18 months and $20,000 later...

It's here!

My new piano arrived. :) Actually, it arrived a week and a half ago, but I just took a picture of it.




















Hilton seems to be enjoying it....

Update? What's that?

I realize it's been a while since I've updated our blog. Your assumption that we've been far too busy to post - what with our new lives and jobs here - is absolutely right...

...Ok, actually, I lied. We haven't been busy. I've just been lazy. :) And there hasn't been anything momentous to post. No job yet. No job offers yet. No job news. Which leaves me (Angela) with pretty much unlimited free time and Gus with semi-unlimited free time. So what have we been doing with all this time? Glad you asked! There are a few regularly scheduled activities:

• Most mornings we go for a 1-hour hike around the neighborhood, up in the hills. Hopefully this regular cardio will help us acclimate to the high altitude. At this point, as new transplants from the low lands, even the most innocuous stroll down the road can leave us out of breath. Because of the altitude. Really. It's the altitude....trust me! :D


• On Monday evenings Gus goes to the north side of town for his Warlord gaming night at a hobby/gaming store. (Warlord is a miniatures war game by Reaper.)


• On Tuesdays from 12-1 we go ice skating.


• On Wednesdays (or Saturdays), we go to church at 7pm on the north side of town.


• On Thursdays from 12-1 we go ice skating. And then in the evening, from 5-8 or so we have our painting club - on the north side of town.

We also spend time during the days exploring Colorado Springs. As you might have gathered from the list above, most of the interesting stuff here in town is on the north side. And where do we live? On the south side!

On the job front, while Gus slaves away 10-12 hours/week I've been busy marketing myself and pursuing a few leads here and there. I will soon be meeting with the director of the ESL program at the community college just down the road (on the south side of town!); I am applying for a teacher licensing program through the Colorado Department of Education, so I will be able to work in the adult ESL program in the local school district; I have posted flyers advertising English tutoring in probably 15 ethnic grocery stores around town; and I have sent letters to numerous churches in town, offering my accompanying services (for a fee, of course). Hopefully one of these endeavors will bear profitable fruit soon.

It looks like a few people, at least, are going to take us up on the oft repeated refrain of "Come visit!" Gus's mom will be out here for a week in May. My parents are coming for a few days some time this spring (not sure when, but the sooner the better!). And Gus's brother will be coming for a week in June. So to the rest of you: Come visit! Just don't come when the other guests are here...we only have one guest room. ;)

Guess where we went today?

The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo - complete with very sociable giraffes - is just 5 minutes from here. This morning we bought a zoo membership, which gives us unlimited access to the zoo for one year plus a bunch of guest passes. (Come visit!) (Note: As always, you can click the pictures to see a full-sized version.)

It was a beautiful day for wandering the zoo:














First stop, the giraffes. There are many, but this one was the most cooperative. :)


















Next to the giraffes, was this guy. Other than cute, I have no idea what he is. But he sure is cute!


















Just down the path we came across the elephants. This one was playing with a large plastic tub. He kicked it around for a while:















And then he put it on his head:

















Then we saw the hippos. There are three of them. My, how ferocious they look!
















After the hippos, we visited the apes. When he saw us through the glass, this guy ambled down the hill and plopped himself unceremoniously right in front of us with his back up against the glass. :) (You can see the reflection of Gus's hand on the ape's back.) And yes, he is wearing a scarf!















And then he rolled over:


















Last but not least, we found the elusive mountain goats. (I say "elusive" because last September when we drove up Mt. Evans, which is supposed to be teeming with goats, we didn't see a single one!)

Ice Capades

The other night I was reading an article about all of the fun activities to do in Colorado Springs (of which there are many), and one of them caught my eye: ice skating! It turns out that the World Arena, which is about 3 miles from here, has public skating sessions on the indoor rinks on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-1pm and 5-6pm, and also several hours on the weekends. For the Noon session, the cost is $1; skate rental is $2.

As far as Gus can remember, he might have gone skating once while in grade school, but certainly hasn't since then. On Tuesday morning I told him I wanted to go ice skating and hoped he'd come along to skate or, if nothing else, to sit in the bleachers and cheer me on! :P Much to my surprise, he not only offered to accompany me to the rink, he was also willing to try skating!

So, at 11:30 we headed over to the World Arena, paid our dollars, rented our (very uncomfortable) skates, and waited for the Zamboni to finish its job. Finally, we stepped onto the ice. I skated a lot as a kid, so after a few wobbly seconds I had my ice legs back. Gus, however, got to start as a true beginner. Although he quickly developed a fondness for staying near the rail, he made great progress in the hour we were there! He went from depending on the wall for support, to taking some very fast, semi-confident strides on his own toward the center of the rink. I was so proud of him!

Best of all: Gus enjoyed it so much that we went out and bought our own skates this afternoon. :) Look out Stars on Ice, here we come!

Say it isn't snow....

The weather has been very nice the last few days, with lots of sunshine and highs near 60. That's all about to change! Tonight and tomorrow we're supposed to get up to a foot of snow, with high winds causing drifting. It's a good thing neither of us has a commute. The best part about this, though, is that on Tuesday the sun will come back once more and the temperatures are expected to be in the 50s and 60s for the rest of the week. Hurrah!

In other news, we bought a piano! Yesterday morning we went to the piano store downtown for a couple hours. While Gus explored the downtown area on foot (because the weather was so beautiful), I went from piano to piano, playing snippets of works by Bach, Schubert, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, comparing the touch, tone, and price on all the uprights in the store. I finally found one that sounded great, looked pretty, wasn't too heavy (another consideration, since we'll have to move the thing again someday!) and was at a good price. The only problem was that I really didn't like the touch - it was very light. A light touch is good for playing Bach, but not for pounding out Rachmaninoff. When I told the store owner about this little problem, he offered to weight the keys for free if I bought the piano! So I did. :) When they finish the extra work they'll deliver it, hopefully within 10 days. I can't wait!

After the piano-buying expedition, we had lunch at a restaurant called Poor Richard's Restaurant. It is less than 1 block from the piano store and is connected to and owned by the Poor Richard's bookstore. Gus ordered pizza, and after he'd had a few bites I asked him how it was. He pondered for a moment and then said, "It would take a long time to think of a better pizza I have ever had." I guess that's good. :)

Then we went to a hobby store right next door to the restaurant and met up with several local mini painters. The six of us spent the afternoon sitting at tables at the back of the store, painting minis and chit-chatting.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day!

A few more pictures

So I hear MN and WI got buried in a blizzard the other day. Here, it's currently 61 and mostly sunny. :)

I went out and took a few pictures of the mountains this morning. And since I had the camera in-hand, I also took some pictures of the interior of our apartment.

Outside - Mountains:














And more mountains:














Inside - Our living room:














Our dining room viewed from the living room:














And our kitchen!

---

In other news, I've been job-hunting. I contacted several tutoring companies here in town, and one of them asked for my resume and said they want to interview me. I think that's a good sign. :) Yesterday I even took my resume to The Broadmoor. A month or so ago I'd seen a post on a teacher chat-board that mentioned that The Broadmoor was looking for an ESL teacher for their international staff. I e-mailed the woman who'd made the post and asked her about the position, but she never replied. So yesterday I decided to go there in person and find out more. As it turned out, the person I ended up talking to was that same woman! When I asked her about the position, she said, "Oh, we just hired someone." But, she made it sound like the new teacher wasn't necessarily planning on staying long, so I gave her my resume and she said she'd contact me if/when the position opened up again.

That's all the news here. Oh, and Danika, the concert was great!

It's a small world....

We gave away our old piano before we moved because we plan on buying a new (used, but new to me) piano here. There's a nice piano refurbishing shop downtown and on Friday we went there to see what they have in stock. I was wandering around the store, trying out the pianos, and chatting with the staff. In the course of conversation I mentioned that we'd just moved here from the Twin Cities. One of the men working there said, "Oh, I have relatives in Bloomington!" (that's where the Mall of America is, FYI). Then another one of the staff said, "I used to live in Dinkytown." Dinkytown is the university village on the north end of the U of MN campus. I was within 50' of Dinkytown nearly every day for the last 18 months. :)

Then last night I went to a performance by the Colorado Springs Philharmonic. They had a guest pianist who was playing Rachmaninoff's 3rd piano concerto, so of course I had to go! I ordered my tickets last-minute online and ended up sitting in the middle of the front row in the balcony, with a fantastic view of the stage and the pianist's hands. Anyhow, I got to talking with the nice couple sitting to my left. He's a retired computer programmer, she's a retiring-this-spring first grade teacher. Again, I mentioned that I had just moved here from Minnesota, and the lady to my left replied, "Oh, we used to live in the Twin Cities. We lived in New Brighton and [husband's name] worked in Roseville!" Roseville is the suburb we just moved from.

Eerie.

Some pictures of the neighborhood

Here are a few pictures I took this afternoon. First up, the front of our apartment building. Our apartment is on the top floor to the right of the staircase. The first window (to the right of the chimney) is the living room; the next one is the first bedroom; the window on the right is the second bedroom.

Here is the view to the east from the road. The low green shrubs in the center-ish of the picture are at the foot of our staircase.















This is the view to the west, from the foot of our staircase.















And this is a shot of the two-level pool and the hot tub (in the background on the right).

Welcome to Colorado!

Tuesday morning (March 7th) we finished loading up the Budget rental truck, checked out of our apartment in Minnesota at 9am, and were on the road by 9:15. We drove south through Iowa to Des Moines, went west through Nebraska, and then southwest into Colorado. We made it to Fort Morgan, CO, by 10:30pm and found a motel that accepted cats. :)

The next morning (March 8th) as we were about to head down through Denver, we heard that Denver was in the middle of a blizzard. So we backtracked a few miles to Brush and drove south to Limon and then to Colorado Springs, bypassing the storm! We pulled in to our apartment complex right around Noon. About 10 minutes after we got here, the blizzard hit Colorado Springs, and we got to unload the truck in a snowstorm!

Nearly everything was unloaded by Wednesday evening, except the boxspring and the couch. We got those moved in on Thursday.

Today is Saturday and we've spent a lot of time the last few days unpacking crates, finding good places for all of our belongings, and exploring our new city. There are only two boxes left to unpack, and I really don't know where their contents are going to end up!

The weather has been really sporadic since we moved in: sunny and warm, then cloudy and cool, then snowing, then sunny and warm again...all within a few hours. :) What's neat, though, is that we can see the clouds coming over the mountains and can see the snow falling up on the mountains long before it gets here. And during the blizzard on Wednesday - the one while we moved in - we ended up with about 1-2" of snow; just five minutes up the road they got 6" of snow!

Our new apartment is really nice. I am particularly fond of the wood-burning fireplace in the living room, and the washer and dryer! The kitchen has so much cupboard space, too, it's a nice change from our last apartment.

Within 5 minutes of our place we have 3 supermarkets, a Borders book store, a 20-screen movie theater (with great popcorn!), tons of walking/biking trails, every restaurant imaginable...and just 10 minutes from here is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo! Plenty to do and see if you all come visit!