Month: December 2008

The really big news from yesterday is that Kelly passed her Spanish CLEP test with flying colors.  I think Rosetta Stone Spanish and the CLEP study book we purchased were a good combination.  Lorena, Kelly, and Christian drove down to Johnston Community College in Smithfield, NC to take the test.  I talked to a lady named Ciara on the telephone to set up the test.  She is the test administrator.  Lorena talked to her in person for quite awhile while Kelly took the test.  It turns out she is just as nice in person as she is on the telephone.  We plan to take all our tests there from now on.  The next time they travel to Smithfield in early February, Kelly plans to take the History of the United States II:  1865 to the Present exam.  In the meantime, study books for the CLEP Biology, Psychology, and Sociology are on the way.  We will wait until toward the end of the year to start working on the biology because we want her to finish the excellent Exploring Creation with Biology by Jay Wile before she prepares for the CLEP test.  Hopefully they will get her in time for to start studying either Psychology or Sociology next week.

Christian is almost ready to take the Freshman College Composition CLEP test.  He could probably pass the test now, but we want him to be over prepared for the first one.  He plans to take the test at the same time Kelly takes U.S. History II in February.  Meanwhile he studies Western Civilization I:  Ancient Near East to 1648 along with the Freshman College Composition.  After those two, he will move on to Spanish and Western Civilization II:  1648 to Present if there is enough time with all the other studies.

Everything else is moving along fine.  As usual, we got hammered pretty hard with testing, Thanksgiving and the visit from Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah, but Christian should be completely caught up and on schedule with math and everything else by tomorrow.  Kelly has her first annual cookie exchange tomorrow night, so I expect her to be a little behind until Tuesday of next week.  Our next really big school event is the ACT test both Kelly and Christian will take on February 7–Christian as part of the Duke Talent Identification Program and both of the kids to be in compliance with North Carolina homeschool laws.

We are slowly returning to normal in the Chapman household.  Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah went home yesterday.  We are slowly eroding the overload of food in the refrigerator.  The kids are back on their regular homeschool schedule even though they have a little catching up to do because of the holidays and some upcoming tests–more on that tomorrow during my monthly homeschool update.  I have access to the scales again now that Grandpa and Grandma are not using the downstairs bedroom.  Actually, I was pretty worried about that, but when I weighed this morning I was EXACTLY where I left off when they got here over a week ago.  I have flat-lined on the graph for the last week at 30.2 pounds lost since I started last February.  I have decided to start a new graph on January 1 so that Bryan, Lyle, Brad, and I can keep going for another year.  It has helped a lot to post this every day.  If anyone else would like to join the game, let me know and we will show you how to record stuff.

We have made a new resolution to use the computers a lot less in our household.  For the last few months, we spent a lot of time with the computer, sometimes at the expense of time with each other.  We have associated each computer for use at specific times, locations, and task.  We have resolved to stay off the internet so we can spend more time on reading, art, knitting, radio assembly, etc.  It has started off quite well and I think it will get even better as we get caught up on the homeschool work backlog.

Update:  My buddy John, the jack of all trades, brought in these very cool origami boxes.  He is going to show us how to make them!

Lorena will take Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah to the airport after Kelly’s piano lesson this morning.  We have very much enjoyed having them here.  Lorena and Grandpa Milo cooked Lorena’s new tortilla soup last night before meeting.  That was in keeping with the theme of the whole visit–cooking and eating.  We still have a refrigerator full of Thanksgiving food and a bunch of uncooked stuff.  The kids are hammering hard on their homeschool again.  We are really in pretty good shape compared to in previous years after a big holiday like this.  We need to be on top of our game for the next couple of months as we have some big tests coming up.

Kelly is having all the ladies from meeting over for a cookie exchange on Friday night.  I am thinking of getting all the husbands that do not have any place to go and hang out at our place.

Well I had a very nice Thanksgiving. Grandpa and Christian and I cooked a bunch, and I started knitting a pair of fuchsia colored sparkle slippers. We were silly enough to go to JoAnn Fabric on Black Friday. Bad idea! The lines were insanely long and it seemed like everyone was at the craft store!!! Fortunately, the yarn that I bought was on sale for a buck a skein so that sort of made up for the long wait. Dad also got an iPod charger at Circuit City to replace my missing one. I am finally back to Celtic Woman and Flamenco Guitar!!! I also discovered my new favorite sandwich combination. Cranberry sauce and turkey on French bread. That stuff is good! Not extremely healthy, but good! 😀

Right now I am reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I find it funny that I’d never read it before (Though I’d seen the animated movie Treasure Planet when I was little), but better late than never as they say! It’s a great book. The classic pirate adventure story.

Now it’s back to homeschool and exercising and all that fun stuff. This Friday most of the ladies from our meeting are coming over for a cookie exchange, so that’s another thing to keep us busy! I really can’t wait!! I think I found a good recipe: Peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss in the middle. Mom might make pineapple empanadas too!

We had a wonderful day yesterday.  After meeting Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah took us out to Red Robin with Troy and Youngin for a hamburger.  Troy and I talked engineering and school topics while Dad and the women laughed and laughed.  Incidentally, Troy and Youngin have started a blog.  You can see it here.  Christian was a little under the weather, so he was quieter than normal.  Before we went to meeting I took a picture.

Ready for meeting

Then, after a GREAT nap, Grandpa Milo showed the kids how to make Bananas Foster.  Here is a picture and a video of that exciting event.

Bananas Foster