Howdy!

We made it!  After travelling for almost 25 hours we arrived safe and sound at our friends home in

 Durango, Colorado.  I have been to the states before, but this is the children's first experience of America!  After trying to get catch up with some sleep on the first night, Friday started out as a beautiful day.  The view from the house is of the Mountains; we are over 6,000ft above sea level
so it has taken us a few days to acclimatise to the thinner air.  Saying that, I'm not sure if its because there is less Oxygen that breathing was hard to start with, or because it doesn't have the same amount of pollution that we are used to being near Heathrow.

Mountain Views

Durango is a resort town in the South of Colorado; there is ski-ing, rafting, kayaking, mountain biking and other outdoor pursuits; the active lifestyle seems to be reflected in the locals as we have not seen lots of 'large' residents but I am sure once we move out of town that might be more common.  So far what we can't get over however is how HUGE everything is - EVERYTHING is on a larger scale; from the portion sizes to the shops to the milk bottles.  It makes English sizes seem positively quaint.  We made a pilgrimage to Target - and spent a lot of money very easily and very quickly.  Oopsy - that doesn't really fit with my 'having less' philosophy, and I can now see why consumerism is so massive here.  Shopping and spending is easy.


We have had some excitement already and the second night here we lost another nights sleep: a huge water pipe burst on the hillside just up from our 'home'; within minutes a river (literally!) was running through the neighbours garden (yard) and washing away through our front drive.   The pipe that burst was used to transport river water to the towns central reserve and this river flowed for over 5 hours.  The neighbours were away so we were in their home trying to salvage anything - luckily the home had not too much damage, but the yard was washed away and it took the council (city) a whole day to clear the debris from the road.  We set up a neighbourhood watch and made the most of the visiting trucks!

The huge collection truck used to pick up debris

Clearing the debris

Neighbourhood watch!

Clearing up

The local chipmonk

The children have handled the transition so far really well and are being a great help.  Noah is having a few withdrawal symptoms from not playing MineCraft so much, but as we wanted to wean him anyway this is not a bad thing.  Instead he is playing out the front with some local children.  Lily and I went exploring and saw our first chipmunk - we were a little disappointed that it didn't sing but reminded ourselves that Alvin is just a movie (do you like the way I am using Americanism's? Want to keep it all authentic like).





Some pictures for you to enjoy:

Sunset

Me and my boy!

Sophie and our friends youngest

Lunch at the Diner

Experiencing a hurricane

Lily

Tex Mex - mmmmmm

Shooting Hoops

Mail box (cool)