Minita nos mando unas fotos del bebe nuevo de Diana, la prima de Lorena. Aqui estan:
Year: 2004 Page 2 of 8
Tonight there will be a bunch of folks from meeting coming over to our house for a potluck. Everyone with kids about the same age as ours will be at our house to just eat, sing some hymns, and hang out. I will try to remember to take pictures and post some of them on Monday. Our neighbor kids, Hannah, Jacob, and Halley are supposed to show up, too. The kids, and I suppose some of the adults are going to wear costumes. Kelly is calling it a Harvest party because she is not a big fan of Halloween. My sister Jean’s birthday is today and I will give her a call.
The day after we put up a picture of Lauro and Dayana, a picture of their daughter Dayanita shows up on the web. It is a picture of her and her parrot put up by Lauro. It is such a nice picture, I have reproduced it here. Dayanita is going to go skiing with us in February. She has never skied before, but Kelly and Christian are very excited about taking lessons with her.
Click here to see the original picture
Our next big event is a potluck we are having at our house tomorrow night. All the families from meeting who has kids that are not yet in high school are coming over to just sing a few hymns, eat, and visit. It should be a lot of fun.
Our sister-in-law Minita sent us a photo of Lorena’s brother, Lauro and his wife, Dayana. Lauro and Dayana are the ones who are going skiing with us and the Rizo family at the end of February. The carne asada was for Rigo and Minita’s first wedding anniversary. They cooked fish and had a great time! We wish we could have been there.
Lorena found that she had passed the test she took on Monday, but she also found that she has four more test instead of three. She has to take what is called a proficiency test on Thursday of next week on which she has to get a score of at least 95%. She then has to take two more mid-terms and a final. I am sure she can do it. She was very excited yesterday that she finally got through her first mid-term.
Christian finished his first Singapore book last night and Kelly is scheduled to finish her first book tonight. We have decide together that we are going to try to get them through five books this year to get them up to a decent level for next year. It looks like, the way we are going, Kelly should start into pre-algebra and algebra next year. Christian should hit those same topics year after next. I checked the Singapore math site and saw that the “arithmetic” books we are doing now end at sixth grade and a new set of books with a different dynamic start with the 7th through 10th grade books.
I told Kelly and Christian that, while we would not do it every time we finish a math book, when we finish their first math book we would get them something. We will get a model submarine for Christian and probably some doll clothes or something like that for Kelly.
Lorena took her test yesterday afternoon and feels pretty good about the results. Other than that it was a pretty normal day. We finished Henry Price’s Journey a couple of days ago so last night we started reading Henry Price’s Big Show. They are absolutely great books. We have one more Henry Price book after we finish this one and then we will have to find something else. I am thinking we might read a few Tom Swift books or something like that. We have one and the kids both really like it.
We went over to the Doolittle’s house on Friday evening for a crab feed. Mike had been out with the family and some other friends and came back with a more crab than we could all eat. It was an absolutely great time. Kelly and Christian played with Malia and all the rest of us ate crab and told stories until after midnight. We need to do that sort of thing more often.
This should be Christian’s last day on his first Singapore Math book. We will move on to Math 3A tomorrow. At this rate, we should be able to get through Math 4B with Christian before the end of the year. Kelly is just about done with her first book, too. I would like to get through Math 6B by the end of the year. We might not make it and we are really going a little faster than I would like, but they got behind where they should be in the government schools and it would be nice to catch up a little.
I promised them I would get them something educational after they finished each book. Christian wants a model of a nuclear submarine he can put together. Kelly has not really decided what she wants yet, but she should will get to make that decision pretty soon, too.
Lornea is taking her algebra test again this afternoon, so she will take the kids to their gymnastics class a little before four and I will pick them up again after I get off work. I think she should do great on it this time.
Well, Lorena ALMOST passed the test. She will have to take it one more time on Monday afternoon. Everything is going swimmingly well right now with the kids getting more and more efficient in doing their homework, Lorena studying hard, and me just going to work every day. We are all a little worried about the election, but remember that it is really in God’s hands.
