What we've been up to

Life has been going pretty smoothly for us here in Greeley. We have had a few tornado warnings but fortunately none have touched down. Its funny because when there is a big storm I love to sit on the balcony and listen to the thunder and watch the lightning but that is pretty much the worse thing to do when there is a tornado warning; its right up there with standing by the window and looking out. Its strange, it seems like every day around 3:00 big storm clouds roll into Greeley. Last night the thunder/rain storm was so loud it woke both Mark and I up at 3:00 am and Mark went to go check for a tornado warning. I don't actually know if tornadoes can touch down at that time but I am glad Mark was willing to go check.
Besides watching storms we did go to Denver last Friday and actually did some of the things that are fun to do in Denver. We haven't really taken the time to go and see the sites around here so we are working on that. Mark needed to talk to CDE (Colorado Department of Education) about his Colorado teaching license so we drove down and decided to make a day of it. While we didn't mind going and doing some fun things in Denver it is absolutely ridiculous how unhelpful CDE is on the phone. Its like they are going for an award for being the most unhelpful. Each time we would call we would be on hold for at least 20 minutes and then they would transfer us to the "correct" person who never answered their phone and Mark would leave messages and never have them returned. While we were in Colorado Springs last week we stopped in his new district office to ask about his license and the lady said that even she doesn't get calls back very often and suggested we go down in person. So we went down and Mark explained the situation and the woman took his papers, went to an office down the hall came back not 2 minutes later and said, "Your license should get to you in 2-3 weeks." That is what we got for driving down there and coming in person. She almost acknowledged that they had made a mistake and should have issued the proper license back in January when Mark applied for it but not quite. We are crossing our fingers that it shows up before we move at the end of July.

So after that silliness, we decided to take a tour of the State Capitol since it is right across the street from CDE. It was really fun and there was actually a quilt show going on so there were quilts displayed all over. They were beautiful People are so talented. We got to climb up into that dome which had a great view of Denver and we saw the Senate and House of Representatives voting rooms. It was nice with just a little bit of history for us.

The Colorado State Capitol

Quilts on display all over.

View from the Dome, the building is the US Mint where we originally wanted to go but when I looked online for tours they are booked until August! I had no idea it was such a popular place.

Inside the Dome.

After the Capitol we went over to the Denver Aquarium which was nice but would be way more fun with like a 3 year old or so. But it was fun to see the exhibits and it reminded of us the fun we had snorkeling.

Mark outside the Aquarium



Aprillee and Fish tank

BIG fish!



BIG Sting ray!
It was cool to see the lungs (gills?) going in and out.



Shark tank!
There were lots more in there, but this one looked like it wanted its picture taken.

This is outside the Aquarium restaurant. I liked all the glass fish they had hung up.

This week we are heading over to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. It is only a 5 1/2 hour drive from here and we figure we will never live this close to Mount Rushmore again so we are heading up and camping one night. I am really excited to go. Its just one of those places you would like to see but its so isolated that you don't think you will see it. Its also a lot shorter drive then heading home to California. We will save that for Christmas when we have a little baby to share!