Why my family loves Boulder

I never dreamed I’d live anywhere other than Sydney, Australia.

When you’ve got a good job, a house you’re constantly doing ’something’ to, kids, dogs, routine… the last thing you think of is moving. Anywhere. Least of all to a country you’ve never been to before. But then I came home from work one day and Jed told me his start-up dreams weren’t done with itechne. He had a bigger one. To go to the US and launch what was to become scribetribe.us.

And I said okay, we’ll Skype and email.

But he had a different plan. He convinced me to take (another) chance.

We packed up and moved to Boulder, Colorado in August 2008.

Now, lots of people have written about the great things Boulder has to offer in terms of nightlife, culture, the outdoors and the tech scene. And it’s all true and fantastic. I am loving being a part of all of those things. But above everything else, I’m a *proud* mum. And Boulder is an amazing place to raise kids.

Harry and Charlie are aged 8 and 11 and have come to Boulder with us. They have swapped their Sydney private school blazers and ties, frenetic life-by-the-clock, mum out teaching three nights a week, no friends within walking distance, and a home where they weren’t allowed to play out the front due to the traffic – for this:

A lifestyle that is similar to that I remember as a kid. One I thought you couldn’t give your kids any more, because “times have changed.”

They’d never seen snow before we moved to Boulder. Here they love it.

On top of all that, the (public) school they go to has the best educators I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. They have been wonderful in helping my kids move to not only a new home, but a place where feet and inches, and American history are completely different for them. They’ve made the transtition incredibly smoothly – and it’s largely due to the school. (I’ve already celebrated Bear Creek Elementary in an earlier post.)

For me? The start-up widow? I’ve swapped a lifestyle where the drive to work each day took an hour of fume-laden highways, teaching in this college at Granville:

For being a part of the University of Colorado, which is slightly more attractive.

And on top of everything else, my husband is throwing himself into his life’s dream. He’s happily working on seemingly endless adrenaline, at all hours. But he tries to take a run each day and instead of it being beside a road where it’s simply not safe after a certain hour, it’s up around NCAR where deer graze.

So I guess the thing is, when you think you’re settled and couldn’t think of moving, think again. A bit of unsettling could be the best thing you do for your family. Especially if Boulder is where you end up. If you’re in tech and thinking about moving to Boulder, get in touch with the guys at Boulder.me.

Our visit to Vail

Yesterday we took a road trip to Vail. It’s just two hours away. I found a great sledding area in Vail courtesy of a website which lets you locate good sledding runs (free) in your neighbourhood. We entered the address in the GPS, and off we went!

The day cost us nothing apart from the car’s petrol and wonderful pizza we ate for dinner. We’ve discovered the following:

a. I need snow pants. Now. Because when I have a frozen wet bum I get grumpy.

b. Charlie is a daredevil on the flexi-sled. He’s worked out that he needs to keep his whole body off the ground and entirely on the sled for the best run and for speed. He flies and cares little about danger… or direction.

c. Harry seems to be a natural snowboarder. He doesn’t even own a skateboard, but managed to stay upright for a long way on his new snowboard. His balance is amazing and he just loves it.

d. Vail is spectacular. We are definitely going back, and will probably make it at least an overnight trip. The whole place is like a gingerbread storybook land. You can see a little in my video!

Hiking with Harry

Harry loves to hike through the Rocky Mountains. There are more trails around here than you can poke a … hiking staff at. (Sorry.)

Harry’s decided to do a series of Hiking with Harry videos, which will show everyone a little bit of what new things he’s experiencing in hiking in a completely different environment. This is his first one, where he is seeing his first ever frozen lake. The quality of the video and editing limits this talented young man because it’s done by his mum! But I’ll get better, I promise!

Day of the Dinosaurs

Colorado is not just about snow (the lack of which in 2008 is duly noted). Colorado has some absolutely incredible dinosaur excavations, including stuff that’s still being dug up to this day. That’s something I didn’t know until we went on a day-long excursion/adventure this week.

First stop was one of the sites about half an hour from where we are living, at Dinosaur Ridge. The dino footprints have been preserved and you can walk up and see them! While the Ridge is on the side of a roadway, the road has now been blocked off (except for the little tour bus), so you can safely walk up.

Looking at Dino tracksThe tracks have been coloured black and go right up the side of the cliff

The rock is shale, and the history of this part of Colorado is that it used to be a sea. After the landforms changed the sea disappeared, and the dinosaurs were preserved and fossilized within the shale. It was great stopping at this site first because we looked first-hand, and touched the shale in the mountain. The layers of the rock were really cool.

From there we took a drive for another hour and a half to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center (RMDMC) at Woodland Park. It features lots of exceptionally cool stuff for adults as well as kids on the Dinosaurs they’ve found, how they preserve them, and lots of those cool skeletons. You can even see the paleontologists at work preserving the fossils! It was great because they described the shale excavation and some of their discoveries came from exactly where we had just been.

  The RMDRC has interactive kid activities, free hourly tours of the centre, two movies running all the time, and full displays of how they create the casts, and preserve the remains. Everything is presented in such a great way, it kept every one of us enthralled. There was no whingeing at this one! This was a day trip well worth taking!