Category: General Page 55 of 116

Yesterday afternoon we got a note from some of our friends from Georgia, a homeschooling family of five.  They are organizing a three day, homeschooling weekend at a cabin in Tennesee.  We signed up to go and are very excited about it.  There will be four homeschooling families there with the point of the whole weekend being nothing more than to hang out together in a very cool place.  It is a five or six hour drive to get there, but even that looks like pretty nice.  We have figured out that the confinement of the car on a long trip is not such a bad place to get caught up on homeschool and Betty Blonde comic strips.  We also read aloud a lot.  Lorena does not participate so much in the reading aloud–she would much rather listen to Kelly’s iPod.

This morning we got a note from Karen, a very dear friend from Texas who has just started homeschooling her youngest daughter.  She is coming east for some other reasons, but has set aside some time to come and visit us.  It is a long drive out of her way to get to where we live, so we very much appreciate that she is coming.  It will be fun to talk to a new homeschooler.  Lorena is a particularly big fan of Karen because she always made the effort to come by for a visit when we lived in a small apartment in Dallas, Texas.  To this day, every time she talks with Lorena, she asks about the twin cat sisters who were just kittens when Karen met them.

We finished the puzzle last night and we were in a festive mood so we took some pictures.  We particularly liked this one of the twin cat sisters.  The inset is of Kelly and Christian modeling their puzzle putting together outfits.  It was a little bit of a challenge for us to have a right attitude again last night, but  we did much better than the day before.  Ruthie made a timely comment that reminded me of a book we read when we first started homeschooling.  It was Raymond and Dorothy Moore’s homeschool classic, The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook and we highly recommend it for anyone who is thinking about homeschooling.  My big take-away from that book was that if you are overly stressed about something to do with your homeschool, you need to change it–whatever changes you make will still be better than government school.  It probably did more for me with regard to burnout than any other thing I read.  I think that stress advise is equally applicable to work, weight loss, and a plethora of other topics.

Tonight is the company Christmas party.  I expect it to be a quiet affair and a good chance to socialize a little with the people with whom I enjoy working so much.

Yesterday was one of those days that did not quite work out like we had planned.  I expected to come home, correct some math and science, adjust the plan for today based on those corrections, then sit down with the family to work on our Christmas puzzle.  After Christian’s guitar lesson, Lorena and the kids went to the YMCA to do their normal workouts, so they did not get home until about 6:00 PM.  By that time, we were all hungry, so I did our read aloud while Kelly drew a Betty Blonde comic, Christian worked on the puzzle for a bit, and Lorena made dinner.  After we ate dinner, it was already 7:00 PM.  I started correcting the math and science, but both Kelly’s geometry and Christian’s algebra and science were pretty tough, so it took a little longer than usual.  Kelly had to do some unfinished piano practice and Christian had to do some unfinished CLEP studies, so, while I worked with one of them, the other one kept going on uncompleted homeschool work.  We did not finish until around 9:00 PM.  We did not do particularly well on what we did and we did not get everything done that was scheduled.

One of the things that is hardest to describe about homeschool is how difficult it can be to get everything done in a day.  We have specific materials we want the kids to cover to be prepared for college in a few years.  We learned early on that participation in too many activities outside the house did not allow enough time for them to finish the studies they require to know the material.  There are all kinds of great opportunities to participate in science, math, language, art, drama, writing, robotic, and every other kind of workshop and class imaginable.  There are many, many sports opportunities:  football, baseball, basketball, running, swimming, soccer, ping pong, and even lacrosse.  Still we want the kids (and Lorena) to get out of the house at least once a day to get some exercise, break up the day, and interact with other people.

