snow intervened. I am a bit shocked that it is still snowing in April. For example, today being Tuesday it reached about 72F or 21C. By Friday they are forecasting 35F or 2C, with more snow. T-shirts one day, winter woollies the next.
Craig has now managed to ski most of the resorts in Colorado, including Keystone, Eldora, Winter Park, Vail, Loveland, Mary Jane and Wolf Creek. We were going to Aspen after Easter but this will have to happen next winter because it is now closed for the season. We were planning a weekend trip there, cheap accommodation this time of the year, but the weekend we chose happened to be when we were all sick. Not to worry, we will get there eventually.
My mum just called to tell me about the shooting at the school in Littleton near Denver, a suburb about 30 minutes drive from Superior. Apparently 15 people were killed in the school and 18 injured. Two students went on a rampage shooting students and bombing the school. You go through the same feelings as on the day of the Port Arthur tragedy, very sad. I didn't know about it until my mum called, we didn't have the TV or radio on at the time.
It is now a few hours after hearing of the tragedy and we have been watching the news reports, seeing panic stricken parents running to find their children. The news commentators keep talking about all the other school shootings over the last 2 years and what could be done to prevent it. It is rather obvious I think. But things will never change here, too many people believe it is their right to be able to carry a weapon.
It is now Saturday and everyone has had time to let the tragedy sink in. I don't believe the media have done a very good job. Watching the news on TV the journalists seem to jump from one sensational story to the next (their probably no different from home). When watching interviews the first question after someone has stated their name is, "how do you spell that?"; it is very annoying. After about day 3 or 4 the only question they seemed to be interested in "When will the 911 tapes be available?", haven't we heard enough detail, do you really need to hear the anguish and fear in someone's voice to know that a tragedy has occurred.
Anyway, the issue now is what can we do so that this won't happen again. The Oprah show has declared it as a national boy crisis, we are not raising our boys properly. Others are saying it's the movies, videos and video games, the internet, or last but not least the accessibility to guns. It doesn't seem like anyone is going to make the hard decisions in this free country so it is inevitable that this tragedy will reoccur. Based on the statistics of guns found in schools over the last two years it is a very real and frightening issue. Miss Amy starts school in August……
Our good news is that everyone is back to being 100% fit and well. What a relief. Now all we need is for the snow to go away and look forward to a good summer. We woke up Thursday morning to a very heavy snowfall, perhaps the heaviest since we have been here. They were forecasting 12" in the metro area and 3ft in the foothills. This was some storm. Back to shovelling the driveway unfortunately. The spring snow is noticeably different from the winter snow, it is a lot heavier and moist. It turns to slush very easily and the only good thing is that the temperatures don't drop so low that it freezes on the roads (in some places it might).
Anyway we are just into May and hopefully the weather will improve soon. We are again planning some trips away in May, and in June we are spending a week in the Black Hills area of South Dakota, near Mt Rushmore. Looking forward to that.
Other little differences:
A law is about to be passed allowing people to carry concealed weapons. Previously if you carried a weapon in your car for example it had to be out in the open but now you can carry them in bags or the boot of your car. It also means that you can carry concealed weapons into public places like schools, etc. (This was written before the tragedy at Littlelon, the passing of the bill has now been delayed, not cancelled, just delayed.)
The due date for tax returns is April 15. Most of the major post offices in and around Denver stay open till midnight on April 15 allowing people more time to get their returns post marked by the 15th. (As an aside, we had to apply for an extension because Kyle, Amy and I all had to apply for a tax file number which takes 6-8 weeks to be issued, pity nobody mentioned this to us before…)
Spring is obviously the time when everyone starts to come out of hibernation and things really happen. For instance, in our street alone 5 houses have gone up for sale and there is another three available for rent. People are out playing golf and tennis and swimming lessons are getting crowded.
The baseball season has commenced and it is unbelievable how many games these guys play in one season. They play 162 games in 170 days. The Colorado Rockies is not one of the most winning sides in the league but it isn't too bad watching the games, bit like a slow game of cricket.
Managed to see an interview with a democrat from Texas (a woman) who said that if all educators were allowed to carry concealed weapons then the shootings in schools would never occur…
Today was Amy's last official day in pre-school. There was a pre-school graduation (yes, they even graduate from pre-school) ceremony, complete with certificates and the class put on a play and sang songs. Miss Amy was a tree in the play, her teacher, Miss Tonya, said that she didn't want to say any lines, hence the tree. A bit shy like her mum….. Anyway after the show we headed home for last minute packing before heading off to South Dakota in the morning.