Month: June 2005 Page 1 of 2

It is very warm here in Monterrey right now. Today we do not have too much planned, so I am going to teach Grandpa Lauro how to upload his images to the internet. I think I should be able to teach him how to put images onto a CD and get snapshots printed at the H.E.B. store close to their house. He is really getting a lot better at managing all of this. We have been having quite a good time fooling around with all. He only has one photo up in his web gallery right now, but will have more very soon.

Christian working hard

Update: Here are some pictures from our day yesterday.

We continue to enjoy our stay in Mexico. I have taken a lot of pictures, but I do not have the right kind of cable to download them onto Grandpa Lauro’s computer. As Kelly mentioned, today went to an amusement park that was just what I expected it to be. Before that, though, the workers, Alan Anderson and Marcos Valdez had a bible study with us on I Samuel 15 after having spent the night and eaten breakfast. Tonight we will go to Tia Mina’s house for the bible study of that same chapter. We have been invited to stay there for dinner after meeting.

The good news is that Tia Dayana took us to Cousin Dayanita’s elementary school where we were able to buy text books for Kelly and Christian’s homeschool. We got two books for Kelly and one book for Christian. The second book for Christian will not come in until Friday. They are excellent books. I think they will be perfect for what we are trying to accomplish.

Today we went to el Mundo De Adeveras with Adrian, Christian, and Dayanita. We had a blast! When we entered the park we saw a little street filled with a whole bunch of shops and signs. First we went to get our credit cards at a little souveneir shop. We use our credit cards to win Devis, the currency in Adeveras land. Then we went to the bank where we activated our credit cards. After that we went to the car dealers and bought a car that we could use to drive around in a special area. They went pretty slow but it was still lots of fun. After that we ate lunch and went to the sports area. Adrian, Dayanita, and I got to be television reporters on a sports show. Then we went to the farm. Christian and Adrian played on the Go-Carts and all of us went on the bathangers. We also shopped at a grocerey store, played on a jungle gym, played doctor at a hospital, were reporters at a newspapers, and read books at the library. The best part, in my opinion, was buying our Cemex Cement bags with the Devis we collected. Christian, Dayanita, and I each got 2, 4-ounce, bags of sand. Guero didn’t want them so he won a few more Devis and got a toy car instead. Write later.

We have arrived in Mexico! Tonight we will be going to my cousin’s house. Adrian (a.k.a. El guero) filled his pool and has invited all his cousins over to play in it. I’m looking forward to go there not only because of his pool and my cousins, but because his mother makes the best mango popsicles I have ever tasted.:-) Tomorrow we probably will be going to el Mundo de Adeveras or World of Truth. It is an amusement park for children where you can be a rock climber, doctor, airlplane pilot, grocery store clerk, and much more. They even have a real airplane there which my uncle will clean today. On Sunday we went to Allende where my great grandfather Jose lives. But first we stopped at his land where his orange orchard is. Grandpa Lauro picked a whole bunch and brought them home with us. After we visited his land we went to his house. He is very nice to Christian and I. Lately we have been playing with my cousin Dayanita alot. Christian, El Guero, and she are all the same age so they get along well enough. I’ll write more later since I have to go get ready for the party.

I have been down here now for four days and this is the first time I have had a chance to write. We have been off visiting all the family everywhere around Monterrey. I will start this post off with a really nice picture of Grandpa Lauro and his mother Great Grandma Rosenda.

Grandpa Lauro and Great Grandma Rosenda

We are very glad to be here with everyone. For a brief rundown on what we have been doing. After I arrived on Friday morning, I rested a little then the whole family got together in the back yard for a carne asada. The next day we rested up and then went over to Tio Rigo and Tia Minita’s house to have a tamale feast, again with the whole family. After we ate, we went to see the new beautiful new addition Tio Jorge had done to he and Tia Mari’s house. After the Sunday morning meeting, we went to Allende to see the beautiful piece of property Conchita inherited from her mother. Then, that evening we went to Tio Hector and Tia Betty’s house for another excellent carne asada. On Monday, we did not do much other than look for Spanish language text books for homeschool for Kelly and Christian. We did not have much luck, but Tia Dayana came by this morning with Prima Dayanita’s text books. They were excellent. She said we could buy them at Dayanita’s school, so that is what we are going to do first thing tomorrow morning. After that, we will go to an amusement park called El Mundo de a de Veras. The workers are coming to stay the night tonight, too, so we have a very full schedule.

