There is the auto tour where you drive around and listen to a recording, but they also offer a tour where a guide will sit in your car with you and tell you about the battle as you drive around. You could then ask the person any questions you had or just chit-chat with a fellow Gettysburg buff. I loved that auto tour with the personal tour guide!! Here’s information about it: https://www.getyourguide.com/gettysburg-l32570/gettysburg-private-tour-with-licensed-battlefield-guide-t316442/?campaign_id=14411535009&adgroup_id=&target_id=&loc_physical_ms=9006733&match_type=&ad_id=&keyword=&ad_position=&feed_item_id=&placement=&device=c&partner_id=CD951&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1N2TBhCOARIsAGVHQc4TWAIOhiH4TQVK8oFtePt7WKIiO2nchCvFEqNm_phP6JzgNY370W0aAi6LEALw_wcB After reading the above, it looks like you follow the tour guide’s car, and then you probably get out of the car at each location and talk about it outside, due to Covid restrictions. You could call and find out all the details if you’re interested. I’ve also seen a tour bus with a double deck, but I’ve never looked into riding around on that bus.

Unless it’s winter or early spring. I’ve been on the battlefield and have been positively frozen on a windy day. But, yes, in the summer = HOT. A lot of it has no shade which is what makes it either hot in the summer or cold in the winter (no windbreak)

When they were younger, my boys and I read this book and then visited the Evergreen Cemetery. The building that the family lived in is unique and is still around and looks exactly the same. We really liked this little book. It was told from the POV of the townspeople and what it was like to live through the battle and even all the grave digging they had to pitch in and do afterwards. It’s based on a true story. The cemetery is still an active cemetery (people still get buried there) and is right next to the national cemetery where the soldiers are buried. In fact, the Gettysburg Address was given on the grounds of the Evergreen Cemetery and not the National Cemetery. One of the graves is from the 1700s before the US was a nation. I have visited that grave, but don’t remember how I knew how to find it…I’ll try to find out. (Actually, I think it was just some caretaker guy working in there when my boys and I were visiting who told us about the old grave.) https://www.amazon.com/Cemetery-Keepers-Gettysburg-Linda-Oatman/dp/B005Q5Y9MY It would be fun to read it and then go visit the location. It’s a picture book, so you can read it in just a few minutes. There are three copies of it in the Gettyburg library, which is in walking distance further down on the same road as the cemetery. If you don’t want to buy it, you could hope it’s not checked out and just read it in the library and then head down to the site without having to buy the book. https://adams.chilipac.com/r1s/eg/opac/record/8601358?qtype=keyword;locg=478;detail_record_view=0;query=evergreen cemetery Even though the book is for 7+, I would think an 11 yo would find it a fun little read, especially since he could visit the location afterwards. I found it informative to read as an adult.

Ha! My pictures are working:

Devils’ Den and Little Round Top are closed for 6 months and 18 months respectively. Just FYI. Those are hugely popular areas on the battlefield that an 11 yo would just adore (lots of fun boulders to climb on), so be very aware that they’re closed right now. They need to fix erosion problems. There are three metal lookout towers that are fun to go to the top off. For the one at Culps hill, you can park in the lot at the bottom by Spangler’s Spring and then walk on the grass by the road up the hill and then climb the tower. It’s a wooded area and is usually very peaceful. There is a path through the woods, but I couldn’t find it last time, so we just walked on the edge of the road and stopped to look at all the monuments along the way. The road is a park road and isn’t some sort of main thoroughfare, so it’s perfectly fine to walk next to it. Lots of monuments to see. If you don’t want to park at the bottom and walk up and then back down, then park at the top right at the base of the tower and go up the tower steps. Also, at the bottom of the hill by Spangler’s Spring are a few boulders a kid could climb around on for a bit. (I’m giving you tips about walking around because I’m trying to think of ways to keep a child active and engaged.) There is also the Pennsylvania monument that has a staircase in it that is spiral, like a staircase in a castle. This a marble-looking monument in the middle of the battlefields with an angel statue on top. When you get to the top you can look out over the fields. If he is the Gburg history buff you say he is, he will probably enjoy the diorama. I went to the diorama for the first time in March and it was cool if you love history, but they did use a lot of sophisticated vocabulary in their presentation. I was there with people whose secondary language is English, so I’m not sure how well they followed along. A child with a large vocabulary would be fine, esp if he loves the history of the battle. I agree with another poster that the Dobbin House tavern is fun to eat in—it’s in the basement and is a bit more casual than the restaurant above. Be aware that the Dobbin House was a stop along the Underground Railroad and you can see where the escaping people hid, and there are life-sized figures in there, so you can get a sense of what it was like to be cramped between the floors where the hiding place was. You can ask anyone working there how to find it or if you’re facing the building, go to the far left and go through the doors on the left side of the building. If there aren’t other people there you’ll feel like you’re trespassing, but you’re not. Just go on in and up the stairs. If you like Chinese food and don’t want to pay tourist prices, then Li’s Buffet is completely reasonably priced. If you go on a weeknight, the food doesn’t have as much turnover as it could, but if you go on a weekend evening, there’s tons of turnover so the food is piping hot and yummy. (I think it’s perfectly fine on weeknights as well, but some people like to have more turnover.) Their green beans are amazing. They’re not like other Chinese restaurant green beans. They’re sautéd in some sort of light garlic sauce (not even really a sauce), and the locals rave about the green beans (I’m a local and adore their green beans!) There’s a candy store in town on the corner of Baltimore and Middle street. That’s where I get my husband his Jelly Belly’s every Christmas. You can pull little levers on the flavors you want to collect whatever flavors you like. They also have some crazy-flavored sodas in fridges in the back. For a while, my son collected the crazy flavors and displayed them in his room. If you’re walking around town, you might not know it, but no one cares if you cross the traffic circle and stand in the middle of the traffic circle in the little grassy area. I’ve done a few photography projects standing in the middle of the circle. The buildings that you’ll see if stand in the middle of the circle are the exact same ones that were there during the battle and it’s pretty cool to look at pictures of them and then look at how they are now. They look exactly the same, which makes a history buff’s heart sing. So, going into the middle and looking around is kinda fun for a kid who loves history. Right now I’m getting error messages when I try to attach old pictures of Gettysburg that have the buildings on the square. If you’re on Facebook, pm me your name and I’ll send some to you that way. I’m not a big ice cream eater, but the locals say that Mr. G’s is amazing ice cream and totally worth the long wait in line (there’s usually a long wait, but maybe not if the weather is cooler.) If you go to the visitor center, take a picture with the statue of Lincoln, but have fun with it. I’ve taken pictures where we’re whispering in his ear or we’re pointing off in the distance so it looks like he’s looking at where we’re pointing. (I have pictures of that, too, but again, my computer won’t let me attach them to this post.) The statue of Lincoln that’s on the square with the tourist who looks like Perry Como has been taken down for cleaning and won’t be back up for a few months. But just today, I noticed a brand new statue in front of the courthouse across the street from the library. I haven’t had a chance to look at it closely, but one day I’ll get out there and try to take a clever picture interacting with the statue. (It’s of Thaddeus Stevens.) The Gettysburg Museum of History is a fun little museum. It’s free to get in, but the last time I was there, they asked if we could give them a donation—it’s voluntary and so we did. It’s not big (pretty much nothing in Gburg is big—it’s a small town and the buildings are small), but it’s packed full of relics from many wars. My boys loved it when they were younger. A few of the stores where Baltimore St and Steinwehr Ave intersect are fun for boys. They’re not just gift shops with girly things. They have leather bags that you can attach to your belt and replicas of gas masks that aren’t too badly priced and other stuff like that that boys like to look at. (Sorry if that’s sexist…I’m sure plenty of girls like that stuff, too, but in general boys like that stuff more than girls.) If you want to fill time doing something that’s not “gettysburg”ish, there is a regular movie theater just a smidge down the road and on Tuesday the tickets are $6 no matter when you go, even evening showtimes. (I tend to be there often on Tuesday night!) It’s the Gateway theater. The Majestic theater is in the middle of town and they have regular prices even on Tuesday and don’t tend to show movies kids would like—they cater to the artistic movies. Even though I live close by, I don’t go to Gettysburg for the historical aspect. I use it for my library, my Chinese buffet, my movie theater and my church. So, other than the above, I don’t really know much else of what tourists do in Gburg. But if I think of something else, I’ll let you know!

I don’t think I understand what positions you’re applying for. Are you applying to be a trainer at a company that trains their employees? Adult employees? Or are you still applying for positions in schools? If you’re good at teaching and creating your own training materials, there are companies out there that train their employees who need trainers. As to whether they’re hiring, I don’t know, and maybe those are the jobs you’re applying for, but if not, it’s an idea to cast a wider net.

