The Painful and Delightful Memories of Colorado

Blog About Fall 2020

Keira and I got back from Virginia on a Tuesday, and Karis and I left for Denver, Colorado, the next day!

We were meeting another mother and daughter there, so we sent them a picture of us in the airport.

They kindly reciprocated :)

We met in Denver, rented a car (which is going to be a big part of this story), and we found a middle eastern place to eat.

I still get amazed at digital maps! I remember driving with my family every summer, and I loved being in charge of the map...the paper map! But on those handy-dandy maps, it didn't say, take this exit for great middle eastern food. There was NO way to know what was in the city!

I can't remember if the food was good or not :)

I think we had problems getting it down.

October 28, 2020

We drove to Breckenridge. It was the off-season, and we had so much fun walking around without it being crowded.

Narnia vibes

October 29, 2020

We walked everywhere the first day, but the first morning, when we wanted to drive around and find a coffee shop, the car wouldn't start. We were in a garage, and not many people were around. Karis and her friend walked to town, and I walked down the road where I saw intermittent traffic, and I stopped 8 cars (3 wouldn't stop) to ask for a jump. Most of them had rentals as well, but one nice gentleman stopped and said he could help. I told him where my friend was waiting, so he drove to give our car a jump. He even gave us his construction business card in case we needed him again (since we didn't want to bother him, we never did, but we should have). We drove into town, did some sight-seeing, and after a few hours, we went back and the car wouldn't start again.

I'm not going to drag this out for you, but let me give you the highlights. I found a family in the parking lot who helped us, but we were concerned about making our drive back to Denver the next day. The car rental company said we could take it to the nearest rental place and switch it out for another car. The kicker was the rental place was in the OPPOSITE direction of Denver by an hour. 

SO, we opted to get a jump in the morning from some maintenance men and drive straight to Denver without turning the car off. When we stopped to eat lunch, someone remained in the car with it running, and everyone else got food and brought it back for the driver. In Denver, we had planned to eat out with a friend that night and spend the night before flying out the next morning, but we couldn't with this particular car.

SO, we drove all the way out to the airport, told the story to the car rental place, and they apologized, gave a SMALL discount and said they would upgrade us with a nice car. This is not what we wanted. 

Small car, BIG discount works better, right? 

Anyway, we drove away in a LARGE SUV Denali.  It was nice, but it was awful at the same time. 

Trying to park that thing in downtown Denver was NOT fun or easy!

Needless to say, we left with some memories :)

October 30, 2020

Life is a Highway

Blog Post about Summer 2020

The house where we stayed while we were in America was a little removed from city life, and we loved it. I don't know if Keira missed all the busyness of the city or what, but a couple of times I saw her perched on the fence at the end of the driveway either reading a book or looking like she was waiting for visitors.

Back in July, when we arrived back in America, Kylie took a trip to Florida to see some ballet friends, and while she was gone, Doug did some car shopping.

On July 8th, we bought her a car, but she didn't see it until July 25th when we arrived back in Texas, and then she had to learn how to get in it with her leg brace.  She had four days to figure out how to get in comfortably because we had already scheduled her driving test before we knew about her surgery. 

In case you didn't know, it was difficult for many people trying to get driver's licenses or car tags during the early days of Covid. DMV offices were sometimes booked two months in advance!

On Monday, July 27th, Kylie started physical therapy back in Texas.

On Tuesday, July 28th, we drove to my hometown to see some of my side of the family, and then

On Wednesday, July 29th, Kylie took her driving test and Karis got her driving permit!

Another thing we try to squeeze in when we go to America is haircuts.

The first night we arrived (the 28th), we stayed outside and social distanced. We (my family and my brother's family) were also all staying at hotels or guest houses to make sure we were Covid-safe.

My sister and her family couldn't come in because the numbers in Texas were a little too scary at the time, but we surely missed having them there; however, we were finally reunited with Caleb after he had spent one month in Dallas with his cousins.

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One thing that happens when you live overseas is that sometimes you order things that you want but that can't be or you don't want shipped overseas. That was the case with Caleb.

He had saved his money and bought a specially designed light saber, but he didn't get to see it for over six months until we got to Texas. His cousin already had one and they had grand battles planned together.

While we were at my parents' house, these boys wrote, filmed, and edited a small movie about Siths and the Dark Side. We were all pretty impressed. These are some still-shots from the video.

We also sat around while my brother read us a funny story. It took him forever to get through it because he kept cracking himself up, and I think all of us ended up crying we were laughing so hard. 

We were missing three cousins, but for the seven present, these birth order heights seem to have changed a bit over the last couple of years.

July 30, 2020

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay with my family long, because Kylie had physical therapy on the 31st, so we had to get back.

Things I See (Vol 14)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, 

Volume 9, Volume 10, Volume 11, Volume 12, Volume 13 (US Version)

Menus make me smile.  

