Mainly because he wants to fly, and it would have been a risky gamble at West Point. There just aren't very many slots. He also got a 4 year type 1 AFROTC scholarship, plus other smaller scholarships, so that made VT a go. He really liked the atmosphere at West Point, and if he hadn't been so set on flying, he would have gone there. We have many friends who are USMA grads, and they are amazing people. I have really been impressed by the Commandant of Cadets at VT, a retired AF general. I think he is really providing good leadership for the Corps. Also (and I don't think this has been as much as issue at West Point as it has been at USAFA lately), I think VT is a little less tied to the whims of the military bureaucracy and the social agendas therein, which is nice.

My oldest is in his second year at VT, and we have also been very happy with the Corps and its leadership. DS absolutely loves it there and is thriving. We are also in NoVA. Two years ago, my son got presidential nominations for both West Point and USAFA, and he was double-nominated by a senator and a representative for USAFA, which is really rare in district 10. He received an appointment to West Point (with just the presidential nom)--and was rejected by USAFA. He would have been a third generation cadet because my dad and grandpa were also grads. So go figure, lol. At the end, you really have to just leave it in the hands of God and trust that your son will end up where he is supposed to be!

I use that same format. I just call my extra column "Pre-HS".

LOL, my dh works in the big 5-sided building, and he can't have a fitness tracker or his cell phone. Well, he can have his cell phone in some parts of the building, but when he gets to his part, it goes in a big secure bin. So not weird to me! Inconvenient though, at times. I really wanted to put a tile tracker thing in his wallet, since he constantly misplaces it. But no, that's a no-go as well.

I don't know that you need a huge cooler. You'll most likely be eating breakfast at the hotel (or if you're at an AirBNB type place, you can surely find a store and grab cereal, milk, bagels, or whatever), and you'll probably eat dinner out (or maybe the hotel will have something if you stay at Homewood Suites or something like that, which we usually do), so you're just looking at lunch. I pack several packages of lunch meat, sliced cheese, and lettuce, along with a little thing of mayo and mustard. That's really the bare minimum that needs to be refrigerated. I bring tortillas (take up less room), and kids can put what they want on there and roll it up. I usually will have a bag of some chips, apples, maybe carrot sticks, and some cookies, and we just use a roll of paper towels for plates, napkins, everything. No plates or utensils, except for a few plastic knives for spreading things. It works great for traveling! We take a lot of road trips, and we have an even bigger family, but it's totally doable.

We have actually received not one, not two, but THREE sets of paper scores! Same big envelope, exact same contents inside. Our first one came in the beginning of December, and our last one came about 2 weeks ago. I honestly can not figure out what is going on, but they can feel free to stop wasting postage on our family, lol.

We were just there on Friday, but there were lots of signs up all over the place (even a big list on the back of bathroom stall doors) for various weekend activities (including a huge Chinese New Year thing that I saw advertised on billboards all around town as well). I think you are right about it changing to be more of a residential school now. They've built like 4 new dorms in the past several years, and another one is being built now that will be done in 2018 or 2019, I think.

This is all very helpful! My DS wanted me to point out it wasn't *only* the essay that made him not want to do it. He just didn't think it would be worth it, but who knows. Priority registration is definitely a very nice perk. And I am glad to know about the shuttle! That sounds perfect for being able to pick up milk, etc. All those activities you listed sounded much more like what my DS likes to do--way more than looking for glitzy nightlife or anything, lol. He is absolutely not looking for a party school or town, and it was a positive that this school wasn't considered one at all!