Well, it’s 19 years too late, but my MIL finally suggested that we celebrate Mothers Day for her on Saturday so that I can be with my own kids today. So, for the first time in my life, I suppose, I can just chill on Mother’s Day, which is what I have always wanted on Mother’s Day! I don’t have to wrangle my kids and get them out of the house to celebrate Mother’s Day with grandma. Don’t get me wrong, we want to honor her, but usually Mother’s Day was just another day of work and sheep-herding my wild kids in a restaurant. (Adhd kids do NOT do well in restaurants.). Not my idea of a good time on Mother’s day. It was just another day of extra work. (Restaurants were just No Fun when they were younger.) So, we ate a nice lunch with MIL yesterday, and today we’re really not doing anything. I just asked that someone else handle dinner. DH and the boys are having roast beef in the crockpot, but I want beef stroganoff just for myself. (The rest of them don’t like stroganoff.) So, they’ll handle prepping both dinners. Yay! Otherwise, there are no special plans, but with kids who are 17 and 19, that’s ok. When they were tiny I really wanted a day off from the hustle and bustle of being “mom”, but now it’s different and I’m ok with just a nice homecooked meal.

I work for a health insurance company. Trust me, we hate HIPAA as much as you. If we are caught giving out info we’re not supposed to, we are breaking the law and there are serious consequences for us as a company. Our customer service reps are constantly double checking what they can and cannot give out because they don’t want to be in serious hot water for breaking HIPAA laws. But I also understand your frustration, OP. Call the insurance company and find out about some sort of release form or whatever they use so that you are someone they can give out HIPAA info to for your kids.

The stuff I can’t get at Walmart never seems to be a problem at any other store.

Premiums are usually a set price for a single person, another set price for a couple, and then a 3rd set price for “family.”. It doesn’t usually matter how many people are in the family. You could have 3 or 20 and it would still be the same set “family” price for both the family of 3 and the family of 20. That’s usually how it works anyway.

The only problem with selling the cars now is that if they need one for an upcoming driver, they won’t be able to buy one. I’m not so sure I’d sell more than 2 cars at this point. If you are working and he is working, that accounts for 2 cars. If the kids start driving and get jobs, you’ll need at least 1 more car, especially if there are no jobs in walking distance. I might even keep 4 cars.

We had a tiny wedding and had a sandwich tray with lunchmeat and cheese and cake for dessert. However, I did ask one guest to bring a dish. Remember, it was a small wedding, so there were no more than 20 people there. One of my guests used to made the best homemade soup in the entire world. I grew up eating her soup. I used to tell her, “When I grow up, I want this soup at my wedding!” So, when I grew up, I asked her to bring her soup to the wedding. She couldn’t make the wedding, but she sent a crockpot full of soup to the reception. 🙂 I feel like that was a special moment/situation, and not like making all the guests bring their own food. Other than MIss Lou’s soup, we provided the food.

I noticed that I often look stern and serious when I’m feeling perfectly happy and content. Once I realized that, I made a point to smile more as I taught my kids when we homeschooled. I didn’t want them thinking I was disapproving of their work based on a stern face that wasn’t meant to be stern. I especially started smiling more while homeschooling when I observed a teacher in the one class I outsourced for my son: French. She had been a professional French and Spanish teacher for 25 years and retired and taught at a homeschool co-op. She smiled at those kids the entire time she taught, and her classroom felt so warm and inviting because of her smile. With all that said, I’m choosing to smile. I’ve only had someone tell me to smile maybe twice in my life and it was annoying as all get out. I like the idea of commanding someone to dance if they command you to smile. That’s funny and drives home the point that it’s really inappropriate and obnoxious to make commands like that.

NPDs love to yank everyone’s chains about wills. My father’s NPD mother and father both insisted, multiple times, unasked, that they had a will and that everything was to be equally divided among their 6 children. Of course, once they both died, that was not the case. GC got most of it and everyone else got insultingly small amounts, meant to hurt. I think it’s rankling you that you know there’s a will and your NPD is sitting around gleefully picturing the moment when a will appears and you’re completely cut out! Ha! Won’t that just show you! It would be very hard not to say, “I know there’s a will and I already know I’m not in it,” just to deflate their glee. And also, it must rankle to have GC be blind to all this. It makes you want to say, “Oh come ON everybody. Let’s all open our eyes and see what’s going on here. No more games and tricks!” I would say though, that it’s best to leave it alone until NPD is gone. If you say something now, NPD will change their miserable little plan, just to mess with you. Tell GC later. Do your best to let it go. NPD is gonna NPD and so just put up that boundary and don’t let it mess with your head as much as you can.

As far as shortages, I’m not seeing anything more than what’s been usual. In the past 2 years, I’ve had to skip something from my list more often than not, because it’s just not been there. There have been random shortages on almost every item I buy since 2020. They haven’t all been short every time, but first it was the flour…then it was milk…then it was the canned tomatoes, etc, etc. I’m not seeing any extra shortages now. It’s the same as it’s been around here, where there are random items missing from the shelves one week and then back the next, only to have something else go missing.

I used to spend an average of $160 every week on items from Aldi and Walmart. So there might be things like shampoo or TP mixed in with the food. For the past three weeks, I’ve been spending an average of just under $260 every week for food. I’ve been buying the same stuff I get every week. And we literally eat the same 7 meals every week, so it’s literally the same almost every time! My grocery bill has gone up by about $100 a week. That’s $400 extra a month. ETA: It sounds like my bill went up just three weeks ago, but that’s not true. It was just that 3 weeks ago was when I finally said, “What the heck?! Why are my bills so high???” and I started paying close attention to exactly what I was buying and how much it cost. I had been thinking that perhaps I was adding expensive things to my orders and that’s why it had been so high (like something from a non-food department at Walmart), but I wasn’t. It really is just the same old/same old.

Wooden antiques: do not paint. Wooden trim in an old house: do not paint. A modern or semi-modern piece of furniture, especially if it’s low-medium quality: paint your heart out! I like the twig paper.

My 48-year-old friend found on on Thursday she has cancer. There’s a mass in her chest between her heart and lungs, pressing on her heart. There are nodules in her lungs and the lymph nodes under her arms are swollen. She gets a PET scan and biopsy on Tuesday to see exactly where the cancer is and what kind. Oncologist appointment on Friday. Whirlwind. I’ve been friends with her since we were 6 and 7 years old, so for 42 years. I can’t imagine a world without her in it. We have no idea what the prognosis could be at this point. On Thursday upon hearing the dx, the first thing she wanted was family portraits (she has four children). Since photography is my hobby and I can pull off professional-looking pictures when I work hard at it, we made an appointment for a portrait session on Saturday (yesterday). By Tuesday she will not be up for pictures. I second the idea of paying for them to get family portraits. Ask first, but make the offer. My friend that I’m talking about has portraits that were taken shortly before her father’s death and she treasures them. Since she treasures those pictures, she wanted her family to have a set of portraits of a sweet day when they were all together as a family, just in case the worst happens. She knows the value of beautiful pictures of loved ones who have passed.

I finally got around to checking the date on the fire extinguisher that’s in our kitchen. 1989. I hadn’t even graduated high school yet in 1989. I’m 49 years old now. Apparently, my husband brought this fire extinguisher to the marriage as his dowry.

I’m so sorry for such a devastating loss. Would you like to tell us a few things about him? Sometimes people feel an urge to share stories about their loved one. If you want to do that, we will listen.

In this particular case, the above is what I’m thinking. It’s another game to play with you as the loser. Another hoop to try to get you to jump through. I wouldn’t remind her.

My husband works at a college and has for 16 years. In that time, he’s outlasted 2 very bad bosses. He just stuck it out until they left. Many, many people quit both times because of those 2 bad bosses. They would tell HR, I’m leaving because of X. Workers went individually to HR and in groups to HR. Nothing ever came of it. Maybe your HR is more on top of things and will take action, or maybe yours is like my DHs where they frown and nod in sympathy when you talk to them about it, but they do nothing. Since the principal is looking for another job, I’d probably wait a bit and see if you can outlast her. At the same time, you could look for a new job, but wouldn’t it be horrible if you left to go to a new place, and that’s where she ended up as well? Do you know how seriously she’s looking for new work?

I liked that it explained how to carry an idea forward and expound upon it; how to take something that was said in the previous sentence and make more of it. Kids often just state a fact or two and then have no idea how to expound on those facts and then get frustrated because they can’t think of anything else to write. WTTW taught my kids how to expound and explain the statements that they made in their writing. For a very simple (and poorly written example because I’m answering you quickly), a kid might have to explain that Popeye is a sailor man. Prompt:Tell me how you know Popeye is a sailor man. Student who can’t expound: I don’t know what else to saaaay! He just IS a sailor man! There’s nothing to say! Student who expounds by building on the previous sentence: “Popeye is a sailor man. Before tattoos were socially acceptable, sailors were some of the few people who had tattoos. Popeye had a tattoo. His tattoo was of an anchor. Only sailors use anchors. Since only sailors had tattoos and only sailors use anchors, the conclusion is that Popeye is a sailor man. Notice how a word from each previous sentence can be found in the next sentence? Ignore how ridiculously simple this is (and badly written!)! I’m just writing fast and dirty to demonstrate how you can take a word or idea from the previous sentence and say something else about it and then come to a conclusion. Anyway…that lesson right there was worth using WttW for us. It was so eye-opening to my kids and frankly to me as well. I could expound for myself, but didn’t know how to break it down and explain to the kids how to do it.

Zombie thread. But it was nice to see some people’s names that I haven’t seen in a long time!

My heart hurts for you all. I wish I could help. It’s so hard to watch your child suffer.