Where has the time gone. What happened to July and August? The last thing I recall in July was dropping off Craig at work one day and noticing the smell of freshly cut hay. Storage Tek is surrounded by paddocks and the farmers were out cutting and baling the hay, the smell was wonderful. Reminded me of when we lived in Garfield.

Catching up with the most recent news first, this past weekend Craig surprised me for our wedding anniversary by hiring a BMW Z3 for a day, arranging baby sitters and generally having everything under control. Ingrid and David came and stayed with Amy and Kyle while Craig and I headed out in this little sports car for a drive up to the mountains, through Winter Park and across to Rocky Mountain National Park. Spectacular scenery and an almost sunny day, it was just great. We actually left home and it was raining but as soon as it stopped Craig had the top down and we were cruising through the clouds at 10,000 feet, a bit chilly but fun. Soon the sun was out and we were still climbing to about 12,000, so it was still chilly. We stopped off at Estes Park for a quick dinner and then home to relieve Ingrid and David of the terrible two. We will certainly go home with some wonderful memories.

Also this week Miss Amy started school. She attends Monarch K-8, which happens to be right next door to Storage Tek. She was so excited her first day that she woke at 6.30am ready to go. As kindergarten is only half days and Amy attends the afternoon session she had a long wait till her 12noon start time. Her teacher made all the kids feel very welcome and Amy had a great first day. Her only disappointment was that mum came to pick her up and she didn't get to ride home on the bus (made me feel really good…).

Anyway July was a hot month and we spent most of our time swimming. We made a camping trip with some friends up to Steamboat Lake, a very pretty spot for swimming, fishing and skiing. Only one fish was caught (by 4 year old Mollie) but it was fun trying. This is another spot we hope to come back to in winter.

My efforts at filling you in have been interrupted somewhat. We made an unexpected and very quick trip back to Melbourne on September 7 as Craig's mum had passed away. We received the news on Saturday evening after returning from a football game and after hastily arranging flights we left Denver on the Sunday and arrived in Melbourne Tuesday morning. It all happened so quickly it felt a little surreal and after staying in Melbourne 3 nights we left for Canberra to drop in and see friends and of course, the dogs.

After having some time to think we decided to break up the trip home and we had a 2 night stopover in LA. After paying for the tickets back home we decided we wouldn’t realise our plans to travel to Disneyworld in Florida next year so by stopping in LA we could at least take the kids to Disneyland instead. It helped to break up a very long trip and it also helped to raise everyone's spirits before getting back to Denver on Tuesday. We also had to get back home because we were expecting visitors on Thursday. Geoff, Esther, Erica and Alison were coming from Melbourne to stay with us for 11 days. You could say life has been a bit hectic recently. Geoff and his family left for Germany on Monday and today being Sunday our lives seem to be returning to the point where we left off at the end of August.

Amy has settled in back at school and Craig is busy at work (most unusual). We went for a bike ride this morning (it was only 34F, but sunny) up at Walker Ranch which is at an elevation of 8,000ft. It certainly got the heart rate up and it felt great to be out doing something again.

I have missed out on telling you about our wonderful trip to Michigan to visit Liz and Mark, and our diversion home through Kentucky to visit Ken and Lynne but I need a bit more time to document that trip. Hopefully over the next few weeks things will be quiet and I can catch up.

I need to amend my opening line to say what happened to July, August and September but if I think about it long enough I can remember so I hope to fill you in soon. Anyway we had a first snowfall for the season on Tuesday, the day after our visitors left. The days are in the 50s and overnight it is around 32F so the ski season isn't far away. (If I stay here much longer I will definitely stop converting to celsius).

Miss Amy's comment to Kyle as we were driving to swimming lessons, "Kyle, why did you keep pushing me when we were in mum's tummy?", and Kyle's knowledgeable response, " 'cause".

The weather has been very mild for this time of the year, although the nights still get down to zero and below. It is certainly very different from this time last year when some days didn't even get to zero. I'm not complaining mind you, yes it was good to experience living in the cold bit I don't think we need to do it on a long term basis.

Well we had a great trip to Santa Fe and Taos for Thanksgiving. It was only about a six hour drive, 3 in Colorado and 3 in New Mexico. We ate lots of great food and got to see lots of historical places, museums and National Parks. We hiked around Bandelier National Monument where there were ruins, cave dwellings and petroglyphs (prehistoric drawings on rocks, mostly carved into the rock) of the ancient Pueblo people. It was really interesting and we had a cool but sunny days for being out and about.

We spent a bit of time also cruising around Santa Fe itself, with its narrow streets and adobe architecture. A place where you could lose yourself in the numerous galleries, restaurants and museums.  We took our bikes and intended to ride around Santa Fe but after an hour and numerous punctures on my bike we decided to use our feet instead.

We had Thanksgiving Dinner at "the Inn at the End of the Trail". A lively place with good music but lousy service.  We met two gay guys from San Diego on the table next to us and even they commented about how bad our waitress was. After an hour I decided to go and talk to the manager to see where our meals were, the kids were good but this was really testing their patience. Anyway we finally ate and when leaving Craig was so pissed off that instead of not leaving a tip (which I would have done) he decided to leave a 1 cent tip. We didn't go back during our stay…

After a few days in Santa Fe we headed north to Taos, another historic place but a lot more spread out than Santa Fe. There were many Indian Reservations in New Mexico and a large number of Casinos owned and operated by various tribes. On the reservations they have their own government and police force and charge tourists to enter, some even charge you extra if you want to take photos.  The famous Taos Pueblo was closed when we went by but we were able to see the mud and straw adobe walls of the houses. There were also some wonderful old churches, also in the adobe style and it was quite amazing to walk around these 3 story buildings imagining how they came together.

We found a great restaurant, called Tim's Chile Connection, so our last night of holidays was capped off by a wonderful meal of roast turkey tacos and stuffed chiles.

Back home the next day we now had to get geared up for all the Xmas happenings. Again, unable to compete with neighbours in the light and tree stakes, we put up our miserly 4 foot tree (one neighbour commented, "oh isn't that cute"). But at least this year we had a tree shirt (a wonderful thing that I can bring back home, hopefully make a heap to sell them at the Burra Fair).

In the lead up to Xmas we went to meet Santa at Storage Tek and he actually had a real white beard, very impressive. We also went to the newly opened Pepsi Centre to see Disney on Ice, this year it was the Little Mermaid and again it was extremely well done. Kyle and Amy both had Xmas parties to attend, and we went to High Tea at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder. Didn't compare to the Hyatt in Canberra but the Xmas decorations were impressive.

On Xmas Eve we introduced friends and neighbours to the champagne/midori cocktail, it seemed to be a big hit. Xmas Day saw us have a leisurely brunch while playing with new toys and then our Australian friends, Ingrid and David, came over around 2pm for an early dinner.  It was a very relaxing day. The only disappointing thing was the lack of snow. Oh well, can't have everything.

Craig worked between Xmas and New year (we need the holidays for summer) and on New Year's Eve we headed down to Denver to the new aquarium, Ocean Journey. Then on the way home we stopped at the Traildust for a steak and Kyle fell asleep at the table. Back home the kids were in bed by 8pm and Craig and I opened our bottle of Dom Perignon and Lindt chocolates and watched "the Matrix" video, trying to recognise parts of Sydney in the movie. We also saw the new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, in New Zealand and lots of other places and it was great.

Now that we are into the year 2000 we are looking forward to the true millenium at the end of this year. Amy had a 2 week break over Xmas and then we headed to Aspen for a weekend with the Storage Tek ski club.  We drove up Friday night, about a four hour drive from home. Saturday morning was cold, but clear blue sky. Ingrid and David came with us and as the guys headed out after breakfast I headed up to the village with the kids to have a look around. Out of the blue Amy said that she would like to ski. We had asked her before but she always said no, it was too scary. Anyway I said okay and we found the ski school and ended up booking her in for a full day lesson. Of course young Kyle was standing there and said well if she can do it so can I, so he had a half day lesson.

After settling them in I left them to it and went back after a while to see how they were doing. Luck was on our side, things were quiet and Amy ended up with an instructor to herself. She was out there having a great time on the beginners slope. The kids used the Magic Carpet to get back to the top of the slope, it's like a travellator that they stand on and it slowly takes them back to the top. Over to see Kyle and there he was, our almost 3 year old on skis, again with his own instructor and would you believe it was a girl from Epping in Sydney. She told me that Kyle was so funny because when he tried to get momentum to go down the slope he obviously wanted it to happen sooner than it was and he started jumping up in the air to make himself go.  It was so bright out that they put goggles on him and he had a great time. The half day was enough for him, he was getting tired but said he was eager to go with dad next time.

On Sunday it wasn't such good weather so we just went sledding in the morning and headed home about 1.30. We hope to get back to Aspen over summer to do some camping and hiking. Maroon Bells is supposed to be a great spot to see.

The next weekend we had Kyle's 3rd birthday party. There were 12 adults and 9 kids so we were fortunate that it got to 17C and we were able to be outside in the backyard. We had a B-B-Q and I finally found puff pastry so after 16 months of living here we were able to have sausage rolls. Ah heaven. The meat wasn't quite the same, Craig had to extract it from the skins of pork sausages.  Compromise it what it's all about.

The rest of January was spent going to the Stock Show in Denver, a pool party (indoors of course), Amy's dance recital and more skiing for Craig. We are off to Steamboat Springs on February 12/13 for more skiing and I have organised a sleigh ride (with horses) on the Saturday night. There are 3 other families coming away with us that weekend so it should be a lot of fun.

What else is happening, I can't think of anymore at the moment. I hope everyone is having a good summer and when we head home later this year we will get 2 summers in a row, getting our own back for having 2 winters in a row when we arrived.

In the lead up to New Years Eve 17,000 Coloradans decided that having a firearm to protect themselves was mandatory in case of riots, etc. This is how many background checks were performed for firearm purchases in December in Colorado, one million nation wide.

I saw a Pennsylvania license plate and it had the governments web address on the bottom of the plate.

When we were booking camp sites for Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons we discovered that you couldn't reserve a site in the Grand Tetons, it was first come first served. We did manage to find a private campground in the park though and when we rang to make a booking Craig was shocked to learn that it was against the law to take bookings for tent sites. Apparently a law had been passed that stated all tent campers had to stay in the National Park. Can you believe it, we just wanted to make sure we had somewhere to stay and we are being discriminated against because we have a tent. Only in America…

Craig passed on a supposed true story about some guys that went duck hunting in Minnesota. They drove their brand new Jeep Cherokee out onto the frozen lake to find some ducks to shoot. Unfortunately the whole lake was frozen, so there was no water on which the ducks could land. Ah hah, said one of the hunters, I just happened to bring a stick of jellignite (not sure how to spell it) with me. Let's toss it out, blow up the ice and then the ducks can land. Off it went, high into the air and guess what happened, his faithful dog ran out over the ice to fetch it. Running back towards the new Jeep with the explosive in his mouth, the hunters panicked and tried to shoot the dog before he got any closer. After only wounding the poor dog he ran under the car in fright and sure enough, the dog and the new Jeep were blown up. I suppose they did get a hole in the ice for the ducks to land though…. (and by the way I didn't laugh like Craig did).

It’s now a few months since I last put fingers to keyboard so there is a bit of catching up to do. I will be brief in an effort not to bore you.

Basically the weekends in February, March and half of April Craig spent skiing and had a great time. He skied Eldora, Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass, Winter Park (x2), Mary Jane (x2), Copper (x3), Loveland, Vail, Keystone, Breckenridge, and Steamboat Springs. The highlight for all of us (apart from the Aspen weekend in January) was the weekend we spent in Steamboat. A very pretty spot, we had been here last summer so it was good to see it in winter. And boy was there an abundance of snow. We drove up Friday night and the drive itself over Rabbit Ear Pass wasn’t pleasant. The road was steep and icy and we were very glad to arrive safely. We met up with 3 other families that were joining us for the weekend and we had a picnic dinner in the hotel breakfast room on the Friday night. On Saturday morning Amy and Craig headed over to the mountain to ski and Kyle, Ingrid and I headed downtown to check out the winter carnival that happened to be on. The main street was closed and they were having various horse races down a snow covered street. It was quite terrifying to watch, horses belting down the street sometimes towing people sitting on shovels, other times towing kids on skis and snowboards. It was fun to watch though.

We headed back to the mountain to pick Amy up after lunch and then we went back to the hotel to swim in the pool. Everyone else arrived back late afternoon and then we headed out to a ranch on the Yampa River for a sleigh ride and dinner. It was snowing and freezing cold but lots of fun. Each sleigh was drawn by two horses and carried about 20 people. After the ride it was back to the cabin for a steak dinner, served with potatoes and beans and it was delicious.  The guy who owned the property was a jack of all trades, dressed in a drizabone coat he drove the bus that takes the people out to the property and then he drove the sleigh. He also provided the entertainment as we ate dinner, singing, dancing and playing assorted instruments. He entertained the kids and made balloon animals. He was an interesting person and obviously enjoyed what he did for a living. He’d been to Australia and so he was quite taken with the Aussie visitors.

On Sunday Craig was burnt out from all the skiing he did on the Saturday so we headed back into town to watch the carnival some more. It snowed overnight again so there was lots of snow and ice on the roads. We headed home about lunch time to hopefully avoid the traffic and bad road conditions over the Pass.

