The problem with IBS is that we all have different triggers. My own triggers are legumes, most dairy, apples, things with HFCS and resistant starches. The low fodmap diet is helpful, even if its a huge PITA, because it helps figure out your own triggers. Monash University, who discovered FODMAPs, has a really nice app with lots of foods and their fodmap levels. It really is just trial and error. I was diagnosed with IBS-C (and later SIBO, a whole other mess) over 20 years ago and I've been in pain for the past 3 days due to something I've eaten :(

We live in Charlotte and have been to GWL in Concord as its about 20 minutes from our house. We liked it just fine although I have no experience with other locations to compare it to. I personally didn't notice the lack of lazy river. Its still relatively new so the rooms and interior is clean and updated. I personally think the Williamsburg area is much more interesting than Charlotte, if you are planning on doing things outside GWL. The one in Concord is near an outlet mall and mostly chain restaurants along the interstate exit, although uptown Charlotte isn't too far away.

This happens to me when I take penicillin. I get about 7 days in and then get hit with hives that start with my hands and quickly spreads. Best wishes for your DD. I'm so glad she is OK!

I am so very sorry. :grouphug:

I have two daughters, twins. We were married for 9 years before deciding we wanted just one. So of course I conceive twins! :) I was 30 when they were born. It's been an amazing journey that I wouldn't change for anything, but as soon as I found out it was twins I knew we were done. Financially we are in a comfortable place to provide activities and nice vacations and they have sizeable 529s which is important to us. We also like doing things (hiking, day trips, weekend getaways, festivals etc) and I would be frazzled with any more than my two to keep up with. Truth be told, I'm not the most patient person. My girls are very energetic, always have been. I know that I personally couldn't handle any more. I think I'm way too type-A :p I also had hyperemesis while pregnant and it was the most awful experience of my life. I absolutely fear going through that again. I couldn't handle it.

Most of our grocery stores around here offer it. I used it a few times in the past when my twins were much younger and one (or both) were sick and I didn't want to drag them around the store. We now have Amazon Prime Now in our area and get free shipping (minus a tip) within two or four hours....game changer! Last week my new vacuum cleaner and eggs were delivered in led than two hours because, you know, I just HAD to have that vacuum cleaner that day :p

My husband doesn't like "Thanksgiving food" which is a bit of a running joke in our family. This hear we are traveling over Thanksgiving and have a reservation for an Italian restaurant :) I personally love yeast roles and sweet potato casserole. I can live without Turkey but love ham.

We are the only secular homeschooling family I'm aware of and we live in a large metropolitan area in the southeast. There are many religious-based co-ops. I often feel like an outsider attending HS events though it doesn't stop me from attending; we just tend to stick to ourselves. Its very isolating at times.

Thank you all. I think I'm just going to go ahead and purchase AAR 4. After going through all of the word flash cards for AAR 3 there are only a handful of lessons we need to work on. I hate sinking the money into AAR 4 but they do have a fairly high resale value. I don't love all of the parts for AAR 3 (or AAS, which is why we switched to SYS), but we've come this far so I may as well just finish out the last level.

I've been eyeing this for a little while now. We use CLE math and love it!

No. I didn't even know they had one! I'm going to check it out. Thanks!

One of my twins has high functioning ASD. Her language is delayed and she receives speech therapy a few days a week. Her sister has, I believe, undiagnosed ADHD and was being treated with medication that we decided to stop. With some coaxing I can get her to pay attention. Both have struggled with this since back in their twos and threes when I would attempt story time at our library. Things have gotten better with homeschool but it's still a struggle.

Thanks for the responses! The rate is $35 per day. Now granted Charlotte's parking isn't very expensive but this seems rather high. But I don't want to be greatly inconvenienced either. I will definitely check out Parking Panda.

We are spending Thanksgiving in DC this year, driving up from NC. Our hotel does have parking, at a fairly expensive daily rate. We obviously won't need the vehicle during our visit so we are trying to figure out if there is a secure lot somewhere outside of the city where we can leave our vehicle for a few days and train in? Does something like this exist? Or is it better to just park in the city?

Rarely. We park both vehicles in our garage and therefore that's how we typically enter our house.

I'm in agreeance with you. I completely get the point. They just don't work well around here and it ends up frustrating everyone. It should be nice and easy one-car-at-a-time merge. But drivers use shoulders to go around those waiting to merge so essentially it becomes three lanes merging into one and then they try to merge well past the merging spot and nobody wants to let them in so that is tailgating. I never had problems with zipper lanes until moving here.

Exactly! On paper it makes perfect sense. And during the day when traffic is flowing it works great. But when some impatient a-hole purposely gets into the lane just to jump around everyone and cut someone off, causing breaks to slam its just a douche move I can't get on board with regardless of whether its allowed. I just wish there were more considerate drivers!

I'm not a talking zipper lanes. I'm talking a lane that ends due to lack of space to extend said lane. There is a solid line and yet people still cut over. Or, even worse, a left turn lane next to a straight lane that's backed up for half a mile. Drivers somehow think its OK to bypass traffic in the left lane and then, instead of turning, put their blinker signal on and expect to be let in the straight lane. Zipper lanes have their place, and have helped in some situations around here. But for the most part an ending lane in a high traffic area just makes things infinitely worse. Nobody wants to sit in traffic. We all have places to go. So I don't get why some think they are entitled to bypass everyone else. Just creates more traffic while we all have to stop to let them in. I live in an area that is growing way too fast for the infrastructure to keep up.

That's what I was thinking. I wouldn't use it as a primary source, but I'm hoping it will work in the interim and/or solidify what we've learned in FLL.

I would ban drivers from waiting until the lane completely ends to merge in with traffic and cutting off others who have been waiting in the line of traffic. Which would ban three quarters of the drivers in my town.... Grocery stores wouldn't be allowed to put milk all the way in the back of the store! :p Everyone with more than five coupons needs to have their own checkout lane :p And people who come into an exercise class late, crowding and making everyone else move so they can set up their space!

We are working our way through FLL 2. I personally like it just fine. My girls do not. Well, it's not that they necessarily dislike it as much as they just don't have enough interest to retain their attention. They space out. It was fine at the beginning when we were learning things like nouns and action verbs or doing the fun activities like looking at a painting or reading a poem. They have been completely unable to retain any of the pronouns or the linking/helping verbs and could care less. I know many children dislike workbooks, but my girls work better with them. They thrived when we switched from AAS to SYS this year, as an example. They are most definitely not oral learners; this is something they both struggled with in public school (I pulled them out in Jan) and still struggle with at home. Basically if I just stand in front of them and attempt to teach it goes in one ear (if at all!) and out the other. They both need something concrete to look at while I'm teaching (and apparently our white board doesn't count). I am thinking of shelving FLL for now, with the hopes of returning to it sometime in the future. In the meantime, I went to Barnes & Noble today and picked up a couple Spectrum LA workbooks for grades 2. At first glace my daughters seem to think it looks okay, and it seems like it would get the job done. Just curious if anyone has tried the Spectrum workbook and what your thoughts are on them?

I'm still relatively new to this homeschooling thing but I thought it was just me! My problem is that I get sucked into all of these great ideas that sound perfect. And the annoying thing is that I *know* they probably won't work for my girls but I'll give in and purchase anyways. And then its back to the drawing board a few weeks later.

I had HG and nothing worked until I got a home nurse and a Reglan pump. It was absolutely miserable, enough to keep me from ever getting pregnant again. Hope she feels better soon. Prior to the HG diagnosis my Dr advised me to try the BRAT diet, ginger, and those seasick wristbands. Maybe one of those will work.

This is us. Switching to CLE from MM was like night-and-day. It clicked almost immediately and all of the math frustrations diminished. We are a secular homeschool so it took some encouragement to give it a try and my only regret was not purchasing sooner.

Thanks everyone! I'm looking into the suggestions I chose AAR2 after seeing samples, but as I pulled my girls out of public school it was trial-and-error while I figured out their strengths and weaknesses. We breezed through it but it wasn't until starting AAR 3, and getting more comfortable with homeschooling, that I started to question its purpose. They have been doing well with reading, but I'm unsure if its the AAR or just lots of practice reading. If I switched OPGTR is it easy to jump it? I've never really looked at this as I (apparently wrongly!) assumed it was for beginner readers.