I can usually find something humorous on every one, but I forget to take pictures of all of them.

I still don't know why places of business here don't employ a native English speaker to check over their copy before taking it to the print shop.

This is a Shisha menu.  It's also known as Narghile, Hookah, Water Pipe, etc.

It is a real money-maker for restaurants here.

In most places alcohol is taboo, but for some reason, smoking shisha is considered "ok" (by some).

One time Doug saw "Boobie Gum" on a menu (for bubble gum), so we always like to take a look and see what flavors they have.  I can't imagine what Desert Mexico or Woman Secret taste like???

I'm pretty sure they don't mean Blue Bell when they say "Texas Ice Cream" either.

I'm guessing this was supposed to be "mustard," but I'm really not sure what "budget bread" was supposed to be.

All fried chicken here is called "Kentucky."  

It's called Kentucky in school cafeterias, homes, and all restaurants (product placement at its best).

Here, they just spelled it their own way.

This is what someone longing for a beach vacation wishes for.

Self-explanatory

Recently, a grocery store in town got a very large shipment of American products.  I don't know how or why, but we were so excited to go look, and then we saw the prices...

I did break down and buy a few Dr. Peppers for $1 a piece, but the mark-up on the rest of the products was crazy!!

This bag of Quinoa costs about $26, and as much as I love grits, $80 for some crushed corn is not going to happen in this house (cheese maybe (right Natalie), but not grits :).

Every time I go to the store, I look to see if the price has dropped, and it hasn't, and the bag is STILL there.

This is not a mirage.

You are seeing this correctly

In February, I was parked next to this creation at a gas station.

The people here love to buy and wear gold, but this... 

The building behind us was sure that our drains were stopped up, and that is why their water wasn't working. In fact, they told me that water was draining out of their ELECTRIC PLUGS!

I don't understand it, but they came to the house four different times to look in bathrooms, the hot water heater room, 5 or 6 drains, etc.

On the last day that I saw them, they brought some workers to clean an outside area that is closed off. We never use it, and haven't opened the door since we moved in. They were "sure" this was the issue, and maybe it was since they haven't be back.

It was gross.  Four dead pigeons and a LOT of pigeon poop.  They watered it down, shoveled it out, and all I did was provide the trash bags...SEVEN of the them.  THAT is a LOT of POOP!

I don't know what we did to receive this sort of blessing, but it was nice; however, I still don't want to open that door, because who knows what it looks like now. This was on January 20th.

For a school photography project, Kylie asked a bread shop if she could come in and take pictures of the process, and they were so inviting.   

She got some great pictures.

Her photography teacher required them turn in all their assignments in black and white.  The black sesame seeds provide such a great contrast in these pictures.

We used to go to the orthodontist about once a month, and we had a fun time calculating that EVERY SINGLE TIME we went for an appointment, some couple was at the fountains taking wedding pictures.

It's hard to find pretty places in the city for pictures, so they all gravitate toward the few they find attractive.

Things I See (Vol 11)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9, Volume 10

See anything?

This one building of MANY in the city where people line up daily trying to get visas to get out of the country. It might be for work, a trip, or for permanence, but it just causes me to be thankful for my passport country.

I know you can't see it, but the SAM Office Furniture building is NOT on the street.
(It's over by the green plastic playground equipment)

Twins!

I love that she tried.

At the salon where I get my hair cut, younger boys are hired to hold the hairdryer for the hairdressers, they also hold the foil for the hairdressers on ladies' heads who are getting their hair colored.

I thought this was unique, but maybe this same thing happens in America???  You'll have to let me know.  I'm not that familiar with salons in America.  I can count on one hand how the number of salons I've been to in my life.

This is in our old neighborhood.  

Your eyes are NOT deceiving you.

Yes, that is three lanes of traffic PARKED on our street, and our gate is down on the right where you can see a dark blob of people sitting. 

March 19, 2019

Our side-of-the-road grazers look a little different than they do in South Texas.

"Chevy Runs Deep," but what does SHEVY do?

Ahhh!  Breathe in that beautiful air!

Speaking of air...

It's pretty common for houses here not to be built to code. (*smile)

Doug put rubber on the bottom of all our doors when we moved in because there was at least a half-inch space for dirt and air to come through (and the elements are still successful sometimes).

This is our front door area.  You can see to the right of the door how it's not flush with the wall.

Here it is zoomed in.

March 28, 2019

You wanna know why these small things don't bother me?

The back door to my kitchen in Africa had a ONE INCH space down the right side of the door.

You could literally put your hand through the hole, so Doug filled it with classy trashbags ;)

I've searched and searched for the picture of it, but after going through three years of Africa pictures twice, I still couldn't find it, so you'll have to take my word for it.