So the rest of the winter months were spent skiing one day of the weekend and then either going to the movies, swimming or just hanging out. Storage Tek had an open day that we attended, finally getting to see Craig’s office and the inside of buildings we had driven past for 18 months. From the outside we could never see a lot and the small windows didn’t help. On the inside it was a completely different story, with brightly painted corridors and unusual art work throughout. We toured the various manufacturing areas and saw the large tape library robots working. The thing that most fascinated Amy and Kyle was the large white board in Craig’s office, so much for hi-tech kids.

Our friends from Michigan came to visit for a week in March and they didn’t get a good start to their holiday. Their flight on the Friday night was delayed and then cancelled meaning they had a stay over in Detroit before they could head out here on the Saturday morning. I had the bright idea of heading out to dinner on the way to the airport Friday night so we didn’t check on the flight arrival time before we left. After spending time at the airport Friday night finally to learn they wouldn’t be arriving we headed back out the next morning at 6 am to meet them. They looked like they had just stepped off the flight from Sydney so Saturday afternoon was spent with everyone sleeping and catching up.

We toured around most of the week and had one day skiing at Copper Mountain. They also have 2 kids so the four children were packed off to day care at the mountain and the four adults were able to hit the slopes (literally in some cases). I asked Amy if she wanted to ski and she said no she wanted to play with the kids. But then we learnt that the child care was for 4 years and under so we told her she would have to 4 for the day. Well the pressure was too much and as we drove to the mountain she said she would go skiing. Poor kid, the pressure of telling a white lie is just too much. Anyway when we went to drop the others off at day care she changed her mind again and said she would be four for the day. When we picked them up late that afternoon she said no-one asked how old she was and she and Kyle had a great day playing together. What a relief.

The week after Liz and Mark headed home to Michigan our Aussie friends Ingrid and David left, heading back to Sydney after a 2 ½ year stay in Colorado. We took them to the airport to see them off and now we will just have to drive to Sydney when we get home to visit them.

During this time Kyle has been attending a playgroup, which by coincidence turns out to be all boys. He has a great time and often talks about his best friends Cody and Ryan. He has just finished swimming lessons for the time being. The local outdoor pool opens again on Memorial Day holiday at the end of May so we’ll start swimming there soon.

Amy has a few weeks of school left before the big 3 month summer vacation. She has had a great year in Kindergarten and is looking forward to getting back to Burra so that she can catch the bus to school. She has become the social butterfly, constantly going to friend’s houses and having friends over. I haven’t told her yet but this won’t quite be so easy back in Burra.

We now have about 5 months of our stay left and we have a busy summer planned to fit everything in. We are off to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with 2 other families in June for our big camping trip (and yes there will be bears at Yellowstone) and then we have weekend camping trips planned to Aspen, the Dinosaur National Monument, Turquoise Lake, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument and hopefully Mesa Verde National Park. We are also expecting a few visitors from home over summer so that will help with the accent adjustment. So the 3 month summer break could go by quickly if we fit everything in. Come late August Amy will start 1st grade at Monarch School and Kyle will commence pre-school at a local church in nearby Broomfield. About this time we hope to ship most of our furniture home so that it will coincide with our arrival back in Australia in October. So after summer things might be a bit hectic.

I hope everyone enjoys winter. At this stage we are looking forward to having 2 summers in a row but then if it is as hot as last summer maybe it won’t be quite so enjoyable. I’ll warn everyone now that both Amy and Kyle have pronounced American accents so please be patient. Kyle is very fond of saying “Howdy Partner” so we may have to debrief him on the plane trip home.

We now receive about 7 mail order catalogs weekly. One arrived recently  from an upmarket kitchen shop in Cherry Creek, one of the more affluent suburbs of Denver. Anyway, after flicking through a few pages there was an advertisement for lamb from some ranch in another state. The cost for 6 loin lamb chops was $75, yes you did read that correctly. For a rack of lamb or a boned leg of lamb it was $99 each. Can you believe it. And that wasn't all, you also had to add on delivery costs.

Amy’s school not only have fire drills they also have tornado drills.

Amy was invited over to her friend Sasha’s house after school. Sasha had received a trampoline for her birthday and I had to sign a waiver to say that if Amy went on the trampoline and hurt herself we wouldn’t sue them.

Now at the University of Alberta in Canada you can study a new fourth-year undergraduate course called “Reading Oprah”. As the newspaper article says the course “seeks to locate Oprah’s personality within a larger, intellectual and activist context, tracing her explicit and implicit affiliations with contemporary African-American intellectuals and casting her self-help work in a more politicised historical framework”.  Say what…..