Month: September 2008 Page 1 of 2

Notice my slovenly appearance in this photo–three days growth of beard, puffy face. Do you notice what is in the box? Aunt Julia sent us a birthday package with nice cards for all of us (and a nice little extra for each of the kids). That was just a cover for her enabling ways. She knew that Bryan was at his daughter Mari’s wedding, probably eating and gaining weight, so the pressure was off on the weight loss death match and my defenses were down. So Aunt Julia, in her normal, conniving, underhanded way, and because she knows Mom always liked me best, sent me a box chock full of Snickers. It was addressed to all of us, but I knew EXACTLY who it was for.  If you noticed a huge spike in the weight chart, you now know why.  Actually, it was a wonderful surprise.  Thanks for the care package Aunt Julia!

July 26, 2004 – Quiet weekend
July 27, 2004 – Quality Corners update

We try to maintain a good perspective on the current election as it unfolds before us. The party conventions excite and entertain. The debates incite strong emotion. It is easy to get too worried about the course of local and world politics in the most powerful country in the world in turbulent times. Kelly read a book last week about events such as these, but that occurred in the couple of decades starting in 47 A.D. in Rome. She was assigned to read The Flames of Rome by Paul L. Maier as part of her Sonlight literature curriculum. I was amazed to learn that Maier studied under Karl Barth at Basel in the 1950’s.  Maier makes a statement in the preface that he used no proper names in the book nor did he describe any events that did not appear in the historical record of the time.  Some of the activities in the book were sufficiently repugnant that he put in a disclaimer that said that he did not want to offend the sensibilities of the reader, but it would have been dishonest not to include the material.  There do seem to be some strong analogies between the events of the first century and the events of our own times. 

Kelly felt like this was one of the best books she has ever read.  That is quite a statement because we have read some amazing books over the last four years.  Some of the events in the book she described as “disturbing and truly disgusting.”  The book did not have a happy ending.  I decided to read the book myself.  It is always good to be reminded that our hope is not in America and that America is not good.  Goodness and hope derive from a completely different source.  We have had it so good for so long that we expect certain freedoms and luxuries.  Every reminder that no one has ever made any promises that we would have an easy life helps us to base our hope in reality.  The reality is that things will get bad before they get better, either in our own time or that of our children or grandchildren.  Maybe this book will help me remember that.

July 21, 2004 – Working late
July 23, 2004 – Still working…

I have often written about how much we have enjoyed going to the library in Holly Springs. It is more than that. We talk about life in the car, eat breakfast at the McDonalds on the way, and plan the day as we go. Last night we listened to the presidential debate so talked about that a little. After that, we talked about what life is like when one is in college, the relative merits of Old Navy, Target, and Goodwill. We talked about going to Lowes for materials to finish the cat tower.

It dawned on me that, at most, we only have two or three years of these wonderful Saturday mornings. So then we discussed how important it is to realize that, in our worldview, life is linear–going in one direction toward an important conclusion–not circular, repeating itself over and over. We discussed the importance of enjoying every stage of our life for what it is. I explained how life really became a lot easier about the time I started my Masters degree. I had complained to Grandpa Milo that I would be 34 years old by the time I got my degree.

He said, “How old will you be if you don’t get your degree.”

It was like a light went on in my head. There is nothing I can do about the speed and direction of time, so I should enjoy every moment for what it is. Now that I am 53, it is a great joy to get the most out of being at the stage in my life where I have something to offer people just starting out in their careers at work, homeschooling my kids, enjoying the companionship of Lorena, and being at the zenith of my career. I know that I have 7 or 8 years of this if there is no huge dynamic (like death or an inheritance of $10,000,000,000–the former being more likely than the latter). Then it will be time to move on to that joyful stage when my career is ramping down and I can start thinking of doing something crazy again, like moving to Mexico to teach at a University or going back to college to do a Ph.D. in something useless.

These Saturday mornings make me very happy and thankful to have been given such a life as I have. I am glad I learned all this when I did. I have hope my children will learn this even earlier than I.

