We were really glad to get a couple of awesome poems from our friends in Indiana. Kelly is hoping she can get permission to put Addie’s in the Kaktus Kids magazine. I apologize, but will only be able to post short posts until I get a house purchased, get my work under a little more control, and get the family out here to North Carolina from Oregon.
Month: May 2007 Page 1 of 2
Kelly,
We really enjoyed reading your poem. Very delightful and delicious! 
It made us laugh and say “cool!
Inspired by your willingness to share a poem, here’s one from each of us.
Nature’s Princess
Oh so lovely and fair her golden locks glow.
Her gown of green moss and red roses.
Oh her dazzling laugh that sounds like the birds.
Oh her bed of green moss and fresh leaves.
And her perfume that smells like lavender.
Her favorite plaything is a ball made of roses and sunshine.
Her pet is a little green frog.
And the briers do not ever hurt her.
The end.
By, Addie
Age 8
Cold Grip of Glory
That winter of 1886 the snow piled 11 feet high.
Everyday eyes watched Blue Slide nervously.
Towering mountain of ice with railroad tracks
crawling beneath. Mirrored by rolling
snowballs, tears accelerating
down the frost bitten face.
Eight young me volunteered for the job,
eager for glory. Took up positions
Girded with shovels, gloves and buffalo coats.
Their job to keep the stretch free of snow.
A priority felt for the train
that mapped this small Montana town.
Resolute boys kept their post as
sleet escaped from overturned sky buckets
while the snow crouched precariously
for the right moment to begin its slide.
Hands shadowed eyes on eight
upturned watchful faces.
“RUN!” the leader shouted as the inevitable
cannon’s boom sent them scrambling. Awakened
mountain’s shrug, trees responding protest,
roar of thunder, sickening crescendo
of battle. Followed by
silence…echoing louder than sound.
A fresh crew, the next morning,
telegraphed about the trains
delay 20 miles down
the track. High spirits, whistles
And feet tromped their way to
relieve the boys. Found none,
only that Blue Slide had slid. A
sigh swept through the party as they
realized the boy’s sense caused desertion
during the night. Until on sharp
eyed kid spotted his brother’s
pocket knife and called the others back.
In a feverish haste the men bloodied
their knuckles on the night-crusted
snow. Underneath in a soft death blanket,
smothering to the desperately searching diggers.
One man broke through a thin layer of ice
left by whispered pleas and gasped.
Rescuers hopes punished by
wide eyed marine pools,
not yet weighted with coppers, sharing back.
Other found nearby with steam tunnels that
hinted at short struggles. Arms pinned, faces
shrouded in blue, their mothers’ in black.
This poem recieved an honorable mention in a newpaper literary contest when I was 16. Must have been a slow news day!
I went to fellowship meeting in Cary, NC yesterday and met a lot of people who know people that I know. My real estate agent turned out to be good friends (and started coming to meeting through) Stan and Audrey Cook in Washington state. There is a lady in the meeting from Panama that is a native Spanish speaker who seems to have a lot in common with Lorena. This is a very beautiful part of the world, the people are very friendly, and I believe we are all going to like it here very much.
Estamos tan animados en irnos a C.N No podemos esperar ni un dia. He estado platicando con Ken y me dice que la gente es super amable y amistosa. Kelly, Christian y yo estamos pre empacando y ya casi terminamos con el cuarto de arriba, ahora nos falta bajar las cajas hacia la cochera. Ma~nana empezare a trabajar en la cocina ya hay la llevamos poco a poco. Lo bueno esque tengo muy buena ayuda y todo esta saliendo al100%.
After my first day of work, I am still very excited to be here. I will return to regular posting on Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Dad, some of my math is uncorrected. I went through it all this night. Here is a list of what I have done:
60 Corrected
61 Done
62 Done
63 Corrected
64 Done
65 Corrected
66 Corrected
67 Corrected*
68 Done
69 Corrected
70 Done
71 Done
72 Corrected
73 Corrected
74 Corrected
75 Corrected
76 Never corrected by you
77 Never corrected by you
78 Never corrected by you
79 To be corrected**
80 To be corrected**
*On 67, I only found one page. Evedently, It looks like I was not concentrating or something because I got a lot wrong on that lesson set. But luckily, before losing the other page, I corrected them. It is the first page, and it is awefully crammed, so the second page would not have very much in it anyway. I will just do it over copying my corrections and correct answers over.