After reading a thread on here last fall started by Attolia, I believe, we got interested in UA-H, and my second son and I flew to Nashville Thursday night and drove down to Huntsville to visit the school on Friday. (Sidenote: we had an interesting flight from DC to Nashville--our engine caught fire during the decent, and we had to make an emergency landing and evacuate the plane while fire trucks sprayed fire retardant foam on the plane. We ended up waiting 4 hours for our carry-on bags to be taken off the plane and brought to us. An exciting way to begin a college visit, no?) Anyway, I am copying and pasting this report from my blog. We first became interested in the school because of the automatically-awarded merit aid. Here is a link to the merit scholarship aid chart. You can see that if a student has an ACT of 34 or higher, or a SAT over 1520, then tuition as well as housing is 100% paid for. Well!! Now we're talking! This immediately moved UA-H high on our list of schools to pursue. DS applied and was accepted as well as awarded the "Charger Excellence" scholarship. I looked for tickets in mid-January and found a good deal into Nashville, about 2 hours north. The only problem was that all the Friday campus tours for UA-H were full into February, so I called their visit coordinator, explaining who DS was, and that we were flying in from NoVA. She said they would definitely be able to put us on a tour, so we came on. Actually, she did way more than just put us on their campus tour. She arranged for us to have a tour of the College of Engineering with a student guide at 9:00, then meet with an admissions counselor (who had been homeschooled, and was their admissions homeschool liaison) at 10:00, then a meeting with an engineering advisor at 10:30, a complimentary lunch at the main cafeteria at 11:30, and then the campus tour from 1:00-3:00. Busy day! Even though we had gotten in so late, we got to the college at 8:45. The engineering tour was very interesting. Engineering is by far the biggest major at UA-H, and it definitely has a ton of money being poured into it. Since the university is surrounded by countless contractors and other research companies, the opportunities to be involved with research, even as undergrads (even as freshmen!), are immense. They have a bunch of different labs, like the huge machine lab, where there are just tons of random projects everywhere, being worked on and tinkered with, along with tons of machines that will literally make any part you can conceive of. When you think "lab", you might conjure up rows of empty tables, ready to do specific projects, and while there are some like that, a lot of the labs are more like some crazy Uncle Albert's garage or something, with parts and pieces all over, in some order, but an outsider wouldn't know what it is, lol. Companies donate extra stuff, like rolls of carbon fiber, so pretty much any material you can imagine or need is right there. There were students all over the place working on things--building rockets, printing stuff in 3-d printers, etc. The guide said pretty much every class has projects to do. The whole program sounded incredibly hands-on. Plus, once you are through the intro-type classes, there are tons of co-op positions and internships with the various companies nearby. A vast majority of engineering students do these, and something like 85% graduate with job offers from companies they have already worked for. There are also a zillion and one engineering clubs, like the Space Hardware Club, and also tons of competitions that they send teams to. Winning entries from various and varied competitions were displayed all over the hallways, making interesting conversation pieces, and there were also fascinating research project summary boards all over the walls. Anyway, the tour was a really good overview of the program, and DS was really excited about the hands-on nature of it all. We didn't really have too many questions for the admissions counselor, so that part didn't take all that long. The engineering advisor, however, was incredibly helpful. He was able to show us exactly how DS's AP and DE credits would fit into his program. He is deciding between electrical and mechanical engineering, so he was able to get a better idea of exactly what classes he would be taking. The guy was so nice. We spent about an hour in there with him, and he answered questions not just about engineering, but about a ton of other things too. He confirmed what we had heard about the university--that about 10 years ago, they decided to turn it from more of a commuter school into a STEM-focused university, and he rattled off a bunch of different