I made it. Today, after work, I will head to Mexico. My plane leaves a little after midnight. I will arrive in Monterrey on Friday morning a little before ten. I am tired of being away from my family. My next post should be from Monterrey. I went to to the Wednesday night bible study last night at the Myers. The study was on I Corinthians 14–mostly about speaking in tongues. It was a little difficult for me to understand what was meant when Paul spoke about unknown tongues in this context. Other than that, I did not do anything of note.

Last night, I went down to the new teriyaki place by the Heritage Mall and got a ricebowl. After that, I spent five minutes at Heather’s place to explain how to print her emails properly. Then, I went into the mall and looked for a book to read on the trip to Mexico–I couldn’t find one. I am still going pretty crazy not having my family with me. I called and talked to Grandpa Lauro for about a half an hour on the telephone. Lorena and the kids had gone out to dinner with Tio Laurin’s family and Grandma Conchita for dinner. The kids sound like they are having just a great time. They are playing with all their cousins. Dayanita, Laurito, Jorgito, Lynncito, Adrian, Stefania, y Katy have all been over to play with Christian and Kelly. I cannot wait to get down there to see them.

With the Wednesday night bible study at the Myers in Jefferson, at least I have something to do tonight to keep me occupied. I will try to get all packed up and get some clothes washed today so I can just pick up the stuff at home and head out for the airport when I get home tomorrow.

Last night I paid all the bills so I will be ready to go to Mexico on Thursday. Because of Quality Corners, I also had enough money to buy our Sonlight home school curriculum for next year. It is really nice to have that out of the way. The kids will be very excited to receive that shortly after we return from Mexico. There are only a few things left to buy, so it is nice to get a jump start on our program this year. We received ten copies of the Ubuntu Linux operating system in the mail yesterday. Amazing. I am really looking forward to putting it on Grandpa Lauro’s computer so I can teach him how to do email. I mowed the lawn last night, too. It was really a nice evening. I still miss my family very, very much.

The family is having a great time in Monterrey. We miss each other very much. I do not do so good without them. One of my favorite things in the world is to hang out with Lorena’s wonderful family and eat carne asada. I missed it on Father’s Day, but Minita was kind enough to send us a picture. There are also a bunch of new photos up in the gallery.

Eating carne asada for Father’s Day at Grandpa Lauro’s house

In the meantime, I continue to trade computer services for food. What a great deal. I went over to the Myers household after lunch. We had a wonderful time. Steve and Elena cooked a marvelous taco dinner. We had a great time just hanging out and talking. They let me work on their computers a little and I enjoyed it very much!

Last night I went over to our friend, Heather Eblen’s house. Her parents, Cal and Lily Harper were there, too. They fixed me an absolutely fabulous meal of salmon and all the fixings and I fixed Heather’s computer. They served me a very unique dessert. It was strawberries with sour cream and brown sugar. You dip a strawberry in sour cream and then roll it in the brown sugar. WOW! I was able to get her computer going for her just fine. I had set up her computer to run Ubuntu Linux, but printing from the Firefox browser did not work nor did the Shockwave/Flash player. I got those working and also was able to get her up and going on instant messaging with Gaim. They are always so kind. I felt bad that they went to so much trouble to feed me. They don’t know it, but I would have paid them for the fun of working on the computer. Tonight I am going to try to go to David and Gladys Christie’s house to get Glad’s laptop computer to the point where she can recover the data on it. I will also help her buy a new laptop. I bet you I do pretty good in the food department there, too.

It is pretty lousy being away from my family for a week, but so far I have been using my computer skills to score dinner on a pretty regular basis, so maybe I will survive. I talked to Lorena on the telephone for about forty minutes last night after I got home. It sounds like the kids are doing just great. They were a little worried about me because they had left the phone off the hook the night before, so I could not get in touch with them and they thought something might have happened to me. Grandpa Milo is in the hospital with double pnuemonia. He will be in for another couple of days. We think is because he is allergic to cedar, but went ahead and worked on putting on a cedar roof anyway. I will keep checking in on him.

It really stinks to be away from the family. I am sure they are having a great time in Mexico seeing Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita, but I miss them a lot. I went to the Wednesday evening bible study last night at the Meyers’ home. Steve and Elena invited me to dinner on Sunday. That will be nice. Steve and I are on pretty much the same wavelength politically so we should have a good time. Tonight I am having dinner with Cal and Lily Harper at Heather Eblen’s house so I can fix Heather’s computer. That should be fun.

I think I will go ahead and purchase our homeschool books for next year sometime next week. That way we can be sure they will arrive in time to start school right after Labor Day in September. We will have to think about starting a week early this year because we are going take off a week in December to go to Puerto Vallarta with Lorena’s family, a week in March to go skiing at Mount Bachelor, and we would really like to give the kids a week off for Spring Break, too. Maybe it would make sense to start a week early.