** I will do these right now.
I also have some 10 problems left in my Africa which I will do now as well
We just got a brand new version of our development system for Kaktus Kids, so anticipate higher quality in these next issues. The Super Summer issue will be bigger than all of the regular issues which is very fun! If you have any cool material for our magazine, don’t hesitate to send it in soon! We hope you liked our last Kaktus Kids. We REALLY appreciate feedback. It makes us more excited for our next issues! 🙂 Bye for now!
Kaktus Kids Staff
Just a short post to let you all know I made it to Jasper, Indiana. I ate dinner and went to gospel meeting with our wonderful friends Eric and Audrey last night, then went stayed the night. They have a beautiful place in the country. All four of their children are just simple exceptional homeschool kids. The two oldest, Adie and Conrad, write wonderful poetry. I am dying for them all to get reacquainted with Kelly and Christian and maybe even contribute to the Kaktus Kids magazine! I will write more when I get the chance.
ThelLast post was one of my posts from before.
We are basically on the home stretch with home school. Christian and I spoke with the Larsons today and it seems that they are finishing up too. They are planning on finishing their reports today and called to ask if they could borrow one of Christian’s claymation movies for Daniel’s report on clay animation. Anyway, here is a poem that I wrote yesterday for school:
The Man in the Purple Cowboy Hat
by Kelly Chapman
There was a man, he had a shop
he sold old chairs and bottles of pop
he sold blonde wigs, he sold pig fat
and he wore a purple cowboy hat
he sold big pots, he sold small pans
he sold rubber gloves to cover your hands
he sold a thesaurus in the shape of a cat
and he wore a purple cowboy hat
he sold roof shingles, he sold bottlecaps
he sold beach bags and beat up maps
he sold a bird cage and a welcome mat
and he wore a purple cowboy hat
he sold escargot (it was alive)
he sold spam and an old bee hive
there was a big box, where he sat
and fiddled with the ribbon on his cowboy hat
he talked to me, most every day
whenever I went out to play
he looked up, smiled, gave me a pat
and tipped up his purple cowboy hat
“Howdy Joe!” he says to me
and he looks right happy, as pleased as can be
“Would you like an old chair or a welcome mat?”
he asked ‘neath his purple cowboy hat
“How ’bout a beach bag, for when it gets hot?”
“or a nice and cool bottle of pop?”
“or maybe a book in the shape of a cat?”
said the man with the purple cowboy hat.
“No thanks Mr. Maloney.” I reply
“I just dropped in to say hi”
“Maybe next time, now how about that?”
and he smiles and nods ‘neath his cowboy hat.
Dad left at 4:00 AM this morning, his pickup crammed full with luggage and books on tape. He met with Craig Jacobsen at 10:00 AM in LaGrande (a wonderful little town) and should be happily on his way to Ontario (?) by now. We are bumbling about on our last week of homeschool and working hard on our Annual Research Reports for 2007. Boy, has this year gone by quickly or what? It has been more than a year since we left Texas and now we are leaving Oregon for North Carolina! Mom is thinking about posting up on the blog now! That is exciting! And we finished another perfect issue of Kaktus Kids! Speaking of Kaktus Kids, when you post a comment up on the Kaktus Kids post, it is much like giving us a tip. We appreciate it because we need the feedback. 😉 During the weeks that Dad is gone, Christian and I will be swimming a lot more. Swimming provides much more exercise than tennis anyway.
Today is my last day of work in Corvallis. I had a very nice talk with the President of the North American division of the company yesterday and will be cleaning out my desk today. It was nice to know that I have not closed any doors with my current company. We have had our house in Albany for coming up on four years now and we have had some good times in this part of the world. I ran over to Jim and JoAnn’s house yesterday afternoon to give them a personal good bye and we had a nice talk. I expect that they will come out to North Carolina some day before too long to visit us. I know Trisha is coming out and I bet we would not have to talk to hard to get Aunt Carolyn to come along, too. Now Uncle Merle might be a little work, but I bet we might even get him out there some day if we promise him a visit to the NRA again. We got a nice letter from Chet and Kayleen in Australia with the scope on the Raleigh-Durham area where we will be living. Life will be topsy-turvy for a little while, but I expect that we should be all under control by the time school starts again next fall.
Check out the latest and greatest Kaktus Kids ‘zine! Read it and chuckle in your superior way if you are adults or send it to the kids who matter in your life! Don’t forget to send in a picture or poem or a piece of pumpkin pie! In this issue we have a cool poem by one of our dear Texas friends, a cool Chinese rice bowl recipe, how to draw Kaktus Komix characters, funny photos, a story preview, and much much more! Be sure to check it out!