buildings that had been built in those 10 years, including all of the dorms except one old one. Now there are about 8,000 students, which seems to be a really nice size. He also discussed the honors college. Instead of just being a bunch of philosophy and liberal arts classes, like it seems to be in a lot of universities, there are honors classes within each major. The classes are smaller, and involve deeper thinking and more discussion. He is leaning away from that, though--there's an essay to write for admission! Our free lunch in the cafeteria was good. Then we headed back over to the brand new Student Services Building for our campus tour. I was kind of dreading the tour, honestly, because the weather was still really cold and windy. We totally should have brought our winter jackets, not just our sweatshirts, and I regretted that every day we were down there! It was indeed freezing, but I am of course glad we went. Our 2 tour guides were both engineering majors, so that was helpful. They were both involved in different Christian campus ministries, the Baptist Campus Ministry and Reformed University Fellowship, and I saw signs for Cru too, as well as various Bible studies. One guy was very involved in his church as well, doing children's ministry with 1st-6th graders, so that was all very good to hear. One girl on the tour, when she found out we were from NoVa, asked, "WHY would you want to come to college in ALABAMA? There's NOTHING to do here!" But the guides seemed busy and happy, and there certainly were plenty of entertainment options on campus, even things like game nights with the "Society for Strategic Gaming". That probably wouldn't have appealed to her. I got the impression we had vastly different ideas of fun, most likely, lol. There were lots of intramural sports too, like ultimate frisbee, which Ds was interested in. I don't think he would have trouble finding things to do. The housing was another attractive thing from the get-go. All the dorms are organized into suites of 4 rooms with a common room in the middle. The common room has a couch and 2 comfortable chairs, plus a table and 4 chairs. It also has a fridge, microwave, and sink. Then on either side of the common area are 2 (small) rooms, a sink, a shower, and a toilet area. So each student has their own room, with bed, desk, hutch, closet thing, and dresser. For someone from a big family, this set-up looks really good! After we left there was when I realized I hadn't taken a single picture all day. I'll blame being tired and cold! Finally we were done with the tour, but we still couldn't get too warm. We were meeting a friend from Civil Air Patrol who is a student! He's a former homeschooler from NoVa who is also a National Merit Scholar (they get every single thing paid for, including books and fees, an even better deal!). We had assumed he was at the main campus of UA, but when DS was talking to his dad in December and mentioned he was looking into UA-H, the dad said, "That's where D goes!" He is certifiably brilliant, so we knew if he was enjoying it here, it must be a good, challenging program. We met him over at the propulsion lab, which was a space with a bunch of big rooms, and more projects everywhere. There were also big vacuum chambers and wind tunnels, and a place surrounded by layers of cinder blocks to test rocket launchers. Again, students were everywhere, running tests and tinkering. D also took us over to the Space Hardware Club rooms in a different building, so we could see some of what they were working on. Those rooms were full of kids working away on various projects, and everyone was really friendly. We left him answering questions from another guy about some formulas he had used in some calculations, and we headed back to our car. Oh, one thing I liked--students can have cars on campus all 4 years. A parking pass is merely $125 a YEAR, and students can park in any parking lot! Even the academic building lots! D said that might change in the next few years, because they are running out of space, but the campus is spread out, not all crowded together, and it would be nice to have the option of driving on cold days (like the one we were touring on, lol). One negative is that there is no nice public transportation, so you pretty much either need a car or a friend with a car to be able to go anywhere off campus, even for groceries. D did say there was an Aldi within walking distance, though. So we left the campus with DS thinking there were really no bad things about going there. It was a very informative visit, and I am really glad we went. The school is a strong contender, for sure. It is hard to walk away from all that money!

