First few days in the US for Jen ...

From leaving my house at Australind to arriving at the house in Denver was a total of 50 hrs!!  I flew Perth to Doha, Doha to New York and New York to Denver.  I had a 9 hr stopover in NY where amongst other things, they had to "de ice" the plane before taking off.... a little disconcerting!!  I did get to see my first snowfall EVER and it was kind of nice to see it in New York!
I finally arrived in Denver on Australia Day, and it was so lovely to be met by Stuart, after being apart for the last month.  I was also pleasantly surprised to find all my luggage had arrived as well, after the 2 hrs it took to get through customs at NY, I was a little concerned.  Stu then proceeded to impress me by actually knowing the way home (with a little help from Simon....our GPS!).  After a pretty stressful few months getting the family prepared for this adventure, it was nice to be back together again.

I managed a good sleep on Saturday (Australia Day) before Stu and I headed off to a meeting for Australian exchangees in Colorado.  It was nice to meet everyone else (we are the only ones from WA) and to be able to exchange thoughts and ideas on getting yourself set up with cars, bank accounts, mobile phones, insurance...the list goes on.  We all then went to someones house for a "party" to meet the Americans who had just returned from Australia on exchange and other members of CITEL who have over the years, been on exchange to Australia.  There were about 60 people there and it was a really enjoyable night.

                               Bloody freezing but doing it for the team!
 Jakeb and his mate Dan were up at Winter Park when I arrived...a ski resort out of Denver, where they were staying in a cabin that belongs to a US friend of theirs they met at UWA.  They had a great time and Jakeb has managed to snowboard every day he has been in Colorado.  He flew to Chicago the other day and is now in Indiana and off to NY in a couple of days.

                           The house taken over by snowboarders

Stu and I drove up to Greeley to visit Morgan at his University on Tuesday after school.  He is about 1 1/2 hrs drive away. It was great to see him again and to be shown around his accommodation and the town.  It is a University town and although it was dark, it looked nice.  He seems really happy and has joined an Outdoors Pursuit group where each weekend they go snowboarding, mountain climbing, ice climbing, hiking etc.  He plans on snowboarding every weekend for the next few months.  He also has tickets to see the Denver Nuggets vs LA Lakers in Denver in a few weeks.  For those of you as ignorant as me, apparently the LA Lakers are THE team to see!!  Oh, and it's basketball!

                                                               Morgan

Joshuah gets up at 6am each morning to catch the bus at 6.40am and start school just before 7am. He continues to amaze me....having to do another year of school in another country, at 17 yrs of age, totally different culture and he just does it!  I have found all 3 of the boys are so adaptable and it must have a lot to do with moving around WA so much when they were younger.
We have had snow here which transforms the place into a winter wonderland.  It is so quiet and you wouldn't know it was snowing.  Jakeb and Joshuah attempted their first Australia Day, Australian snowman complete with Vegemite for its facial features.  It was freezing outside but they managed to go out in their Eagles jumpers and boardies......for their country!!

   Our Australian snowman complete with Vegemite.....he's a little creepy, boys!!
Joshuah and I attempted a little backyard cricket, and apart from the fact that I am a rubbish cricketer, it didn't last too long as it was so cold!!

                                                             The transformation

                                        Jakeb earning his keep

Home videos

                                                                        Australind

                                               Lua

                                             Bunbury

Leaving Australind and Australia....

It was a busy time making sure the house was ready for our exchangees and I had great support from my friend Chriss.  I also had a lovely time catching up and saying goodbye to lots of friends over breakfast, lunch and dinner. The weather was beautiful and I made sure I absorbed the wonderful place I live in and the surrounds.

                  Our backyard in Australind WA

       Swans in the backyard at home....Australind WA

Saying goodbye to Lua was very hard and I appreciate all the people who will be looking after her.

And saying goodbye to Steph was also hard too.......

and saying goodbye to Kristoffer and Asha was even harder..........and so began the long journey to Denver, Colorado.

Snowboarding and school

Stuart, Morgan and Joshuah have been in Colorado for around 10 days now and it has been a pretty hectic time.  Stu opened a US bank account the day they arrived and the language problems began.  The bank lady had difficulty understanding him when he told her his Australind address, so rather than spell it out in his broad Australian accent, he thought it best to write it down!  That worked.  He has bought, licensed and insured two cars....no mean feat.... and fortunately didn't have to do a driving test.
On the weekend, the three of them went to Loveland...a skiing area just over 1 hr from where we live.  They took lessons on the first day and seemed to have picked up snowboarding pretty quickly, with Stuart only knocking over two instructors, people in a queue and best of all...Morgan!  Looks like Joshuah's skateboarding has helped him.

Joshuah

Morgan

Stu

Stuart, Morgan and Joshuah at Loveland

We have had a nightmare of a time trying to enrol Joshuah in to High School and had spent months and months on the phone and email trying to arrange it before we left.  We eventually sorted it and emailed through 17 pages of required enrolment documents to the "District Office" early November. We were assured this was all we needed.  On the Pupil Free Monday (Stuart's first day) he left work to go to "District Office" to enrol Joshuah.  Surprisingly, all went well.  Then he went to the High School to enrol him there (after arranging to meet someone, while he was still in Australia).  It took him 1/2 hr before he could get to see the arranged person because he didn't  have an appointment time, which they knew before he left Australia.....so staff were reluctant to let him meet the person.  He finally got to see her and all was going well until she asked to see all of Joshuah's reports from Yr 8 - 12.  No one had told us we needed those and we had only added his Yr 11 and 12 reports ourselves as a courtesy.
So at 2am WA time the phone rang. It was a very frustrated Stuart who had been told if we don't have all of Joshuah's school reports, he could not be enrolled!!  So I had to search for them all (half asleep), scan them, photograph them etc etc and email them to the school.  Fortunately they accepted it and we can happily say Joshuah is now enrolled and has had his first day today.
Stuart's first teaching day went well.  He is teaching IT to  K - 5.  Today he had a lesson with the Kindy kids who don't speak English and have a Spanish translator in the class.  As Stuart speaks, she repeats it in Spanish!  Could make for an interesting time.  They didn't get to the computers...instead he had them dancing and imitating kangaroos, emus, wombats etc which they loved.  He also was singing along with them about bananas.  They were saying "baa naa naa" in their strong American accents and he was saying "bu nuh nuh" in his strong Australian accent.  Eventually he gave in and said"baa naa naa"!!!  I cant believe he has gone to the dark side already and it's only his first day!!!  He was also informed by one of the kids he had his shirt on inside out, to which he replied: "Yeah, that's good luck in Australia".  Amazingly the boy said "Oh, OK" and left it at that.  He'll be using that line now every time he stuffs up (which is often)!!
Joshuah's first day was OK..... as far as I can tell.  It was like pulling teeth when I rang him to find out how it went.  "Good, OK, nuh, alright, don't know, maybe".  The superlatives went on and on!  The school recited the Pledge of Allegiance which of course Joshuah didn't know.  Fortunately our years of Catholic Education haven't gone to waste as he chose to recite the Leschenault Catholic Primary School song instead!!  At the end of the day he even got on the right "Simpsons"  yellow school bus which delivered him to the front door.
Tomorrow afternoon Stuart and Joshuah will drive Morgan to Greeley (UNCO)...about 1 1/2 hrs away from home, where he will be living on campus and going to Uni.  When they were snowboarding on the weekend, they stopped at a grocery store to get supplies.  Morgan (who always says he knows everyone) ran into an American guy that went to ECU on exchange, knows Morgan and is a student at UNCO!  What were the chances?

Some other interesting occurrences:
*a man walking down the street with a Samurai sword in his hand.
*No noise near the house....no insects, wind, leaves, birds, cars...nothing.
*A pizza shop in the middle of a Target Superstore.
*Morgan being asked if he was from Scotland (due to his accent)
*Joshuah being called a Puerto Rican, because his K Mart shirt had Puerto Rico on it! He now wants to get a shirt with Mars on it in the hope someone thinks he's a Martian!!
*A young kid in a shop looking at bows and arrows (real ones) and asking Morgan and Joshuah which one would be best.
*Cheap beer and Morgan can't drink it!

Till next time......