Click here to read
This is a 6MByte PDF
In other news (actually the same news)…
if you read this blog (which your probably do) y’all know that we are moving! Perhaps you have done some extensive research on some aspect of our move and, if in fact you DO read this blog, you know that we will be traveling for at least 10 hours a day in a minivan cram packed with cats, energy bars, books on tape AAAAAND, probably, the laptop, then you will almost certainly come to the conclusion that the editor and reporter (ahem, Kelly and Christian) will have tons of time to work on the way cool summer issue of Kaktus Kids! Be expecting a biiiiig issue everyone! Just in case we run out of material though, it wouldn’t hurt to send us a little poem or a story or a picture or two… 🙂
We are in the process of moving from the west coast to the east coast–Oregon to North Carolina. Last night was our last Wednesday night bible study at Truman and Elinore, our Alaskan friends’ house. The study was James 1 and the theme of the evening was patience. We have loved being in that meeting for the short time it has been there and it could not have ended with a nicer meeting. After the meeting, Truman and Elinore explained how much they loved doing cross-country drives. It was a nostalgic moment because Elinore is now in a wheelchair and it makes those kind of trips very difficult. They are amazing people nonetheless. Even though they do not do cross country drives anymore, they go to plays, concerts, dinners, visits, shopping, site-seeing, and a plethora of other engagements. And the best part about them is they are ALWAYS cheerful. What a lesson for my family. What a lesson for me.
I am really looking forward to my drive across the country now.
The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to finish things well. As I finish my work here in Corvallis, I feel the need and am making the effort to leave my current work so that those who follow me will have the very best opportunity for success. My colleague, Ann, who will leave here position doing the same thing as I, but a week later, is doing a stellar job of exactly that. Both of us have agreed with our manager to be available, after we leave, to help in any way we can to make our successors as successful as possible. It not only feels good, it feels right.
At the same time, Kelly and Christian are working hard to finish their school year well. Yesterday was a particularly difficult day for Christian because he had a significant amount of extra work to complete. He really worked hard and got it all done. That has set a good base so that he can finish all his material between now and May 22 when the school year is over. There are special challenges in this next couple of weeks because Lorena, the kids, and the cats will have to be out of the house for the real estate people and potential buyers to do viewings. They are working hard to finish well, too.
Another cool thing that happened yesterday was that Kelly paid Christian part of her babysitting money because he helped her with all the little kids she cares for on Monday nights. I was proud of her for thinking of that.
Note to Bryan: Have your numbers ready for Friday–I think my new diet consultant is showing results!
A colleague wanted me to post this:
This is the second to last week of homeschool and the last week of work for me here in Corvallis. We are very excited about our move. There will not be much to report for the next little while other than newsy stuff about the move to North Carolina, so expect fairly short posts until I am back East and can right about our new digs. Yesterday, we went to Sunday morning meeting with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah for Mother’s Day, then went and got Lorena (and me) new cellphones. We also bought a nice, but inexpensive GPS for the big trips we will be taking. The kids are in their last week of math and will do the first and second drafts of their reports this week. This will have been a super year for homeschool. We accomplished a lot and will be set up for a great new year in North Carolina.
We are North Carolina bound! I accepted an offer with Centice in Morrisville (Raleigh/Durham) North Carolina. It is a great job and a great part of the world. The whole family is ecstatic about the move.
Yesterday, I turned in my resignation at the place I work. My trips to North Carolina and Texas were for interviews. Both of those interviews resulted in job offers, so now we are working out the details so we can decide which job I should take. Both of the companies that offered me positions are doing very interesting high tech things with machine vision. It is a hard choice. In the mean time, my company went ahead and sent me on a business trip to New Hampshire anyway, so I am again sitting in Portland International Airport writing while I wait for the plane.
*Special note to Bryan: You have a celebrity, three time NCAA national champion daughter to give you diet and conditioning advice, so I would not be looking too closely at the rule book.
In this diet death match I am in with Bryan, I have known for a long time that I was in way over my head. Bryan is way out of my league and has been beating me like a drum. To try to turn that I around I have brought on a diet consultant. Bryan… take that!!!!
Jared of Subway with Kenneth “Slim” Chapman (Dad)
Well, I made it back to Oregon in one piece. I hope to have some interesting things to report in tomorrow’s post, but who knows. It was a long weekend with very little sleep until the very end. I visited College Station, Texas, and Morrisville, North Carolina. Both of them are beautiful places, but a little flatter than that to which I am accustomed.
Stock graphic for our picks:
