The car is ready, the kids only have a few more small homeschool items to complete, the Rizo family is on the way, and the excitement is building. We are all quite excited to head on over to Mount Bachelor and strap on our skis. This should be a super time. I will try to post some pictures and comments here.
Month: February 2005
Yesterday Lorena washed the car, got a couple of things on the car fixed at the car dealership, and then brought the car out and cleaned it up on the inside. It is immaculate. It really is like driving a new car now and will be a joy to take to Bend. Then, somehow, Christian was able to fix the garage door that was not going up and down like it should. It is very nice to have that all done. The only thing left is to get a screw to fix a loose cup-holder and we are set to go. I still have to buy a ski coat and we all need to get some long underwear, but we can do that on Saturday. I put up some new pictures of the Chapman women here.
We are starting to ramp down our homeschool a little as we move toward our ski weekend. Lorena spent a couple of hours really cleaning out the car. She is going to get a screw to fix one of the cupholders for the back seat that has been hanging from two out of three screws for about a year now. The cruise control and horn quit working and the airbag light came on, on the mini-van several weeks back and it has been bugging me. I did not want to drive over to Bend with the car in that condition so I got on the internet to find out what was wrong. It turns out that there was a recall on a part that causes exactly those problems. When I called the dealership, I was told they could have me in and get the thing fixed in a half an hour. Lorena is taking it in today right after the kids swimming lesson.
We had a leisurely three day weekend. It was really quite a good time. One of the highlights was Christian’s design of a logo and name for the new Albany swimming pool. You can see that here. He drew the logo, wrote a letter, and hand carried them into city hall and gave them to the Parks and Recs lady. I mowed the lawn this weekend and ended up with a small net loss of weight. That is a major accomplishment for me because I usually fall off the wagon big time and eat massive amounts of food. I am really going to try to reign in my eating over our upcoming ski vacation in Bend with the Rizo family. I am sure some skiing during that time will help.
It looks like we might have a new CNC router at the house in a month or so. We are ordering it from a company in Pittsburgh to make fancy rosettes for Quality Corners. I certainly hope that it works. We think we can get quite a bit of business from one or our current customers if the thing works. They will ship the machine to our house in Albany. After I have made up some samples and set up the machine so that it can run automatically, I will send it off to Ron Voorhees to use at our factory in Caldwell, Idaho.
Kelly, Christian, and I performed our first chemistry “experiment” last night. I put the experiment in quotes, because it really was not much of an experiment. The task was just to familiarize ourselves with the idea that all things are made of atoms and everything can be described in terms of its basic constituient atoms. It went OK. Actually, the text part of this chapter (and I think the next one, too) was much better than the experiment. The experiments start getting good when we get to the third chapter. I really think we will all learn a lot and have a great time doing it.
Last night we started in on RealScience-4-Kids. We read the first chapter on the periodic table of elements last night and plan to do the first experiment this evening. This really does feel like a good program. The first couple of experiments do not seem like much, but I might feel better about them after we get them done. Starting with the third experiment, it appears they really get more interesting.
We have decided to go to Mexico for most of the month of June so the family can avoid most of our annual hay fever problem here in the Willamette Valley. We are pretty much on track to do that with respect to homeschool. The only problem we have is that Kelly will have to do a good bit of extra work for this week and possible next on her section on India. The only kink that might get thrown into our plans would be the schedule of Lorena’s class at Linn-Benton Community College. Lorena is planning to take her second to last math class there this spring term. If she does that, we probably would not be able to leave for Mexico until sometime in the second week of June.
There is a Valentines Day party for all of the homeschoolers in the area today. Last night we went down and picked up cards with lollipops for Kelly and Christian to give out. This the normal homeschool play day that they have in the gym of a church just down the hill from our house, but they are having a memorial service in the gym so, weather permitting, they are going to have the event in a park. If it rains, they will postpone it for a week. It sounds, though, like the weather is going to be good.
Joe Layman and Lyle Waldo came over to stay with us for a few days after gospel meeting yesterday. Joe wants to start having a informal bible studies with people we have over from our neighborhood. I was very happy to see that Kelly was very excited about it. Christian was a little stoic, but I think he was fine with the idea. We are going to start a week from Tuesday. I think some people will show up and it will be good for us.