We have also had to squeeze in extra little kids many times. We never count the kid in the pack-n-play, for example. When we only had 5 kids, we would book a suite room with sofabed and use the pack-n-play. Now with 12 of us, we always get 2 rooms (connecting if possible, but if not the boys go in one room, since my oldest kids are boys, and the youngest 2 boys sleep in sleeping bags on the floor), and the girls are in with my dh and me (the 3 older girls still all sleep in the same bed together, plus a pack-n-play for youngest). When we have 2 rooms, and there are just a bunch of kids milling around, obviously in the same family, no one tends to say anything. We usually send dh in to check in, and then we gradually go in as other big family moms have said, not to be deceptive, but just because it works better with little kids.

I bought the OXO Good Grips 3 Blade Spiralizer off amazon in the beginning of January because I was starting a whole30. I have been *very* pleased with it. It seemed like the main differences in spiralizers were whether or not they could spiralizer harder vegetables like sweet potatoes (this one does a great job), and whether or not the suction stays on the counter, so it doesn't move around all the time (this one has a hug suction cup on the bottom, and it has worked very well). I have really liked spiraling zucchini to use in place of noodles. I like the zucchini MUCH better than I liked spaghetti squash. I think it will be a permanent change for me, honestly. I started out trying different things, like sauteing them for a few seconds, or blanching them, but in the end, I found that just sticking them in the microwave for a few seconds to just heat them up a bit before pouring sauce on them is all they need. We have also spiralized a bunch of sweet potatoes and made curly fries with them. SO delicious! My kids love spiraling apples just because it's fun, lol. And we're a family of 12, so I totally hear you on extra one-use kitchen gadgets taking up space, especially one like this that is larger and odd-shaped, lol. But I have been very glad for it. It, and cauliflower rice, have made this whole30 so much easier.

Just a quick note to say that the AP gov exam definitely has essays now--4 free response questions in 1 hour, 40 minutes, worth 50% of the grade. Also, the exam is in the process of being redesigned right now. The new exam will first be given the 2018-2019 school year.

I picked this book up from the library Friday on a whim, because I recognized it from a reading a thread about it here back in February. (A Mother's Reckoning is by Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters.) I finished reading it this afternoon, and wow, was it powerful. I thought I would never be able to read it because I tend to get very emotionally involved in books, and I thought it would just be too difficult. Suprisingly, I did not find it hard to get through--in fact, I could hardly put it down. I did cry a lot, and I felt like the mother's deep despair and regret really jumped off every page, so that was hard. But it wasn't graphic or anything. She was brutally honest about coming to grips with the fact that her son had freely committed this atrocity, and how deceived she (and many others) had been. I thought the most important part was her research and discussion about teen depression and suicidal tendencies. I really learned so much, like that teenage boy depression shows up in very different ways than what we typically think of as depression (lethargy and sadness). It's more like irritibility, self-criticism, frustration, etc. Those are all very common teenage boy problems, but connecting them, and watching for changes in these areas, might be a way to better recognize depression. I don't have much experience with depression, suicide, or things like that (certainly not mass murderers!), and I think I had always just sort of blithely held assumptions like she did--my kids are loved, secure, and supported, so they would never get depressed/act on that. The book was very eye-opening for me, personally. I have one son who has always tended to have a more Eyeore-like personality, tends to think of himself as a victim, more likely to withdraw. I am hoping that this book will help me be able to engage with him better. Our area (Loudoun County, VA) has had 2 teen suicides in the past year, and it has been subject on a lot of people's minds. One teen was even seen by a school counselor, but the school and administration never let his parents know he was struggling with suicidal thoughts/depression, which was against protocol. Now the parents are suing the school system to try to get some accountability. I guess I'm just saying it is still easy to ignore signs, and I am really encouraging all my friends with kids to read this book.

Yes, just another one chiming in to say my kids, and kids in our small co-op, have been accepted to a wide range of average to Ivy League schools, including military academies, and not one of the schools has batted an eye at our transcripts, or asked for any single other thing regarding labs (or anything else, either, lol). I teach pretty much all the high school science courses, and we do the labs at my house, like Julie in KY.

Ha! I thought I recognized Eric Reini's name, so I looked him up--I went to college with him! Fun! We were both math majors too. My son took PAH's AP stats, and it was definitely not his favorite class over, format-wise, even though he did fine. He didn't have a lot of extra time to participate in the forum and the other extra things. He felt isolated, and he definitely prefers an actual teacher. He begged me not to sign him up for any more PAH classes because he really didn't like the format. I definitely agree with the advice to know your student!

There is an AP lab manual that goes with it. You can buy one that has the student pages as well as the teacher pages. I think I bought mine from the college board website. I just looked on amazon, and they only have the student manual. You would definitely need the teacher one as well, I would think! It gives lots more instructions on how to set up. We ended up doing some virtually because some of them are really complicated, or I couldn't get all the materials or whatever. If you are planning on having your child take the AP bio exam, then you should at least familiarize him with the labs in the manual. Although the college board no longer says you have to do these 12 labs to be prepared for the exam, like they used to before the redesign, there are still concepts and calculations in the manual that will be on the exam.

We were excited too! One of the Clemson players on special teams was in our homeschool co-op, although he did graduate from public high school. He's one of 7 kids--such a great family. We were happy to cheer him, and the Tigers!

Here's a link to the syllabi for the different levels of the NLE. You can see what all she has covered and how it matches to the different levels. I would say go for the level 1 one, personally. I used the syllabus to flesh out any weak areas, especially culturally.

I am praying for you now, with tears in my eyes. I'm also so glad you can hold him, and I continue to pray for a miracle.

Meh, I don't know. I have 10 children, and I've eaten peanut butter while pregnant and nursing with all of them because I love it. My 3rd child, a boy, had severe eczema (the oozy kind, as a previous poster said!) that started when he was about 3 months. I was solely nursing him at that point. When he was 5 months, he chewed on a fork I had been eating coffee cake with, and he broke out with huge hives all over his face (the cake had walnuts and milk in it). When he was tested at 7 months, he was severely allergic to peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, and eggs--everything they tested for except soy. He grew out of eggs by age 3 and *finally* grew out of dairy at age 9 (!!), but all the nut allergies remain, and he's had several anaphalactic reactions over the past 15 years. He also had asthma. None of my other children have any nut allergies. One had a milk allergy she outgrew at age 2. None of the others have asthma. There is no way that simply giving him a spoonful of peanut butter as an infant would have helped! And he was definitely exposed to tons of peanut butter in my breast milk. So this might make people feel better, and maybe it will help really obsessive new moms feel better about peanut butter, but there will still be kids who have that allergy. If I had another baby with all the skin problems that Caleb had, I would definitely not try any nuts. It seems like the skin issues might be a bigger indicator of future allergies than anything else? I tell Caleb that he just won the genetic allergy jackpot. He does have perfect vision and teeth, lol. His braces-and-glasses-wearing siblings are jealous about that! ETA: He was a natural vaginal birth--I didn't have any c-sections or any preterm babies, or really any problems at all with any of my 10 births.

Oh my goodness, I am praying for you and precious Nate right now! May you feel the Lord's arms around you. (((Hugs)))

This is me exactly! I"m planning on starting Tuesday. I may have some beans and not worry about soy sauce. My issue is that I'm still cooking for 10 other people (11 for the next 2 weeks while oldest ds is still home from college), and it's hard to try a bunch of new recipes or just make the quantity of food I need (4 teenage boys!) without carbs. I'll try to make stuff separate for me when I need to, but I'm not going to worry about every little thing.

Yeah, my ds15 had a very similar sickness to mono (just not the Epstein-Barr virus, but similar), and he was sick for awhile. He got sick the first week or July, and it was about a month before his throat stopped hurting. He lost 15 pounds! He slept for weeks. It really took him a long time to bounce back. When cross-country season started in August, he was definitely not remotely close to where he usually is, fitness-wise. The sickness just wiped him out. It was into September before I felt he was really recovered. Your son definitely needs to rest and not push himself to be able to fully recover. I pray it will be a quicker recovery for him!

Oh, happypamama, I haven't read anything for a few days, since we're at my parents, and I come back to find all these tiny new babies! I am praying for you and your precious baby. May you have the peace that passes understanding as you wait! (((Hugs)))

Ha, that's funny! Her first name wasn't Michele, was it? Because that would just be too weird, lol. I had my Mrs. Freeman in the early 80's--1982-83, I think.