Keeping it local.....

We hadn't made any plans as such until Thanksgiving week, so decided to keep our activities local.  We went to another basketball game..I think it was the Minnesota Timberwolves vs Nuggets.

Nuggets won, and this time we weren't subjected to relationship drama's from the people sitting behind us!!.  I was able to Skype Kristoffer and Asha and they got to see the National Anthem being performed before the game.  How cool is that....from the Pepsi Centre, Denver, Colorado, USA to Kristoffer's house, Derby, WA, Australia!!  Technology is fantastic!!

Do you think I should tell them "Centre" is spelt wrong? :)

They couldn't afford him!!

Rocky is the Nuggets mascot and he is one cool dude. He is a mountain lion and I believe his salary is in the 6 figure range!! He gets the crowd going and this particular game was pretty close , so he was even more animated.

He also provides us with entertainment throughout the game....

and every game he does a throw from the halfway line, with his back to the ring and every game we've been to...he has never missed the basket....

During the week, Tanya (my Aussie friend), her son Quinn and I went for a drive up to Boulder. It's a University town, so plenty of young people live here, about an hour from Denver and had a great feel to the place. We had lunch at Old Chicago before heading back to Denver.

On one day of the weekend Stu and Josh went snowboarding up at Keystone with Phil (Tanya's husband)...

and the next day we went for a drive to the Botanic Gardens in Denver (note to self: visit the Botanic Gardens at the start or middle of Fall..not the end!!)..it was pretty sparse, but still lovely!

 Next stop was Roxborough State Park...an absolute gem, and only a 30 min drive from the house we are living in.

Tanya and Phil went there a couple of weeks after we had been and it had snowed...these are a couple of Tanya's photos after a light snowfall...how beautiful is this!

Spectacular!  We had a nice walk around the rocks, saw some deer.....

and then back into the suburbs...

 It's amazing how snow can transform a place into a winter wonderland and we were not disappointed when we woke up the other day and saw this.

 I love snow...it is truly magical, breathtakingly white, beautiful....I am loving it and embracing it for the year I am here, and it is still such a novelty for us. We have been spoilt so far with a good year in 2013 of snowfall.

The world doesn't stop when it snows in Denver and you still have to do everyday things, like fuelling up the car....and clearing the snow away from the card swiper!!....

and having to do grocery shopping, in the cold, slippery conditions....

and the roads are very slippery,

which didn't go unnoticed when I turned into a carpark (very, very slowly) and lost control of the car while gently touching the brakes. I was sliding straight towards a car with an old lady in it and could do nothing.  It was in slow motion and when I was literally centimetres from hitting her, the car straightened up and I avoided the collision!  I was really shaken up and fortunately Liz being in the UK (a more friendly time zone) meant I could Skype her from the car and she could calm me down! She gave me some advice for driving on ice, which I heeded when I had to turn into E Maplewood off University and slid again...and when I dropped Stu at school and the brakes locked up again!!  Is it just me???? So I am looking forward to the "iceless" roads in WA in a few weeks!!

Joshuah, Stuart and I went to the Book of Mormon during the week.  A freezing night, where we had to wait in the cold till the theatre doors opened, so we stood underneath the outdoor heaters!  Again...something so foreign, coming from WA!!

The show was irreverent, hilarious, cringe-worthy, clever....I'm not a huge fan of SouthPark (I find it irreverent, cringe-worthy, clever..but topical), and the same guys wrote the Book of Mormon, but after living in Colorado for a year I can now relate to it and Joshuah is able to explain things to me, so I kind of "get it"!!  :(  (And Fairplay/South Park is one of our favourite places to visit..check out the next blog update!!)

I am still enjoying new experiences that are the norm here (like a heated area for the shopping trolleys at Walmart..it sounds extravagant, but is really, really nice!!) Speaking of shopping trolleys....I'm quietly excited about going back to our WA shopping trolleys..they are sooo much easier to manoeuvre!!! And I've heard the flies are pretty bad at home, and there's even a small difference in fly swats between the US and Australia....who'd have thought!! (when I start to take photos of fly swats it's probably time I went home!)

US fly swat

Australian fly swat

Stu had a staff photo taken last week.  He is part of a "team" called "Essentials" (what we'd call support staff at home) and each group dressed up...so here he is, looking particularly attractive!!

So that's what we've been up to since Vegas. While we have been to the theatre, basketball, the snow etc etc, Morgan and Jakeb have been doing their end of year Uni exams and Kristoffer and Asha have been catching muddies...

 and barra for our Christmas dinner!  Cheers kids!

We only have a few weeks left and I am so excited about getting home..seeing our boys,

our families,
 Lua,

 friends, celebrating Kristoffer and Asha's engagement in January,

 at our home....

backyard cricket with the boys..

and getting back down to Windy Harbour.

But, there are a few weeks left....and we intend to make the absolute most of the time we have left in this truly remarkable, fantastic, breathtaking State of Colorado!

PS Well done to the Aussies winning the First Test at the Gabba!

Go the Mo, Mitch!!!