Friday 2nd July - Saturday 3rd July

Another couple of waiting days. After the come down of handing over the house keys we are stuck in a "of no fixed abode" status waiting for our once a week flight out to the Cook Islands on Sunday 4th. The now mandatory meeting up with friends for one last tearful farewell was clearly taking its toll and leaving us in the nicest possible way wishing for Sunday to arrive sooner rather than later.

We made the most of Park Meadows Mall for one last time picking up some jewellery (UK spelling) for the kids and using up the excess on the Starbucks gift cards before again taking to the pool with Marcie and the girls. While the kids had fun I had the pleasure of getting the car through its emissions test over in Parker prior to sale on Sunday.

Meeting up with Kate and Glen - reckon it was Venus low in the western sky mate, Roy and Jennifer - our Yorkshire next door neighbours have got an awful lot to live up to failing miserably, Kristen and Riley (Leigh) - Amelia has her new e-mail ready to go and Joe and Mike (James) - checking out Robin Hood will no doubt kick start the inevitable jokes about the standard of British teeth and how nothing much has changed since the 12th century - was great for one last time, for the near future at least, and thoughts again of not only what we were leaving behind but how much we have done and enjoyed during our four and a bit years out here.

The two days have been dominated by World Cup goings-on for me with great pleasure at seeing both Brazil and Argentina (especially the Argies) bite the dust and seeing some brilliant showpieces of quality, flowing football. Incredible how the quarters had a great South American feel and now the semi's are practically all Europe. If the Dutch win then I think that would be justice for the best footballing team historically never to win the tournament. Fingers crossed. Special note for Katrin and Leonard who hit Florida for a family wedding. Hope you managed to catch a bar to catch the big games that wasn't completely inundated with Brits.

Lastly the kids had a great time catching Avatar: The Last Airbender and didn't stop spinning around waving their arms in the air for the whole day. Nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews claim and a typical first film for a series of three or four. As we were walking out of the cinema Amelia reckoned it was the best movie she had ever seen. That was good enough for me.