One Year On....

I woke up last night and realised that I'd missed it. Our moving anniversary. It was 12 months ago yesterday that we arrived on these shores (the fact that we left on the 22nd and had an overnight flight complicates things just a little). Tempus fugit.

It has been flying even faster in the last month or so because it has been stuffed full. We saw Sally taking classroom driving lessons for a week and obtaining her learner's permit before she flew off to England to spend two weeks with her best friend, now in Chalvington, and a few days with school friends in Tonbridge. She returned on the 31st of July with her friend in tow, and the following two weeks were spent taking two girls shopping - oh, and a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, more shopping, inner-tubing down the St Vrain river, more shopping, a trip to the county fair, more shopping, camping in Wyoming, and uh, more shopping.

Somewhere in there I had to obtain my own Colorado driving license, for which I had to take both a written and practical test. What a palaver. I'm happy to report, that I passed, and while I could have legally accompanied Sally during her upcoming driving practice without a Colorado license, she has to record 50 hours of driving time with someone who has a Colorado drivers' license before she can obtain her full license. Interesting rules here which have caught us out a bit: She has to hold her learners' permit for a full 12 months before she can obtain her full license. Once she has the full license, she is still on probation, as it were, as she is not allowed to drive with anyone other than a family member for another length of time. This staged licensing is meant to avoid teen accidents, and I think it's a terrific idea.

When we took Sally's friend back to the airport on the 16th, Andrew accompanied her and is in the UK now - doing I'm not sure what. He had an MRI scheduled at Kings College Hospital, and it was less expensive to fly to the UK to have it done than have it done here - although if the results, which I believe he'll get today - are negative (as in not what we want to hear), I have no idea what will be the next course of action.

As it happens, his timing has been rotten, as I was offered a job working with the US Census just before he left AND the children started school the following day as well. My sister, who lives in Laramie WY volunteered to come and ferry Sally and Spencer to school while I was off being trained to list addresses for the Census. Working for the Feds is as interesting as you could hope. One the one hand, everything is very thorough, repeated many times, every i dotted and t crossed, but within that minutiae are the most preposterous and glaring errors. Moreover we are told one thing one day and another the next. To their credit, on day one, they told us that flexibility was the name of the game. I was told that this job would be 25 hours a week for 12 months, but when I arrived at training they said that come hell or high water, this job had to finish on October 9th. Happily, I'm flexible.

Finally, Sally has started Japanese lessons at the University today. Her school has scheduled a free block of time for her before lunch, and in that time we are able to drive up to Ft Collins, she can attend her class and we can return before her next class starts. It will be interesting. Her books were $180. At least the high school pays for tuition and fees, which would otherwise be in the region of $1000. I think we are going to have to invest in a Prius (which in the USA is pronounced Pree-us - we were all pronouncing it Pry-us) to save on petrol.

Anyway, I've been feeling a bit like Alice's white rabbit with no time to say hello, goodbye. I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, goodbye.