In that regard, we no longer worry at all about “socialization”.  Our own experience with socialization parallels the results of the studies we read when we started our homeschool.  It is really government school kids who bear the greatest social handicap of years wasted in the artificial environment of a traditional school classroom.  Their social interaction is limited to associations with twenty or so children of their exact same age and only one or two adults, all confined to the same room for months on end–something that rarely, if ever, occurs in the world they face when they leave school.  By contrast, homeschool kids tend to interact with people of a broad range of ages in church, at the library, in music, art, science, and language lessons, on sports teams, and homeschool group field trips and get-togethers.  Like everything else in this fallen world, homeschool is not perfect, but it is considerably better than anything else we have available to us.  Nevertheless, because socialization is such a strength in the homeschool setting, we can bias our time toward completion of academic goals.

We were all a little snippy when we started working on the puzzle for a half an hour before going to bed.  We enjoy listening to one particular music channel at this time of year, but when we turned it on, all we got for the entire time we listened was the platitudes of an inane sports interview after an inconsequential game of preseason basketball.  We went to bed late.  Some days are like that.  Maybe tomorrow will be better, but I do not hold out much hope because we all have our biannual checkup with the dentist.  It is hard to get homeschool work complete while waiting in the dentists office and it is hard to deal with a grumpy dad correcting that work after he has been to the dentist, too.  Thankfully, Christmas vacation starts in just one week.

I think I have figured out why it feels more like Christmas season now than it did at this time last week.  We finished our shopping (or the vast bulk thereof), part of which was the purchase of a 750 piece puzzle.  Last night, when I got home from work and everyone else got home from their workout at the YMCA, we ate a dinner of black beans, white rice, tuna, and pico de gallo all mixed together–food does not get much better than that.  After that, Lorena talked to Grandma Conchita on the phone while Kelly, Christian, and I corrected school work.  Then, we gathered around the coffee table in front of the fireplace in the family room, listened to music, and worked on the puzzle for over an hour.  It was absolutely a great time.  It dawned on me that the puzzle pulls together all the things we associate with the Christmas season:  We have done this every year at Christmas time since the kids have been big enough to work on a puzzle so the memories and feelings of Christmases past are brought to mind.  We are together to do something that also allows us to talk to each other and listen to music which adds to the atmosphere.  It was pretty wonderful.

The only problem is that I think we are going to finish the puzzle this weekend and we really want it to last through the New Year.  Last year, the same thing happened when we did a 500 piece puzzle, so we ended up doing a second 500 piece puzzle after we finished the first.  The kids are only a year older, so I do not think their ability to work on the puzzle has improved that much.  Maybe it is their focus this year.  At any rate, I think we are going to get another 750 piece puzzle when we finish this one.  1000 piece puzzles just seem to tedious and small.  Also, the likelihood that the twin cat sister will foul everything up before we get the thing together seems to increase dramatically for a puzzle with 1000 pieces.  I have found that Good Earth Original Sweet & Spicy Tea & Herb Blend tea with a good dolop of molasses is particularly well suited for drinking while putting together Christmas puzzles.

Ruthie is one of our favorite readers and commenters.  In a recent comment, she described and interesting and beautiful phenomena that is taking place in her part of the world in California.

The weather here has been cold, but devoid of wind or rain. We have experienced a little drizzle here and there, but no blowing rain storms. This has led to what I have affectionately called “the phenomenon”. The leaves have had extra time on the trees because of the mild weather (mild, meaning no major rain or wind storms), and have had an extended time to transform and show their magnificent colors. Because there has been no wind to speak of, when the leaves finally drop of their own accord, they waft downward and land beneath the canopy of the tree. Usually, there are rain and wind storms that force the leaves off the trees before they are allowed to show their full splendor, and because the wind has knocked them off, leaves of many different trees linger together on the ground, and sometimes, even, you can find a leaf to which there is NO tree in the neighborhood that would claim it. But, “the phenomenon” has left each tree with its own leaves beneath itself, without mixing with the leaves of any other tree. It almost looks like someone used a leave blower and blew all the leaves back under the canopy of their respective trees. So, aspen trees that have yellow leaves, have only yellow leaves surrounding the trunk, etc. And if you have a row of the same type of tree, there will be leaves under one tree, then a break of grass without leaves, and then another tree with its leaves directly below its own canopy. Very Stepford Wifish, if you know what I mean. I have never seen it before. It is pretty amazing.

I said it would be really nice to see some pictures of that so she took some for us. They were so nice I wanted to post them. They really ARE amazing. Thanks Ruthie!

So we went Christmas shopping on Saturday!  I think this is the 4th or 5th year that Dad and Mom have let Christian and I shop for gifts for each other and for them. It was fun as it always is! I would tell what I got for each person, but that would ruin the surprise so I’ll just wait for another 11 days. 🙂 I can say this safely though: Each gift is absolutely perfect for it’s corresponding recipient! Also, every year we put together a puzzle for Christmas, and we have discovered that the 750 piece puzzles are just the right size for us. So Dad and I also went to Michael’s and picked up our annual puzzle. They only had three 750 piece puzzles there. Two were of four American pop culture icons (Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, and James Dean) and the only one left was one of 5 cute little kittens and pretty flowers. Which is fine! But you know, kittens do look a lot alike. So do flowers. So it’s a challenge.  Hopefully I’ll take a picture of the finished puzzle and post it up after Christmas before our cats get to it.

In school… I wrote my first practice ACT essay last Friday.  I did better than I thought I would, but it was much too short, rather badly thought out and had several more flaws that I noticed when I typed it down.  But here it is, unedited. Please don’t cringe!  (The prompt was second chances)

Everyone makes mistakes. It’s absolutely unavoidable to do or say the wrong thing. If it weren’t for second chances, then we’d all be leading lives of regret and guilt. Thankfully, there are some situations where we can turn around our own faults and make things better again.

Some are opposed to too many second chances. They say that second chances breed bad behavior and allow people to perform their misdeeds over and over again. I agree to a point. Some people obviously don’t want to change or make good. But many people have an honest desire to learn from their mistakes and do the right thing.

Because of this and because of my own personal experiences with second chances, I believe that society should soften it’s heart and learn to be more compassionate towards others. We’re all human after all, and who can honestly say that they’ve ever despised a second chance when it’s been given to them?

Tomorrow, Troy and Youngin will leave for ten days in Argentina. They recently started a blog and tell us they will try to update it with pictures and commentary from internet cafes while on their trip. If their postings from Argentina are anything like what they have put up so far, they should be a very interesting read. You can find their blog here. They are a recently married couple who have been in the Raleigh area about the same time as us. The go to Sunday morning meeting and Wednesday night bible study with us. Lorena and Kelly think Youngin is just about perfect. They will even be more impressed when they see what Youngin knitted for her new (not yet born) niece. I am totally amazed. When does she have time for all the stuff she does? Is there nothing she does poorly? The particularly cool part of all this is that she never says anything about any of the stuff she does, you just find out about it when she does it. For his part, Troy is an engineer (by birth, but soon to be by degree, too) which, of course, is just about perfect as far as Christian and I are concerned. We have a special appreciation for those who can not only do the math, but they are interested in it, too.

Tio Jorge, Tia Mari, and primos Jorgito, Valeria, and Brandon plan to visit us from Mexico in the next two or three weeks. Of course we are very excited about the visit. I called yesterday to talk to Jorge about the timing, but ended up talking to Tio Laurin for about half an hour. He is the one that has lived, worked, and traveled throughout South America for the past ten years or so. He was excited about Troy and Youngin were traveling in Argentina. He marveled at the beauty of the country and the inexpensive, really good food there. He thinks it would be awesome fun for all the family to meet in Buenos Aires for a vacation in the next couple of years. I am going to talk to Uncle Doug and see if I can get something worked out. Be sure to check out one of my favorite pictures of the beautiful Valeria and her favorite uncle.

Warren is my long-time buddy/roommate from college.  We lived in several different places together and have stayed in pretty close touch since I first got to know him over thirty years ago.  I even went to visit him a couple of times when he lived on the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean.  We broke what has been a fairly long running family tradition when he did not spend Thanksgiving with us this year.  We were all happy when he called us yesterday to tell us he would drive over from Nashville to spend Christmas with us this year to make up it.  The kids call him Miss Turbone.  All those of you who have read Louis Sachar’s book Dogs Don’t Tell Jokes will understand exactly what motivated them to start doing that.  The big event for the visit will be our turkey stuffing cookoff.  Warren is famous for his stuffing, but Grandpa Milo taught us a new way to do stuffing when he came for Thanksgiving, so we are going to have a big turkey stuffing death match.  You might have noticed we are big into death matches around here.  We always have lively discussions when Warren is around.  We agree on most things, but I think he is strongly supports Lyle’s view of the whole football/academics thing I wrote about yesterday.  We are going to see if we kind find a play to go see while he is here, but most of the time will be just hanging out, playing the guitar, cooking, walking in the neighborhood, and solving the worlds problems.  If only they would listen to us.

This weekend looks like it is going to be a heavy shopping weekend.  I am thinking of making everyone sit down for the reading of a few chapters of one of Dave Ramsey’s books about the importance of not spending money you don’t have so we can make it a light spending weekend, too.  I ususally lose in these kinds of situations.

Update:  I almost forgot.  Our friend Lester helped us find a new little laser printer.  It is an OKI B2400n network laser printer.  It only prints black and white, but that is all we really use.  We just plugged it into the ethernet hub and it worked.  We can now print from all the computers (Linux, Windows, and Palm) in the house directly to the printer without going through another computer.  Very cool.

This morning on my way into work, I listened to one of the most inane conversations I have heard in a long time.  The “Sports Director” at the WPTF radio station, a guy named Taylor Zarzour, talked about the great help winning football teams provide to the academic programs of universities like Duke, NCSU, and UNC.  He explained that not only do the television networks give the universities two or three free minutes to say anything they want about their schools during the course of a football broadcast, but they build great academic infrastructure like the new study facility inside the sports training complex at one of our local universities.  What is the purpose of that study facility?  To give the student athletes and only student athletes a place where they are required to study with mandatory tutorial help.  His thinking is that kids on the football team are not as well prepared for the rigors of university academic life as the kids who come to the university for purely academic reasons.  Wow!  So the universities are somehow improved academically by helping football players limp through degrees in communications studies, sociology, and psychology on their way to the NFL or, more realistically, into jobs as high school football coaches?  My mind is boggled.

Our whole educational system is broken.  Children leave the government schools with an abysmal education.  Thomas Sowell wrote an article for Townhall.com about the absurd fact that amateurs do a much better job than professionals when it comes to the education of their children.  After high school, we push kids into college who really should not be there.  Charles Murray writes of people with IQs of 100 or higher in a Wall Street Journal article, “Today’s simple truth is that far too many of them are going to four-year colleges.”  Read the article.  He makes a very cogent case for more vocational training and less university training.  So we should use football to attract people to the university who would be better served somewhere else?  In my experience, those attracted to the more rigorous academic disciplines such as engineering, math, physics, and chemistry seem to go to the best school that will accept them without regard to the quality of the football team.  None of them have much time to watch football anyway.  They are busy studying at the dorm or in the library.

I ordered three new CLEP preparation books for Kelly and Christian last week:  Biology, Psychology, and Sociology.  They were sitting on the coffee table in the family room last night, so Kelly picked up the psychology book and started reading it.  She read for a short bit then stopped and started laughing.

“I found Mom,” she said.

Then she went on to read a short section that said one of the signs of obsessive compulsive disorder is that those who are so afflicted check several times to assure doors are locked, the stove is turned off, excessively wash their hands, etc.  I am sure Mom does not have OSD, but it was still pretty funny.  Since Kelly just finished her CLEP Spanish test, we needed to decide which book to study next, so we sat down to take a look at the books and mull it over.  We were a little surprised that the Psychology and Sociology study books were so thin and did not look particularly difficult.  When we went through the Biology book, we saw that Kelly’s Apologia Biology program covers a lot of the material that is represented in the test questions.  We decide to hold off on the Biology until the end of the year to use both as a review and a way to get three more college credits.  Since Kelly had already started reading the Psychology book, we decided it would be next.  She will prepare for that test starting today.

We have noted that the U.S. History and Western Civilization CLEP tests require a lot more work than any of the other tests for which we have study materials.  Christian and I talked about that shortly before we went to bed last night.  He told me he was studying Charlemagne.  He recently learned that Charlemagne’s empire was contemporary with the Byzantine empire.  I did not know that.  I asked when Charlemagne lived.

He told me, “the 700’s.”

I mentioned that the play Pippin had something to do with Charlemagne.

He said, “Pippin the Short was Charlemagne’s father.”

He told me a bunch of other stuff about this era and it was quite interesting so I looked the thing up on Wikipedia.  Pippen the Short (born on my birthday in 768) was indeed Charlemagne’s father, but the play Pippin was about Charlemagne’s son.  Charlemagne’s Frankish empire was contemporary with the Byzantine empire.  He lived in the 700’s.  It is necessary to learn a veritable ton of interesting facts to pass those CLEP history tests.  I think Christian is on track to do well.

Special Note:  The Robert and Eric to which Betty Blonde referred today are our ministers who are staying with us for a few days.

Update:  There was another big layoff at the old company (ATS) where I worked in Corvallis yesterday.  Many of those laid off were engineers.  We are very thankful to be in North Carolina.

I have been enjoying my work very much over the last little while. I am working on an interesting (hard) new problem that will take our product to the next level. I am quite pleased that they actually pay me to do this. It is a little more challenging with a nasty cold hanging on, but DayQuil Cold and Flu is amazingly effective at helping me work through the congestion and other symptoms. My only frustration is that there are not enough hours in the day to do all the things that interest me. The older I get, the sadder I am that I did not keep my nose to the grindstone more when I was younger, both as a student and as a young engineer.

Leonardo da Vinci said, “I have offended God and mankind because my work didn’t reach the quality it should have.” He also said, “I have wasted my hours.”

Even though what I am doing is trivial in comparison to the accomplishments of someone like da Vinci, I very much sympathize with the sentiments. The funny deal is that he really understood the life of an engineer. He lived from 1452 to 1519, but he precisely captured what I do for a living when he said, “Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.” What a great guy. It surely does not seem like he was too full of himself. I wish I could be more like that.

Well the cookie swap was a big success! You can see a few photos here. 

Today has been a very busy day so far. Mom took me to my piano lesson this morning.  My teacher usually has it scheduled on Tuesdays, but she had a dentist appointment so we had to go earlier than normal.  We are having the workers over tonight so I had to clean my closet (big job, believe me) and Mom has been tidying up all around the house!  Also at 7:35 this morning, I learned that one of my favorite radio talk show hosts is quitting her job in two weeks to spend time with her family.  That news deserves a sad smiley face 🙁  So it really has been quite a day. 

Last Saturday we went to the library and I got another typical batch of books. I (unfortunately) did not think to check that list of books that y’all wrote down for me a while back so I got 5 mystery books (one Agatha, one new one, one Father Brown, and two Mary Jane Clarkes) 5 teen girly guilty pleasure books (Which I refuse to share the titles of, for fear you might laugh) a knitting book, and a Tintin comic book. Thankfully, I have some cerebral reading to keep me company after I’m done with my guilty pleasures. I have re-discovered the world of Jane Austen!  Pride and Prejudice here I come!!!

Time to eat lunch!

I have a bad cold. An aggressive deadline at work that has caused us to dramatically adjust our holiday plans. It got cold enough last night that I struggled to get my pickup windows scrapped/defrosted to the point of numb fingers this morning. The Beavers will play Pitt in the Sun Bowl in El Paso which is a huge comedown from the much hoped for Rose Bowl. To top all this off, when I got on the scale this morning, I found that, due to Kelly’s fabulous, first annual cookie party and my like of discipline, I have gone backwards on my diet from down 40 pounds to down 25 pounds.

