Arrival in Denver

WOW!  We are actually here!  It's happened!! We had a long journey, but travelling overnight wasn't too bad.  Poor Sarah travelled poorly and threatened to empty the contents of her belly.  She was given a motion sickness tablet that helped little, she was glad to get to Denver.  When we arrived at San Francisco, the line to customs took a while, there were so many people!  But surprisingly, the actual process through customs didn't take that long, however it was a scurry to the domestic terminal to catch the connecting flight to Denver.  We only just had enough time.  On the flight to Denver, we were all separated. I sat between 2 black young men. One was a college student going home for Christmas connecting another flight in Denver and the other was a member of some music band.  (Tom was telling them all about us!) We have found the people very friendly so far. One international airport starts to look like another, and we were glad to arrive.  We were met by Barb & Ken Wolma eventually! By the time we headed for their home, it was completely dark.  'Home' is about 45 mins on the freeway heading south.  The Christmas lights are really lovely.  The street we live on is like Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills!  After slow starts, we have visited Columbine High School to enrol Sarah.  After some deliberation, they will also accept an enrolment for Tom despite him having just finished HS.  We also managed to open bank accounts despite not having a social security number.  The tricky thing is proving we live at this address since with the exchange program we continue to pay for our own bills and so don't have anything with this address on it.  The accent is crazy!!  Very loud and drawly!! We stand out the minute we open our mouths :)  The kids are especially enjoying this! 

Both Rick & Tom have had a go at driving, but I'm not game yet!  We had fun visiting South West Plaza, a huge shopping centre about 5 mins nearby. Coming home it took us about 25mins, we got so lost! ha! ha! Had to ask somebody, but had a great drive around the neighbourhood looking at all the pretty lights while trying to get our bearings!!  It gets dark early, by 5pm its very dark.

Last night we had fun grocery shopping.  Such alot of convenience foods, but great prices.  We went at about 10pm, a tad COLD so probably not the ideal time to grocery shop!




This is what everything looked like as Rick drove to work at 7.15am

 

I wonder where this landed?  Mum or Sarah?  Sarah won..



This morning (Friday 17 Dec) we have woken up to a white world.  Everything was covered in a blanket of snow. It has since melted mostly away, but not before Tom & Sarah experienced the snow for the first time.  It is very very cold (like the inside of a walk in freezer) but very pretty.  Very stereotype Christmas, not one we are familiar with, but very nice.  Its really starting to feel like Christmas with the snow and the lights, but I do feel very far away from home (probably because I am!).