Lorena and the kids went to their play yesterday at Linn-Benton Community College and they said it was great. They all reported that the costumes, set, and acting were all just excellent. A bunch of people from meeting went a long, then afterwards went to Wendy’s to eat lunch. After that, Lorena and the kids drove up to Sherwood for Lorena’s doctor appointment. It is a long way to drive, but she really likes her doctor a lot. The appointment was at 3:00 PM and it started a little late so they did not get back home to Albany until well after 5:00 PM.
Joe Layman called last night and asked if we could have a bible study at our house. It is going to be really great for us and our kids. Lorena is going to invite all the neighbors and I think we might even get a few to come. It is going to be very informal. I have never done anything quite like this before, but it will make me stand up and be counted in the neighborhood. I am so proud of Lorena. She will go out and do all the inviting. Kelly was very excited about the whole deal. I think Christian liked it, too. Kelly said she would really like to be able to have a meeting at our house some day soon. Me too.
We have quite a full week ahead of us. Today will be pretty normal, with just swimming lessons to get Lorena and the kids out of the house, but tomorrow, they are all going to go to a see a performance of “Puss ‘N’ boots at Linn Benton Community College with a bunch of other homeschoolers. After that, Lorena is going to drive up to Sherwood to go to her doctor for an appointment. We were not really very happy with any of the doctors around here that were possible to get in to see, she decided to get an appointment with her old doctor from back there. On Wednesday, the kids have swimming lessons again, after which Lorena has a dentist appointment. On Thursday, there are piano lessons. I hope we all survive!
Today is a big day for the tortoise shell cat sisters. The are going in for a small operation that should make all of our lives a lot easier. Kiwi and Rubix will take their trip down to the vet this morning at about 8:30. We will go get them after they are all fixed up at 5:00 this afternoon. I am looking forward to the weekend. We were going to go to a recital for Christian in Salem, but Jill Hickenlooper, his teacher, tells us she was not planning to have him ready by then, so we get the whole weekend off. I think we will mostly just hang out. I need to get my taxes prepared and fill out some other papers for Quality Corners, but I hope to spend most of the weekend just lounging with Lorena and the kids.
We have a conflict in the house that needs to be addressed. Christian loves to do science experiments more than just about any other part of homeschool. Yesterday, he prepared and experiment to grow some different kinds of corn and beans. The kinds of science he finds interesting are inherently messy. Messiness drives Lorena nuts. Somehow, I have to find a place for Christian to do his experiments that can get a little bit messy without driving Lorena crazy. One thing we might do is build a lab on skids. Another option might be to buy an old camp trailer that we can mostly gut. Something where we could habe water and electrical, a little hotwater heater, a chemistry bench, a computer desk, a general purpose workbench, a benchtop mill, a benchtop lathe, etc. It might be a good summer project just to get the thing started.
A couple of hours after discussing the idea of doing something entrepreneurial, Lorena came up with the idea of making a tube based cat scratch post. Lorena and the kids both believe they will sell well at local pet stores and on the internet. I can think of some ways we might be able to give ourselves a competitive advantage, too. Now we need to figure out how we are going to extend our entrepreneurial effort to include individual service to family, church, and community the profitability required to stay in business.
Last Sunday, we had Jay and Karen Nelson and their five kids over for lunch between Sunday morning fellowship meeting and gospel meeting in the evening. Our kids are all about the same age, so the grownups had a nice chance to talk while the kids were out playing after we ate. We talked about God, family, life, our kids, making a living, and everything else that comes up in those rare opportunities for talking about whatever you want as opposed to what you are trying to get done. We even had time to take a pleasant drive through a new neighborhood going up near by just to see how it was going. In talking about the challenges of paying the mortgage, raising children to fear God, and setting appropriate priorities for where we are in life, I really got to thinking about “the big picture…”
The government school in our area has so many teacher in-service, conference preparation, and educational days off it is hard to keep track of them. Every time we turn around the neighborhood kids are home again during what for us would be a normal school day. Yesterday was one of those days and today is another one. It was such a beautiful day yesterday that I gave the kids half a day off and will give them another half day today so they can play with the other kids. I really do not see how they get anything done…