My birthday this year was very, very good. You will remember that I went hog wild at the party on Wednesday after our bible study by eating a scoop of vanilla ice cream and and an entire chocolate cupcake with frosting. The thing I do not understand is that even after that, I am at a new weight low only two days after the fact. I am almost thirty-five pounds down from where I started. If I can stay on the wagon through the weekend, I should be on target to meet my goal of forty pounds lost before I fly down to Monterrey to visit my in-laws. Woo-hoo. One of the things I have noticed after having lost all that weight is that I can actually get my ring on and off–something I have not been able to do without massive amounts of grunting, soap, scraped skin and accompanying pain.

So, with the winter on the way we have a fairly busy schedule.  We have our trip to Mexico, a visit from cousin Julia who currently works for a famous rock star, and a visit from Grandpa Milo, Grandma Sarah, and Miss Turbone for Thanksgiving.  The kid’s name for my buddy Warren is Miss Turbone instead of Mr. Bone.  I do not think he could tell the difference until we told him.  Maybe he was just being gracious.  It came from a book we read once, but there was a Miss Turbone the kids in the book called Mr. Bone.  Actually, it is pretty funny.  At any rate, with winter coming and not much planned other than travel and visits, I have decided the time is ripe to start trying to complete our half-finished projects before Lorena starts getting some ideas about buying new furniture.  That always happens when we are not busy enough.

The first project on the list is the cat tower.  I am going to try to spin that back up this very weekend.  We have to make some adjustments to what we have already completed, buy some new feet, carpet, rope, and PVC pipe before we can get started so a visit to Lowes is definitely on the schedule for tomorrow–right after the library.  Then, we really need to get Christian’s room painted. He finds it quite challenging to sleep there with one wall of a fairly hideous deep blue color.  We just have to find something a little more soothing.  The wall painting thing is Lorena’s special domain as is the vast bulk of the furniture refinishing effort, so I am going to encourage her to finish the dresser she has already started, then help her find some new project at a garage sale, a flea market, or Craig’s list. Kelly, of course has Betty Blonde and all of us want to work on our video blogging. On the technical side, we are still moving forward on the volcano computer. We are hoping to have it ready for the volcano by spring.

July 19, 2004 – Working the weekend at ATS
July 20, 2004 – Scott Ramsdell professes

We took cupcakes and ice cream to our bible study at Lester’s and Esther’s house.  Everyone stuck around for a good while after meeting to just talk and eat really fattening stuff.  Even I had both a cupcake and a scoop of ice cream.  After all it was my birthday.  Still, I am back down to my lowest weight since we started this death match.  It turns out that it was Youngin’s and Madelaine’s birthday on the 19th.  Everyone sang Happy Birthday for me, then sang again for Madelaine, but not for Youngin because she did not fess up until it was too late.  I put them into my calendar now, though, so we will be ready for them next year.  We are going to have the “main” party for me on Friday evening.  It is funny how, the older I get, the more I am interested in using these kinds of events as an excuse to eat food that will cause me to gain weight, so all we are going to do is hang out together as a family and eat shrimp and steak.  How much better does it get than that?!??

All we are trying to do now in homeschool is get everything completely completed (if that makes sense) leading up to the trip.  I do not want anything hanging over the kids’ heads while they are on vacation in Mexico.  I might have them do a little math, but other than that I am going to leave them alone.  I think I am getting soft in my old age.

We are anxiously waiting to see where Lyle comes in now that he is back in the game after convention!

July 15, 2004 – Newspaper front page photo of Kelly (Photos)
July 16, 2004 – Joe and Kevin come to lunch

Demorest was absolutely wonderful! I made a million new friends, I heard some really nice things, the macaroni and cheese was spectacular (that’s the most important part you know, the quality of the convention food), and I was thankfully sitting next to some strong Georgia singers during the hymn sings so my harmonizing skills just got 100 times better. Here are just a few of the pictures that I took while I was there:

Kelly, Andi, Danielle

Picture of most of the young people at Demorest

All of the kids after the hymn sing

A picture of the younger young people

Andi, Danielle, Rachel

Wooden flower... all the guys were whittling these between meetings

When Lorena and I first got married, we lived in Boynton Beach, Florida because I had a job there with Motorola. We went to our annual church convention at Apopka the first year we were there and met an older couple who had come over from Cuba in the early sixties a few years after Fidel Castro’s bloody takeover. The older couple had son named Jorge who I had previously met, I think mostly just at gospel meetings when I lived in Atlanta in 1988. Jorge and his parents spoke Spanish with a beautiful Cuban accent. Both Jorge and his folks had been down to Mexico to the convention that is just a few blocks away from Lorena’s parent’s home in Monterrey. Lorena talked to Conchita last night on Skype. She says she remembers Jorge very well and that he ran around with Lorena’s uncle Valentin when he was down there.

Last week, I had a chance to visit a little with both Jorge and his beautiful daughter, Lydia. Jorge maintains a wonderful blog here.  There is a lot to commend the blog.  I was amazed with a beautiful picture of one of my favorite small cities in the world, Las Cruces, New Mexico on a post he made about the meanings of a bunch of places in America with Spanish names.  You can find that here.  My favorite post though, by far, is this one.  It is a speech Jorge has given a number of times as a guest speaker at naturalization ceremonies for new American citizens.  It is very inspiring.

July 13, 2004 – Marion County Fair
July 14, 2004 – Kelly wins the talent show

It took me awhile to work it out, but to my best recollection, I lived just north of Atlanta in a suburb called Dunwoody in around 1988 for a little under a year. I met a lot of people when I lived there. I remember them for their friendliness and kindness to a bachelor living 3000 miles from home. It was great to get reacquainted with so many of them. A lot of the single people are now married with families. It was particularly good because so many of them remained faithful to their beliefs. Also, it is amazing how many of them are homeschooling. There are three couples in particular with whom I was able to visit at some length over the four days we were there. Joel and Karen have a girl just Kelly’s age and two younger boys. Gene and Carla also homeschool their kids in a way that is similar to us.

Ralph and Barbie do there homeschooling a little differently than the rest of us. Barbie works with a pretty wide range of people to get tutors to assure their kids hit all the academic bases.  If there is such a thing as a business gene, it is more strongly expressed in her than anyone else that I know.  She is a whirlwind of organization and entrepreneurial effort.  In the midst of their homeschool and busy lifestyle, they are building an amazing new house. I go way back with Barbie and had met Ralph many years ago, so it was great to have a chance to get caught up with them.

The effort these people make to give there children something better than what is available in the popular culture is the single thing that impressed me most.  There are many academic advantage that can accrue to those who homeschool their children, but that was not why any of these families were doing it.  I had a great talk with Joel about all this.  It is truly a marvel to watch teenagers focus on character and academics to prepare for careers and courtship rather than the shallow boyfriend/girlfriend, too young relationships promoted in today’s pop culture.  It is great that Kelly and Christian established friendships and communications with these new, like-minded friends.

On a side note, I talked with Gene about some of things we do at Quality Corners.  He told me about a kind of wood used for paint grade moulding called Paulownia.  It might be a super help to our little business as it is about a third the weight of our current paint grade substrate (MDF) which means the price of shipping the stuff to our customers would be dramatically cheaper.

July 9, 2004 – Buying stock, testing for curricula, and the county fair
July 12, 2004 – Saturday at the Beach (Photos)

The last four days were too eventful to describe in just one post, so I will take a couple of days to describe our four day weekend down in Demorest, Georgia. Lorena and the kids came to my work here in Morrisville on Friday afternoon after Christian’s guitar lesson. We drove straight from there down to Buford, Georgia where our good friend Myrna lives with her husband Rene, their two year old twins, Rey and Victoria, and their new little baby boy, David. We have known Rene’s family from Medina, Mexico, but had never met Rene until this weekend. It was a nice drive (in spite of the surly service we received at a Subway on the way). When we arrived, Victoria ran out with her arms out to be picked up. She is an absolute doll and we instantly fell in love with her as we did with Rey and David, too. Rey is the Energizer Bunny. He is a very physical boy who is moving all the time–running, pushing his cars around, hammering things–just in constant motion. He is also a very sweet boy. At the end of the last meeting, he was just worn out, so he saw a lady none of us had ever met before, ran up to her, and held up his arms. She was a little surprised, but she picked him up and held him for forty minutes or so while she slept on her shoulder. She fell in love with him, too.

Went to our church convention after spending the night at Rene and Myrna’s house. There, we met Rene’s brothers Agusto, Luis, and Froylan along with Froy’s wife Blanca. We really enjoyed the chance to get to know them a little. We hope they come to visit us some day soon–they do not live too far from us. Here are some pictures we took at the end of the convention of the whole Mexican crew:

Victoria and Rey

Victoria

Todos los Mexicanos

Ken, Lorena, y Rey

We met a whole bunch of homeschoolers and an old Cuban friend, too. I will talk about them tomorrow and the next day.

July 7, 2004 – Counter offer from ATS
July 8, 2004 – Staying in Albany (photos)

After work today, Lorena, Kelly, Christian, and I are taking about a six hour drive to a little town in Georgia for a convention of our church.  We are going to spend the first night at the home of Rene and Myrna Rosas.  Lorena grew up a few blocks away from Myrna in Monterrey, Mexico.  Rene’s family is originally from the little town of Medina Mexico.  They have two year old twins (a boy and a girl) and a baby who is around eight months old.  We are very much looking forward to seeing them.  Then, on Thursday morning, we are going to the little town of Demorest where we will spend the rest of the weekend.  I lived in the town of Dunwoody, Georgia, for six or eight months toward the end of the 1980’s.  It is a community on the north edge of Atlanta.  There should be a good number of people I knew from that stay as well as a good group of people Lorena and I knew when we lived in South Florida just after we were married.  There are the DeGroots, the Wheelers, the Evoys, and a bunch more.  I will try to bring a few pictures back with me to post here early next week.

July 3, 2004 – Third of July Parade (Photos)
July 6, 2004 – Resigning from ATS

Christian and I have been talking about projects and what we want to do this winter. The reality is that we still have three or four things in process that we need to finish. The main thing Christian and I are doing together is our cat tower. That should not take more than a weekend or two to finish up, but we are probably not going to get to it until after our trip to Mexico in October. In addition to that, the volcano computer project keeps inching forward. We would like to get it finished by this spring because it can be put into the volcano as soon as the snow melts. We also have a radio to put together, but that has been put on hold, too, until we have enough time available that is not filled with school work. Then, Lorena has some projects she wants to complete with Christian. They two main things they want to do is refinish some chairs and repaint Christian’s bedroom–they really do not like the color they chose for the first painting.

Time just seems to be flying to fast to take on too many new projects. At the same time we want to do all these things, we see college flying toward us very rapidly. We are really going to need to think about when we want to put Kelly into college. It will probably be after next year, but even if we wait for one year after that, it is time to prepare for the ACT, look for scholarships, and identify some possible schools. Christian will probably start the year after Kelly. It really is amazing how short is the time one has with their children.

July 1, 2004 – Selling ESI
July 2, 2004 – What to do on the 4th of July

A couple of weeks ago I read the classic book Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Unfortunately, I already knew how it was going to end due to an Alvin and the Chipmunks Halloween special I saw when I was 7. Other than that, I enjoyed the story immensely. Just my type of tale. It had terrific suspense and I felt genuinely horrified and rather sick when I read the macabre ending. The good part was that the whole double-personality story could be explained away “scientifically”. If mysteries can’t be explained away, then I don’t sleep at night. Not because I’m trying to figure the mysteries out, but because I’m scared silly that a psychopath is going to crawl out from under the bed and murder me. I still don’t know why I read mysteries.

This year, my literature is fantastic. I have several fantasy books, a few mysteries, quite a few classics, and some modern books that I’ve never even heard of before. During my first week of school I got to read a collection of Father Brown short stories, some of which I had never tried before. That was a major highlight. Right now, Dad and Christian and I are reading aloud a good old silly fantasy story called “The Gammage Cup”, and I have been reading a collection of George McDonald’s fairy tales to myself. Of course there’s deeper reading than that. I have a couple of Dickens books and two Shakespeares in my 9th grade library. But even though I always end up liking the classics, I only start reading them because I HAVE too. It sort of takes me a while to get used to the author of a book and his or her style of writing. For example, when I tried a Father Brown mystery after months and months of reading nothing but Agatha Christie, I could hardly bring myself to finish the book. It was too complicated and ‘boring’. Same with the transition from Nancy Drew to Hercule Poirot. Or even from Poirot to Miss Marple.

I think I’m done now. I’ll try to come up with a different subject than books or reading next time. 🙂

Well, we did not get Kelly’s first video blog filmed this weekend as planned, but it is still high on our plan of things to get done. We did have a busy, busy weekend as we had lots of things to get done before we go off to our church convention in Georgia on Wednesday. The highlight of the weekend was last night when we went over to our friend’s (Lester and Esther) house for dinner (awesome smoked salmon). Their recently married son and daughter-in-law just finished up their Ph.D.’s and are going off to do research for awhile in Prague. It is even more idyllic than it sounds–not only are they smart, attractive, and going off to spend a year or so in the most beautiful city in Europe, they are very nice people. Kelly was truly inspired by a young woman with a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering. I hope they stay in touch.

Here is a housekeeping item. I have a couple of pictures from Christian’s birthday. Take special notice of his shiny new computer! We needed to get one because the old one did not work so well. Christian enjoys it very much and we enjoy him having it.

June 29, 2004 – Playing catch and debt free
June 30, 2004 – Relaxing night

With all the speechifying going on during the presidential campaign season, the kids and I have gotten an idea for a new project.  We know that it is a good thing to be able to speak well in public, but, other than when we give our testimonies in church, we really do not have much opportunity to hone our skills.  We have decided we would try our hand at some video blogging.  It dawned on me when we came up with the idea that we follow almost exactly the same procedure every time we want to learn something new.  We did it many of our academic pursuits when the kids were little–math, reading, handwriting, etc.  We also did it with hobbies–knitting, drawing, cartooning, computer programming, etc.  The process we follow is the following:

1. Just dive in and start doing it, even if we do it badly.
2. Start buying books on the subject.
3. Read through the books together.
4. Use the new things we learn during our reading as we go.
5. When we do something that does not come out so well, try to remember it takes a lot of practice to get better and realize that, even if it is bad, it is still better than when we first started.
6. Laugh about how bad we were when we first started.
7. If we REALLY like something, start over again at step 2 with some more advanced material.

So, to get us started, I have ordered three books from Amazon. The first book, Broadcast Voice Handbook, covers the use of one’s voice for broadcast media.  The reviews said it was a good book for those who are speakers of English as a foreign language, so it should be great for Lorena as well as Kelly, Christian, and I.  We will start with that book because it is supposed to arrive a couple of weeks before the other two.  The second book is titled It Takes More than Good Looks to Succeed at TV News Reporting.  It is about how to write broadcast television news reports.  It got great reviews.  I was a little discouraged with the title because it says it takes more than good looks…  That is great with Lorena, Kelly, and Christian, but some of us do not even start with the most basic necessity and it take MORE than that.  We will read that second.  The last book is titled Sound and Look Professional on TV and the Internet.  It is about the actual video presentation of the material after it is written.  The should at least get us started and give us some ideas.

In the meantime, we have decided to just go for it.  Kelly has written her first report that we plan to video this weekend and put up on Monday or Tuesday.  Stay tuned.  If it is really good, that is great, but if it is really bad, out of our ignorance, we might not even know it.  At least we have a plan on how to get better.

June 25, 2004 – Putting up our sign
June 28, 2004 – Going away potluck

Update for Ruthie:

Another update: I found Poetry Out Loud. It looks very, very cool. Thanks for the tip. This looks like it would be a great thing in which to participate.

We started homeschooling because we were angry, but now we do it because we like it very much. I laughed when I read the “Fertilizing the lawn” entry I reposted today from June 23, 2004. At the time I wrote the post, I was obviously pretty mad. It was after the end of Kelly’s fourth grade year and Christian’s second grade year in two of the government schools in Albany, Oregon. We felt the schools had performed a great disservice to our children. The year was a complete waste for them both academically and socially. We were forced into deciding between private school and homeschool.

I laugh now, though, because I only feel gratitude toward the teachers, the school, and the principal. If we had not had such strong feelings and such a sense of helplessness about working within the system to fix what we felt was egregious incompetence and even malice toward people with our worldview, we might never have started homeschooling. Within weeks of starting to homeschool, we realized we loved it. We still love it going into our fifth year of homeschool since they finished their one year stay at “The Groves”. Our kids are way better off academically, socially, and even physically.

An additional benefit was that the pages and pages of handwritten notes I took after each of the meetings with the teachers and the principal of the schools. They made me realize what a great help it is to think things out on paper. It was really quite cathartic to do that writing. It probably helped me avoid doing things I might have regretted, like keeping my kids in the system. And it was part of my inspiration to start blogging.

June 23, 2004 – Fertilizing the lawn
June 24, 2004 – Accepting the job

I struggle to write at times like this.  Everything is going well, but there is so much “daily life” stuff going on, there is not much time to reflect on life, work on projects, plan for the future, or even harass Bryan and Lyle about the fact that they have not posted their weight for a long, long time.  I got up yesterday at the normal time (5:20 AM) and went through my normal work schedule, getting home at between 4:30 and 5:00 PM.  Then, in spite of my best intentions, I did not get to bed until well after 11:00 PM.  I am one of those guys that need, or at least likes to get, eight hours of sleep per night.  Less than that or even more than that kind of fouls me up.  I decided to try to reconstruct what I did last night to try and figure out if I can reorganize a little and get to bed earlier.

When I arrive home, I normally sit eat the Greek salad Lorena has waiting for me and talk to her for a half an hour or so before I start in on homeschool.  Last night, everyone was still at the YMCA working out and there had been a wreck (a police officer was killed close to the intersection of Ten-Ten Road and Old Stage Road), so they did not get home until over an hour after I arrived.  While I ate my salad I worked on converting my comic aggregation program so that it did 4×1 layouts instead of 2×2 layouts.  Kelly wants that because it is more like the professional comics do it.  The following is the result:

I finished that about when the family arrived.  When everyone got unloaded from the car, Lorena made dinner (awesome – Tilapia, spinach, and yams) while I read to the kids from the worldview book and The Gammage Cup for forty minutes or so while they worked on their comic strips.  After that we ate.  By the time we finished eating it was 7:30.  Then, I scanned in the comics Kelly had ready for me.  There were several and I had made some changes so it took me about forty minutes.  My buddy from work then called about some technical stuff we are doing at work.  That call and some associated work I did after the call took an hour.

Finally, I got to the homeschool corrections.  I was behind because of all the work that had been done in preparation for our weekend in Denton plus some extra work they did to get ahead for our upcoming trips.  That took me until 11:00 and I still did not get everything done.  I will have another similar night tonight and I expect even another one on Thursday.  I am glad I like this stuff.

Congratulations to Kelly.  Her new teacher has moved her up four levels in piano.  The teacher wanted to correct some basic technique things Kelly had never learned properly even though Kelly could play hard pieces.  Now that Kelly has been at it for about a year with the new teacher, she has been able to make the corrections and will move back to performing music with a much higher level of difficulty.  Everyone has worked hard and exhibited a lot of patience to get to this point and I think it was time well taken.

June 21, 2004 – Visiting Washington
June 22, 2004 – Making the decision to move

It seems like every time we go off on a trip, even for a weekend, we struggle to get caught back up.  Today, the kids are working away at their homeschool while Lorena is getting the household back in order.  Right now, the chaos is multiplied because we have two additional large trips planned within the next month or so.  We are going to a four day church convention next week and we are going to Mexico for a wedding in early October.  I will only be in Mexico for a few days, but Lorena, Kelly, and Christian will be there for two full weeks.  We planned the schedule so the kids will not have any (or at least very little) school work while they are down south, but is still pretty challenging to have everything completely complete (if that makes sense) before we go.  Kelly has to do a bunch of Betty Blonde comics ahead.  We need to make accommodations for the Christian to get some practice in on his guitar–fortunately, Tio Lauro has one.  We need to find Kelly a place to practice her piano.  I think I am going to have the kids take their math books with them so they can do one math assignment every other day, etc., etc.

The old posts below were about some of our great friends (Jim and JoAnn and the Nelsons) when we were still in Albany.  I got pretty nostalgic when I read them.

Some special notes:  Ruthie and Aunt Julia–I have tried to fix the ability to click on the comment link in the Betty Blonde emails.  Could you let me know if there is still a problem?

June 16, 2004 – Moving dirt and Nelson visit
June 17, 2004 – Homeschooling in Washington state?

We spent this weekend at one of church conventions in a little place called Denton. Last year we found that it was one of the few places in North Carolina (if not the world) where there are naturally formed square rocks. Christian collected a few to add to his collection from last year. It was wonderful to be there. We heard lots of wonderful things, talked to old friends, made some new friends, and, as always, ate way too much really good food. I am very surprised that I did not gain as much weight as I thought I might. It surely looks like Bryan is going to hit his goal any day now. I hope he makes his way out here to collect on his debt. It would be great to see him, but he is so skinny and my eyesight is not what it used to be, so I do not know how much of him I could even see.

A note to all who wrote: We were completely out of contact this weekend so we did not see all the wonderful emails and notes on the blog post for Christian’s birthday, but we thank you all for all of them and will try to write a note to everyone as we get a chance.

June 14, 2004 – Family reunion
June 15, 2004 -Sleepover, weight, exercise, and the lawn

I love my mom’s twin sister, Aunt Janet. I really do not see her enough. Every time I see her, the conversation eventually get around to the point where she asks me about my kids.

When it does, I say, “Do you mind if I brag about my kids a little?”

She says, “I wish you would.”

And she really does want me to brag about my kids. She is one of those unconditional love kind of people and it is hard not to love her back just as much.

So today, I am not going to brag so much as talk about Christian a little. He turned into a teenager today. For what must be over a year, he has rued the fact that he is not thirteen years old. It is not so much that he wants to be older, it is that many of the computer sites and technical forums to which he has wanted to subscribe do not let children under thirteen register to make posts and participate. He has taken to reading the fine print at these sites to understand exactly what is and is not permitted. I am very proud of the fact that he has read and understood exactly what is required to do things correctly and honestly. He has expressed his frustration with some of the rules, but he abode by them scrupulously. That kind of honesty will serve him well.

We are going off to a church convention for the weekend right after work today, so we will not get to celebrate a whole lot yet. Our plan is to do a better celebration when we get to Mexico and can do it with all his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents there. Really, the Mexican know how to throw a party much better than my English/Finnish clan anyway. We will have a cake and he will be able to program and work on his new computer during our three hour drive there and back, so he is pretty happy for that. I will post a picture of he and I we took last night and of he, the cake, and his sister if Lorena remembers to take one.

It really would not be Christian’s birthday if I did not mention that on the day of his birth there in the hospital in Tualatin, Oregon, we not only witnessed the most beautiful sunrise we had ever seen shining through the window, but the beautiful new baby with a full head of black hair who has brought sunshine into our life ever since.

June 10, 2004 – Interview in Kirkland, Washington
June 11, 2004 – The family will visit Kirkland

We have gotten off to a roaring start in our homeschool this year! We are in our third week of homeschool. The structure of the work we do has changed a little from previous years. Partly this is because the kids are older, but partly it is because we know a little more about what we are doing and how the kids learn.

For Kelly, that means she is now posting three days per week on this blog. Her topics will vary from week to week, but as a general framework, we have decided she will comment on a news or opinion topic on Mondays, a homeschool topic on Wednesdays, and a fashion/culture/society (girly) thing on Fridays. We will not be too restrictive on topic selection and reserve the right to change the order of things as we learn more about how to do this. I have mentioned previously that Kelly is studying hard for a good number of CLEP tests she wants to pass this year. The first two are Spanish and U.S. History II. She will read all her Sonlight literature books, but there will be less emphasis on that part of the program. Kelly finished Intermediate Algebra (II) this. The plan is for her to take geometry at a little faster pace than we have in the past, but to back down to our regular pass when she gets to pre-algebra about half way through the year.

Christian follows a plan similar to what we have done in the past. The exception is that he will try to take two or three CLEP tests this year. His first test will be the Freshman English Composition test. He took the first test exam in the program we got for him and got a high enough score to pass for college credit, but we will continue all the way through the program to try to get him as ready as possible for the test. Christian is currently in Algebra II. We want him to be very thorough in his studies for a special reason this year. Algebra II is the level to which people who take the ACT college entrance exam are tested. The ACT is one of the nationally normed standardized tests accepted by the state of North Carolina for their required annual testing. Both of the kids will take that test toward the end of the year.

Weight loss death match note: It is good to see Lyle is back in the fight after returning from convention!

June 8, 2004 – Last piano lesson
June 9, 2004 – Remote camera