It is not all bad, though. Our ministers, Robert and Eric, called last night and will come to our house after gospel meeting tonight to spend a couple of nights with us. That is always good. I called my buddy, Eric the Luddite last night and we had a great and uplifting chat, as always. That is always a good thing, especially because he has not updated his blog since mid-October. I noticed that the weight loss death match chart was updated with most of the guys weights when I posted my staggering new weight gain. That is a good thing, even though the new, svelte Brian was NOT one of those who was faithful in posting his weight.

Kelly’s cookie exchange (first annual, she claims) will take place this afternoon after work.  Christian and I were told we were not necessary.  So in the spirit of this awesome blog post, we have chosen to love the idea of a dad/son night out.  We are going to head out to do something as soon as I can get home to pick Christian up after work.  I think two or three of the husbands will be at the cookie exchange, but before we knew that, we had already decided that we were going to do something cool together even though we are still not quite sure what it will be.  I am sure it will include, at least, some technology, books, and food.

Yesterday, I guy at work brought in a pen computer.  It was very, very cool.  I saw a million uses for the thing.  One of the coolest uses is to draw comic strips!

Tomorrow is the day of the big cookie exchange! Yesterday night, mom and I made these maple-pecan cookies.  So far on our list of cookies we have coconut macaroons, date balls, butterscotch cookies and two different kinds of chocolate chip cookies.  Today we went to Target to get a bunch of cellophane treat bags and normal gift bags to package the cookies in. We also got sprinkles and pre-made, pre-cut sugar cookie dough for decorating cookies during the party.  Sadly, it did not really occur to me until now that pre-cut cookie dough would not be good for cutting again with Christmas-themed cookie cutters.  Fortunately we have a bag of sugar cookie flour in the back of the pantry somewhere, so I think I’ll just pull that out and make a batch.  For drinks we are having sparkling cider, coffee, and a unique kind of cranberry tea. When we lived in Oregon, there were always these two cute little craft shows in our area every year.  One was located at the local grange and they sold things like embroidered pillows, candles, art, homemade jam, cute things to put on your wall or on your desk. It was really cozy and old-fashioned.  The other one (The Vintage Roost) was in a small shack on someone’s property.  It was very pretty inside, and it was different than the first craft show.  They sold things that were more unique.  Anyway, the lady that owned the place had a big pot of homemade cranberry tea for all the customers.  It was SO good.  She gave mom the recipe, but we hadn’t tried it until now. 

OK, so I’m obviously looking forward to that.  In other news I passed my CLEP Spanish exam yesterday!!! Dad already has the details on that below, but it’s a big thing for me, so I don’t think it’ll hurt to mention it twice in one blog. 🙂  Now I’m studying my head off with the CLEP US History 2 book.  It has an obvious leaning towards one side, and that’s not really helping the going get any easier. And taking notes is not my forte anyway. But I’m almost done and soon there’ll be another few college credits to put in my pocket!!  So I’m happy!

Well I’d better go and draw another Betty Blonde. I’m behind schedule!!! :O

Adios!

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

We had an absolutely great Thanksgiving.  We had a great dinner complete with quality time in the preparation.  We had a houseful of friends over for dessert (Thank you Lester and Esther for sharing your family with us.).  Grandma Sarah and Esther’s mother talked about their Finnish heritage.  The rest of us ate apple pie, key lime pie, flan, pumpkin pie, and who knows what other kind of pie.

Today has been very lazy so far.  We got up late, ate a bowl of cereal, hung out at Barnes and Noble for several hours, picked up an iPod cable to replace the one Kelly lost, bought some yarn for knitting Christmas presents, and ate a late lunch at Wendy’s (our favorite fast food).  Now everyone is taking a nap.  Lorena, Christian, and I are going to run down to the store while Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah nap and Kelly knits.  There is way too much food in the house.  I am going to start the turkey soup simmering before we go.  We will eat soup and hang out today with the hope of more of the same tomorrow.