SOme of you may have read my request for ideas for a great memorable 25th anniversary trip. I think I may have found it. FLy into Calgary and rent an rv or trailer with pickup and go visit Canadian Rockies and American (Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton) too. This will be for about two weeks plus a day. Does this sound doable? We will go roundtrip to Calgary. I can save some money buy cooking a number of meals (I like eating grilled food and love eating in the outdoors) and then supplementing by eating some nice dinners or breakfasts in gorgeous dining rooms. Then only bad deal with this is how to get the girls to go someplace else for anniversary times, if you know what I mean. But I think that can be doable since they are 13 and 16 and can go take a hike or something occasionally. What do you all think?

When I went to school in VA, we did history or geography every year except first grade when it was things like Pilgrims at THanksgiving, CHristmas around the world, service workers, etc. Second grade we were doing early American History and Israeli culture. Third grade was western expansion, I think. Fourth grade was ancient Greece and India. Fifth grade was world history, I think. SIxth grade, I went to a different school and had more of an economics focus. I learned quite a bit in elementary school and learned even more by reading extra material on my own.

For the poster who wanted to know EFC before filing, check the EFC calculators on the web. They were fairly accurate in our case- a real shock. My son ended up going to a school where we paid less than EFC because he got a half scholarship. NOw he is attending a school that is less than our EFC and we don't even file anymore. No point when his school is less than 10K tuition. THe shock comes when your income rises a bit. That is because they think you can live off of a very low income and then use most for your kids education. FAFSA doesn't consider things like JFS' autistic son who will need care 24/7. In those regards and if you have low or no home equity, the CSS/Profile is a better one, not that you can choose. BUt realize that if you make an average income, you will probably be expected to pay around 20K. IF you make an income in the second highest quintile, it will be more like 40K. I haven't tried it but assume that if you are in the highest quintile, it is full pay anywhere. THe system is set up to benefit very low income people. Now, I do want to cheer people up. In many colleges, hardly anyone pays full price, even those in the highest quintile. That is because they have that price for certain students and everyone else gets some form of discount. How much of a discount depends on how much the school wants your kid and what they think you can and will pay. The ones who pay full price with no discount at many private schools which cost a lot are rich foreigners and very rich Americans with a bit of a problem- not the greatest GPA, lower test scores, minor discipline problems, etc.

THe other exception is grad school. We won't be paying for our son's grad school and won't be expected too.

I have autoimmune inflammatory arthritis and it always flares after an illness. WHy? Because our immune system revs up for the virus or the bacteria and keeps on being revved up after the problem is gone and instead attacks us. Is he on any disease modifying medication? I noticed that this last time was better for me and I was on ARAVA but not on the days I was sick.

Have you taken him to a doctor to rule out depression? If his apathy is a new thing, I think he may have it.

I gave one of my kids the CAT test last year. It was very short and didn't waste time. THe ITBS is a much longer test and costs more. I think the CAT was 20 and the ITBS was something like 44. For the ITBS, you have to have a BA or BS.

Prayers and :grouphug:

I don't buy reading books that are new hardly at all- probably one every two years. Then I almost always buy paperbacks which cost less than an ebook. I don't tend to read very many classics except classic mysteries which I get at the library. I could maybe see getting one for dh as he travels a lot. I am normally travelling by car and can take my paperbacks and magazines with me.

To a PP who said that church is not a social network and we can't depend on it to make friends. Well I disagree completely about the nature of the church. If all we need is Biblical teaching, we can sit at home, read our Bible, and read great commentaries or listen on the web. Church should be a fellowship community and I am so disturbed about reading of all these unwelcoming communities of worship. In my view, it is so antithetical to a true Christian community. In 2006 I moved to a small town in Florida. Many of the people at the church we attended and joined were original members of the church. The Sunday School I joined had been meeting for over 20 years. Many of the kids grew up together and were now adults. I am getting teary eyed over how welcoming these people were. Yes, most were Southerners including our very welcoming minister and his wife. (FLorida southern, not Miami Beach). People talked to us right away. NOt just greet us at the door, but engage us in conversation. My 13 yo was allowed to join the adult choir. IN the two and a half years we were there, dd was fully incorporated into the youth group, my dh into the men's group, and I joined a book club. DH even joined a church committee. I never felt excluded. My new church is not quite as friendly as it is much larger. BUt I and many others make sure that anyone sitting or standing alone is approached and welcomed and start conversing. OUr pastor keeps talking about how for our Christian walk it is important to have fellow travelers.

Our EFC is more than double that and that accounts to something close to 40% of our income. I don't have an answer for you. The way we are doing it for number 2 is to give her her dad's GI bill. Then for number three, I am preparing him to retire from the military and get a well paying job. He is active duty military and they think we should be able to afford about 44K. That is so undoable for us. I just think it will get worse for number three so it is why I am telling him he needs to retire before then or we need to hit a lottery which I don't play anyway except for an occasional 1 dollar ticket. My dh is so upset about the high cost of school. WHat happened is that the tuition has been rising faster than inflation for about the last 15 years. Unless you really hit it big, your income probably did not keep up.

I have never seen one.

Yes, I am finding air fares everywhere to be ridiculously expensive. Like I tried Hawaii and just the airfare will be 4000. I can't see doing that. I am actually not so concerned about the lodging as getting to somewhere. Somehow, staying right near where we are just doesn't make it for me, especially since dh is going everywhere. And I am not stuck on Europe at all. I just am not really interested in driving up and down the East Coast for a vacation. I really want it to be more memorable. It is also one of the last vacations for our middle and not to far off for our youngest.

Thanks Jane

That is utterly ridiculous. Since the metric system is easier to use and is used in science, why wouldn't you teach it? I would think that most middle school level sciences use it too.

Thanks Jane for the suggestion but can you tell me which name is the high school version and which is the college?

Bit of a background: we currently live near the Nation's Capital and we will likely be bringing our two younger daughters who will be 13 and 16. For our twentieth, we drove down to Venice, cruised the Mediterranean, drove to Slovenia then on to Budapest, SLovakia, Poland and back home through Dresden to Belgium. It was a totally fabulous vacation. It also wasn't that expensive since the cruise was a great price and the hotels weren't that expensive. Since then we have cruised to southern Caribbean and another time to Bahamas. My dh is traveling to wonderful places with his work- Chile, Singapore, Australia, Scotland, Germany, ALaska etc. I am not. We will likely be going in later July or first half of August. My problem is that while I think there are a lot of great places we could go, I am having trouble figuring out prices or when I do, they are so expensive. Obviously, we know we will have to spend money. But I am hoping to keep it down to about 4000, not 8ooo. SInce we are very flexible in where to go if not so much in price, how do I search? Vacations we are considering are cruises, western National parks including maybe Canadian, Alaska cruise-trip, Hawaii, somewhere in Europe, etc, etc. Any ideas?

I think it is a great idea. The regulations for the teeth brushing seem good with one exception. They should also replae when the child has been out with a contagious disease like a stomach virus or strep throat. Since head Start is for low income children, I would suppose that most qualify for Medicaid or that Kid's Insurance program, both of which are funded by taxpayers.

Part of the very big problem is that making secure passwords that you can remember is hard. One option that I use is to make very secure passwords for financial stuff but write them down in a book. Can someone break in and access this? Well, yes they could but then they would have access to my bills and statements that have the same info in them. Most thieves come and get your tv, electronics and jewelry. WHat I don't like is all kinds of useless sites requiring passwords. I reuse those all the time. I am talking about things like newspaper sites that require a password to see an article or other such stupid requests. I am not filling up my head with even more passwords to please them.

I will have a 12th grader and a ninth grader next year. Due to my older dd's medical issues in 9th grade, she hasn't done world history as a high schooler. Normally I would do WH in 9th grade and I plan to do that with my 9th grader. In terms of science, my 12th grader will be doing physics but then so will my ninth grader. She is totally bored with life science and biology and I think physics is what she should do. Mainly I am having the ninth grader do this because I expect her to do AP Physics later on. ALthough I will have the older do world lit, I will have the younger do an intro to lit class. THe older is much better in English. They also won't be at the same place in math since the 12th grader will be doing pre-cal and maybe stat and the younger will be doing Alg2 and Geometry. NOw here is the rub- my two girls don't get along all that well. The younger is a typical prepubescent hormonal irritating child and doesn't particularly get along with any family member right about now. She is very perfectionistic while her older sister is extremely competitive. I don't plan to teach them at the same time and the older will be relying more on lectures and the younger on texts. However, any tests I design will be mostly the same for physics though for world history I will give more essay tests to the older while using more multiple choice for the younger. Because of this and the more difficult lectures that will be the basis for the older's class, she will have her class designated as honors. They have completely different personalities and interests. So older will probably like the history more and younger will like the physics more. Am I setting myself up for catastrophe or do you think this will work? Any suggestions?

I am planning on having both my girls do World History next year. THat means I will have a 12 grader who will use the text as a supplement and a ninth grader who will use the text as the primary. My 12 grader is very auditory and gets much more out of lectures so she will primarily use TT lectures on various periods and areas while her younger sister will use the lectures occasionally as supplements since she wants textbook learning. I am confused about what I would want to order.

I am so sorry Holly. I couldn't PM you but maybe you could pm me. AS you can see by my screen name, I am a transient. I move every few years and we are planning on moving for retirement to an area we haven't lived in. I certainly don't want to move to yours. Do you think it is mainly your church or the whole area? Could you check meetup on the internet and see if there are some groups for newcomers where you live?

I like Mimi's Cafe

I talk to all kinds of people. I don't make negative judgements but others do of me and my children. My youngest knew to be quiet when a Sunday School teacher was revealed to be a retired certain rank. THe kids were very impressed. She didn't reveal to them that her dad is that same rank. SHe already had a negative time on a cruise ship when some kid called her a liar because he asked her what her dad did and she answered that he's a physicist in the AF. Other times I have had to endure conversations about nasty ______ people or some such phrasing. I normally move away from those people and stay away from them if I later see them again. In our neighborhood, we are not the wealthiest people by far. In fact, I think we may well be one of the poorer though our house is large. That's because we didn't buy this place, we rented in the real estate downturn. Everyone here has treated me very well and no one has said anything about us being renters or having somewhat less money to us, at least.

We live in a free country and I like that. My kids won't take tests over and over again because I feel that is torture and not a good thing. My oldest took the ACT once, and a type of SAT three times. He took the SAT once in 6th grade, once in 11th and once in 12th. I don't think the SAT in 6th grade helped him at all. My next will never take the SAT. She will definitely do the ACT twice because some schools want the writing and some schools don't. She may end up taking one of the forms a second time. My third will take the ACT this year for a talent search. THen later she may take ACT for her yearly testing. Depending on where we live, we have to turn in tests to the school district. I don't see any reason to be trying to even the playing field. Homeschooling is an advantage, having smart parents is double advantage, having a good memory is an advantage, being well-off is an advantage, being smart and testing well in a rural area is an advantage, being a minority, being smart and testing well in a rural area probably just about guarantees a fully funded very good college education. My dh and I were both from low income parents. My mom was a widow not making very much. My dh's father was a milk truck driver and school bus driver- again not much money. We both managed to get our act together, sign up for SATs and study for them, and we both got into a top ten school. Our parents helped us no more than writing the check for the test. We worked hard and rose from low income to comfortable income. Why shouldn't we do what we can for our kids?