The computer fot the CNC router has not yet arrived. I am looking forward to getting started with that.

Heading to see Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita

I am now a bachelor for a little over a week. I hate this, but I am sure the rest of the family is going to have a great time in Mexico. It is amazing how family life has changed us all. We were all very sad at the airport and we are only going to be apart for a little while. The CNC Router arrived. I am now waiting for the computer to run it to arrive. I hope it comes soon as it will give me something to do to keep me from going crazy. I will probably go visit some people, too.

My beautiful bride and her rose

About 8:00 this evening, I wil drive Lorena, Kelly and Christian up to the airport so they can fly to Mexico to visit Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita. We all are very excited to go to Mexico, but sad to be apart from each other for a week. Both of the kids are a little afraid of flying before they get started, but after they are under way, they do just great. It is amazing the amount of planning they do just to avoid the boredom of the trip down there and back. You would think they would worry more about what to do while they are actually in Monterrey, but no, they absolutely dread the 12-13 hours of travel, door to door from Albany to Monterrey.

Last night, we gave out some more of the trees Grandpa Milo got for us to anyone in he neighborhood that wanted some. I also replaced a tree we think is dead. I will try to keep them watered while Lorena is gone. It is amazing how much I have come to depend on Lorena. She is actually planning to take all of my things she thinks I will not need with her as she does not believe I am capable of doing that for myself. This inspite of the fact that I spent twenty years travelling the world before we got married. She is the best wife in the world.

My nephew Charile came by to leave my pickup that he had borrowed to get his bed from his house down to his apartment close to Oregon State U. He brought the mate to a bunkbed set donated to us by Aunt Jean. We have the first half already set up in the bonus room. It will be great to have the other half, because during homeshool study time, it is always good to have at least one bed for each student for reading to avoid territorial war. Thank you Aunt Jean!

Update: The CNC router arrives today! The computer will come by UPS in the next day or so. We are quite excited to get it to start working on a whole new product offering for Quality Corners.

Lorena passed her College Algebra class. I looked up her final grade on the internet. She will now move on to the final course she needs for her degree and that is calculus. We are all quite excited that she is moving on so well. She now has 56 credit hours. She needs at least 90 to get an associate degree, but will probably take more than that at the community college before she moves on. The current set of courses she wants to take after math include sequences in accounting and economics as well as an individual class in statistics to get them out of the way for a bachelors degree. After that, the main goal will be just to fulfill the credits required to get an associate degree.

My niece Amy graduated from Portland State University this weekend. In addition, three other people in our immediate circle graduated from various institutions and there was a birthday party for the little boy next door. It was a very busy weekend for the weekend right before Lorena and the kids leave for Mexico. About the best part for Kelly and Christian was the weenie roasting party at our next door neighbor’s house. It turned out quite well. My nephew Charlie came by to borrow the pickup for the weekend. He was going to use it to haul his bed from his mom’s house to his apartment for school for next year. He is also picking up the top half of a bunkbed set that Aunt Jean is giving us for our bonus room. She already gave us the bottom half. Not much else is new other than that I was thinking that Lorena and the kids would fly out to Mexico tonight when they are really going to fly out tomorrow night.

I left my billfold at home when I went to work today. Lorena will bring it over to me when she comes to Corvallis to get the tires rotated on the car at Les Schwab. She is also going to get the newspaper and mail deliveries cancelled for the time we are in Mexico. There are so many little things to do to get ready for a trip like this. I am really glad she is so good at all this. The CNC router is supposed to arrive today, too. I hope Lorena is there when it arrives or I will have to run down to UPS to pick it up. I think the machine and the computer are coming in two different packages.

We have a bunch of picnics, and birthday and graduation parties to attend this weekend. I just do not think we are going to be able to make it to all of them. There is just too much stuff to get done for the trip. I also want to mow and fertilize the lawn before we go. Something is going to give.

Everyone in the Chapman household is running like mad to get ready to go to Mexico. Every time we go to Mexico, we like to have some verses memorized in both English and Spanish for Grandpa Lauro and Grandma Conchita. Kelly is staying in practice on Psalm 91 and Christian is putting the finishing touches on Psalm 8. Last night, I got a great idea for next years memorization. Our Wednesday night bible study in Jefferson was on the body and its members in Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12. I am thinking those chapters would be great chapters of about the right length for the kids to memorize next year. I am not completely settled on that yet, as I mentioned some other ideas in previous posts, but right now I am leaning that way.