This weekend is going to be a study and library weekend. Lorena needs to work on her math and the kids have not been to the public library for a long time. There will be a vote on library expansion in the upcoming election. After getting President Bush reelected, that is the kids number one issue. It is a nice library already, but it will even be better when they have upgraded it.
Dad and Mike Martyn are over in Idaho having discussions with Ron and one of our main customers right now about some additional opportunities for Quality Corners. It might have a big impact on the growth and direction of the company so I am sitting on pins and needles right now waiting to see what will happen.
Lorena is going to retake her Algebra test today. She has been studying very hard. The kids have been studying hard, too. They are getting more organized in their work and they are leaving their work in a state that is much easier to correct. On Mondays and Wednesdays, the kids go to their gymnastics class and do not get home until around 5:30. That means I cannot start working with them until around 7:00 because I like them to have some time to go play with the neighbor kids and then eat dinner before we get started.
Last night, not only did they play and eat dinner, but they also listened to “Adventures in Odyssey” on the radio. We were still able to get everything done a little after nine. Part of this is that I am figuring out a little better how much I can give them with expectation that it will get done well. The other part is that they stack their finished work neatly on their work tables with a post-it note sticking out of the book where I can find their finished work. It is great.
Kelly and Christian should both finish their first set of Singapore Math books in the next couple of weeks. I have decided that I am going to try to just get them through four sets of books. I would probably only do three normally, but they have gotten behind by being in a really bad government school program for a year.
Lorena will have to take her first algebra test again on Friday. She did not quite get a high enough score, so the the good news is that she CAN take it again. The teacher was very optimistic about it. All she has to do is get through this and two or three more tests.
The kids are doing just fine in their home school. Kelly’s work load is just about right for now. She is getting everything done and covering two or three times as much material in more depth than she was getting at the local govenment school. I am still tweaking Christian’s work load, but should have it within a week or so. Like always, there just are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Today Christian is going to start on a radish growing experiment that really sounds like a lot of fun.
Lorena took her first test for Intermediate Algebra last night and we think she did well. Only two more and she is home free. Lorena dropped the kids off at their gymnastics class in the afternoon at about 4:00 and went on to take her test at the LBCC Benton County campus in Corvallis. I picked up the kids after I got off work at 5:00. We went home, cooked and ate some omelettes, then started in on our home school work.
Lorena was still not home by 7:15 so we started to get worried. Kelly even started to cry a little because she had had to turn off her cell phone when she started the test and we could not call her. At 7:30, we all got into the pickup to go look for her. We got all the way from North Albany to in front of the Safeway on Circle Blvd. before we saw her coming our direction. She took THREE HOURS taking the test, but the good thing was that she was OK and thought she had done fairly well on the test. Really, if she gets through this and one more math class, she will never need to take another to get a very good degree. She will have to take a class in statistics, but that is more memorization than mathematical manipulation.
Kelly did a super job of doing all of her school work and organizing it for me to correct. Christian was not able to get everything done, so it was not very organized. We will have to work on that some. For some reason it seems like Christian has somewhat of a heavier load than Kelly right now. I am still working on balancing everything out.
We had a very nice day on Saturday to work outside. Lorena worked a lot harder out there than did I. She accomplished a lot, too. She was able to get plant three new azalea plants, put down some plastic, and spread out the barkdust after I had shovelled it into place around the yard. In addition, she studied very hard for her Algebra exam today. I am confident she will do very well. Kelly and Christian spent most of Saturday playing with the neighbor kids. It rained pretty hard on Sunday, so we spent most of the time inside working on home school and cleaning up a little.
Lorena had to have our neighbor Hank help her start the car twice because of the lights that were left on night before last. That made the day a little unpredictable, but the kids got most of their work finished. We went to gospel meeting last night at the Ramsdell’s and had a super talk about the importance of Christ on the way home. Christian asked some very hard questions about how we know what we are supposed to do. They were great and VERY important questions. God is the one who puts these things into the hearts of our children and the inadequacy of my answers made that very clear. My prayer is that both he and Kelly will make the choices that will allow them to know what God wants them to know.
When I got home last night the kids had all there work done and organized on their individual tables. I was able to jump in and get all of Kelly’s stuff corrected in record time. Christian’s took a little longer, but really went OK, too. The disconnect was that I had not done a good job putting together his daily work schedule. We listened to the last Presidential Debate between George Bush and John Kerry. About half way through, a neighbor called and told me I had left my lights on.
I had to get up very early in the morning to see if I could jump-start the car. We could not find the jumper cables so we had to push the car out of the middle of the street where we had let it roll so we could get the cars close enough together to jump it. During that whole process, I found out we had a bad oil leak. Finally, when I went up to the bathroom with a very bad attitude, I dropped the heavy ceramic tile door of the jet-tub cover on my toe. It can only get better.
We had quite a slow day yesterday. The kids did not have much of either their school work nor house work finished when I got home. We had a talk and I will check tonight whether or not we are still on track. I fixed the dryer that had a broken blower fan and the stock in which I had money had a bad report and dropped dramatically. It has been a little bit of a rough morning. I hope it starts getting better.
Kelly got a stomach ache in her gymnastics class and had to quit about half way through, the kids played outside after I got home for a little bit before we jumped into our home school work. Lorena made a wonderful dinner of chili and cornbread and then came up to study with us. It was a very nice day all in all.
I got to thinking that I have to be more efficient in the way I correct the kids work for the day and prepare their work plan for the next day. I raise the stress level a little higher than it needs to go. When I was talking to Kelly, she suggested that she and Christian could prepare their books on their work tables with sticky notes in the places that need to be corrected and the things we need to do together ordered so I can work on them one at a time. I talked to Kelly this morning and we are going to take a shot at doing just that for awhile.
Lorena is studying hard in her math class and I think she is going to do just fine. I was very impressed last night because she had a list of stuff with which she wanted help from me, but figured it all out herself while I was working on the kids stuff. The more she is able to learn for herself, the better she will have it.
Sunday was Lorena’s and my anniversary. We have been married for twelve years. On Saturday, we ran up to Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah’s house to shoot off Christian’s rocket, but we forgot the launching rail back home in Albany, so there was really nothing we could do. We hung around there for awhile and went home. On Sunday, we went out for brunch at a very nice place between meetings. It was really a very quiet weekend. After the gospel meeting in the evening, we did a little home school and then went to bed.
Tonight is the presidential debate between President Bush and John Kerry. Kelly and the kids and I will probably listen to that together. Tomorrow we are going to go to Newberg to shoot off the rocket Christian got for his birthday and put together by him self for the most part. After that we will go up and do something in Portland. Last night, Lorena found an article in the Albany Democrat-Herald about a monthly writing competition. Kelly loves that kind of thing as does Christian. They are both planning on competing in next months competition on the subject of “Autumn”.
A couple of good things happened yesterday. First of all, we have our system worked out well enough now that I switched over to generating the daily schedule via OpenOffice.org on the Linux computer. Secondly, we found out that rather than read just the sections described in her daily work list, Kelly had been reading all the way from the first item on the list to the last item on the list and everything in between. That was five to six times as much as we wanted her to be doing. We got that straightend out now and it might cut back on some frustration. We are amazed that she has done so much! There are also some good pictures of all the students in the household.
Lorena working on algebra
Kelly studying
Christian at the whiteboard
Last night, the kids and I listened to the Vice Presidential debate between Dick Cheney and Jon Edwards. Kelly and I were the ones most interested in it. Christian worked on putting the finishing touches on his first model. It is an F16, he put it together all by himself, and it looks just awesome. I will try to put a picture of it here when I remember to take one. Lorena is making a super start on her Intermediate Algebra class. She has been very faithful in doing her homework and I think she is going to pass the class with flying colors!
Christian’s model view 1
Christian’s model view 2
The Ramsdell’s are going to have gospel meetings at their house on Thursday evenings. The boys are still going to have the regular Wednesday night gospel meeting in the library at the Cheldelin Middle School in Corvallis, but because of our schedule, we are going to try to run out to the Ramsdell’s on Thursdays. They have invited a lot of their neighbors and school friends so it should be quite interesting.