Back To School (and haboobs)

I know this is going to seem like madness to all you Brits, but our school summer hols finished last week (or vacation as they say here - 'holidays' only applies to the time at Christmas, say 'holidays' in summer and the Americans think you're nutty). Yesterday was back to school......yes, just as the British hols are starting!

 

 

The girls definitely don't look like this going to school anymore... this was them off to school in the UK in 2007. You'll have to wait till later this week for me to get a pic of them together now.

School break/vacations/summer hols aren't the same across all of the USA, but earlier in the year hols make sense in Arizona as the peak of our summer (the weeks when the temperature sits around 108-115F, or 42-46C) is now over. They figure that it's best to have kids at home running up their parents air conditioning bills rather than the schools.....and playtimes (or recess) are pretty much impossible in the oppressive heat.

Now we're into the monsoon season, the temperatures are coming down but the humidity is rising and we're prey to the haboobs.

No, I'd never heard of a haboob until recently either. This is what happens to us here:

 

The Phoenix Haboob of July 5th, 2011 from Mike Olbinski on Vimeo.

Mike Oblinski takes some amazing photos and I really do recommend following him on Twitter if you're interested in photography or weather/storm chasing.

If you're interested in seeing what happened to us (a series of time lapse photos taken a bit nearer our house, taken on an iphone that went viral on news programmes around the world) then check out Scott Wood's photography site for this amazing video. I also follow Scott on Twitter for amazing photos (and heads up about bad weather heading our way ;))

So anyway, the girls are back to school and I'm spending lots of time dying in the heat clearing desert out of our pool (I know, I know, 1st world problems).

I'll tell you a bit more about what we've been doing over summer in posts later this week (summer camps aren't all sending your kids off to forests/lakes for weeks on end), plus how American schools prepare kids for new years/schools and stuff about Goth Child's first week at High School.....and how she's not really a Goth or a Child anymore.

But now it's time to go and wake up Melchett and get her off to school, so more tomorrow....no really, things are going to get back to 'normal' now hols are over, or at least my version of normal.

Oooh ooh and I've got to tell you about Vegas and the Burlesque Hall of Fame too (it's all coming back to me now).