Beside the verses, we have a ton of other little things to get done before Lorena and the kids can leave. We want to get the oil changed and the tires rotated on both the cars, the cats lined up with someone to feed them, the lawn fertilized and cut, the newspaper and mail put on hold, etc., etc. The kids are very excited about going to Mexico, but very, very bored with getting ready to go. None of the neighborhood, government school kids are out of school until after Christian and Kelly go to Mexico, so there will be no one with whom to play until they get back.

On top of all that, our CNC router is supposed to arrive on Friday! I will get more a chance to work with it after everyone has left.

School is completely out now. Lorena took her math final yesterday, but is not sure how she did. I think she did just fine. Kelly and Christian finished their standardized tests. Both of them felt the tests were very easy. With all that out of the way, I was inspired to start planning for next year. I got out the Sonlight catalog and identified all the things we believe we will need from them for next year. If I have the resources, I really do not like to skimp on materials. When I added up all the costs, it came out to just under $1500. We will buy materials from some other companies that should bring that total up to around $2000 total.

That is about what the materials cost at the beginning of the year, last year, too. In addition, we are planning to buy a new computer which will use primarily for homeschool sometime this fall. Including the computer and all the materials we buy during the school year, our total cost of homeschooling for the year should be around $3000. That is not bad, and it should go down dramatically next year as we will not need to buy another computer and Christian can use the books we bought for Kelly’s fifth grade year. We are hoping to keep the average per year cost to under $2500 for both the kids.

The kids and I looked at the books in the program for next year and they are just as awesome as the ones we used this year. Christian’s books will focus on the history of the United States from 1850 to the present with Franklin Escher, Jr.’s The Story of the U.S.A. books and the second half of Boorstin’s Landmark History of the American People providing a narrative base. He studied American history up to 1850 this year. Kelly will start into a two year survey of history with Susan Wise Bauer’s Story of the World as a narrative base. Again, the many books that accompany these narratives and flesh out the program are fabulous.

The other books we will get from Sonlight are continuations of Singapore Math, Spelling Power, and A Reason for Handwriting. I have decided to add art (drawing this year) and the Wordly Wise vocabulary builder for both of the kids, too. The only items we have left to purchase from other companies are RealScience-4-Kids, Easy Grammar and Igniting Your Writing.

Christian and Kelly are taking their annual standardized tests today at Calvary Chapel in Corvallis. They take about four hours during which Lorena will be able to do the final studying for her College Algebra class that she takes later this afternoon. I worked at ATS until about 9:30 last night, so I got a little bit of a late start today. Lorena did not think she knew how to get to the kid’s testing location, so I led them there on the way to work. We were about a half an hour early so Lorena went down to McDonalds to get a cup of coffee before the test.

Update: Right after lunch I got an email telling me the CNC Router we ordered will get here around Friday. That is very good news as it will allow me to contribute a little more in the effort to grow Quality Corners. I hope it gets here by then so we can play with it on Saturday. I talked to the kids after they took there standardized tests today, too. The seem to think the did just great. I will report as soon as the test results come to us in the mail.

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Dad and his wall to decorate the electrical services on our lawn

My wall might not look like much, but I got a health dose of much needed exercise putting it up. We cannot do much on the side of the services other than put some netting to prevent weeds and a layer of rock to spruce it up a little. We plan to backfill the side away from the services to form a fairly long slope where Lorena can plant her flowers, shrubs, special grasses, and that sort of thing. We were quite fortunate to get a strong rain last night with more on the way. It is not so fun for the kids to have that kind of weather during their summer vacation, but it will be great for our new trees.

The list of books from the previous post was an outgrowth of our effort to clean up and organize the books we read last year. I was amazed that we were only missing one book that I am confident will show up as soon as Lorena finishes her math class and has a little more time to organize her house again. We printed out a list of all the books and checked them off as we put them into two boxes, one for Christian’s third grade year and one for Kelly’s fifth grade year. Then we filed all their schoolwork that had not already been filed into the big filing cabinet in the bonus room. The kids need to take their State of Oregon test tomorrow and we will have completed everything.

Christian has been wanting to get something he can do on the airplane when Lorena, Kelly, and Christian travel to Mexico later this month, so we went to Trump’s Hobby store in Corvallis to pick him out a small airplane model. He picked out a model of the Wright Flyer. I talked to Kelly about what she might like to do and she thought that it might be nice to do a knitting project. I do not know whether I can get her up to speed by the time they fly out, but I will certainly do it when we get back home. I am going to try to get them set up to listen to Tolkien’s The Return of the King audio CD book and some drawing materials. That should keep them well occupied for the trips down and back.

Lorena is studying hard for her test tomorrow afternoon. I think she is just about ready. She can study today and then again for four hours while the kids are doing their testing tomorrow. It will be a great relief if she can get through this class successfully.