Lorena’s aunt Mina, Martha’s daughter, spent the day with Lorena and the kids yesterday. After swimming lessons, Lorena went over to Tony’s house to pick up her Mina. They made tamales together and, after I got home, we all went to the bible study out in Jefferson at the Myers’ house. Doreen Dutton, one of the workers, was there. Mina knew Doreen’s cousin Carol from when Carol was in the work in New Mexico. The kids got just a little bit behind today on their homeschool work mostly because of Mina’s visit. I gave them a day off on their math today, so they should be able to catch up without any trouble. They are very far ahead on their math. We could not do any more math for the rest of the year and even start in without any math for a couple of months next year and still be ahead. Mina stayed with us last night and will go with Lorena and the kids to piano lessons. Lorena will drop Mina back off at Tony’s house when she goes to Corvallis for her math class.
Month: May 2005
I think I loaded the kids up with too much work yesterday. Neither of them did very well on their math, not so much because of the difficulty of the material, but because of the amount of it. Today, I gave them a regular day, but told them that for the math, they would have two days to do it. They are behind on one of their RealScience-4-Kids experiments, but should get that caught up today. They only have that and three more before they have completed the chemistry portion of this series.
Lorena went to a party at the apartment of Annie and Shannon, two professing girls attending Oregon State. Tony, Martha, and Mina were there along with Andrew and Rhonda Gibbler. Andrew and Rhonda are really a breath of fresh air. Annie and Shannon asked Lorena how our kids are getting socialized if we have them in homeschool. It is such a silly question coming from a professing person. It would even be sillier if they knew Kelly and Christian. I guess I should not be too harsh on them; their presence at Oregon State, living on their own during their freshman year explains a lot.
I remember those last few weeks before the end of the school year when no one really wanted to be inside studying. The weather was too nice to be closed up in a classroom and we had been studying for a long, long time. We are in those days now. There is a little difference in that our classes are a lot more interesting than those of the government school and the materials are certainly better, but we have been studying for a long, long time. The kids are looking forward to finishing up so they can start their summer of swimming, reading whatever they want, playing with the neighbor kids, and regularly complaining of boredom. The upside to our finish date is that we will be finishing a couple of weeks ahead of the government school kids. We tried to take off the same number of days as they, but they took off so many that we just could not keep up. We started earlier than they, too. In one sense it will not be so good because the kids will be off for quite awhile with only themselves for companions until the other kids get home in the evening.
With only four weeks until the end of the school year and the sun shining, we spent one of our laziest weekends ever at the house. Mostly, the kids just played with the neighbor kids and Micah, the grandson of our neighbor, Vicky across the street. Micah is a great kid who gets along with Christian better than just about anyone. He stayed with us while Vicky and her two daughters went off to a Mothers Day dinner at Vicky’s church. Lorena and I relaxed. The cats joined us.
This will change rapidly as Lorena gets to the end of her semester and the spring cleanup gets into full swing. We have decided not to go to Mexico until the very end of June or the beginning of July. It will be extremely hot in Monterrey at that time, but the timing will work out way better. Maybe next year we can work it out to be there during the allergy season. Not only would we miss the allergies, but also the weather would be much more temperate.
This is another editorial that I wrote for the monthly newspaper editorial contest. The topic was the challenge for me at first but then Mom suggested math. I wrote it like a poem and had lot’s of fun. I probably won’t win the contest this month since I already won it the first time and they haven’t published my essays since.
Math. A never ending story of decimals, fractions, ratios, and multiplication that seems to prevail over me and frustrate me again and again. But when I conquer the plague of numbers and figures that torment my mind, what a good feeling it is to know that I have mastered something I once thought difficult. And then comes yet another tempest which I must learn to brave as I sit with a pencil in my unmoving hand, until I have it! Firmly locked in my mind never to be forgotten or neglected unless I let it go.
When the school year is done I might be joyful that I am freed of the digits and shapes that had been so awful to me, but soon I find myself yearning for math yet again. I’ll never know when I’ll have to pull out of my knowledge some combination of numbers from the constantly growing jumble of my mathematical mind to solve a problem. But when I do I must remember that I could not have done without that wonderful, horrible, challenge. Math.
We took a few pictures of the kids in the new clothes Grandma Conchita sewed for them and sent up with Mina when she came to visit Tony and Martha. I put these photos up in our photo gallery along with some others of a dinner we had for Mina, Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, Tony, and Martha. We had a super time when they came over last Sunday. Here are is the one of Kelly with the Mexican skirt and blouse Grandma Conchita sewed for her:
Here is one of Christian with the lab coat Grandma Conchita sewed for him:
