We are taking off the entire week. We are traveling, by car, from ATL to Minneapolis to see our daughter, her husband, and our granddaughter. We do map skills and state studies along the way so it isn't completely school free. :001_smile:

Yes, I do. I am a firm believer in having great grammar/language skills for one's future.

I used WWE and ARFH together. It wasn't too much. ARFH was always how we started our day - independent work while I woke up/started laundry/etc.:tongue_smilie:. Poor penmenship in ARFH resulted in me erasing words and DS re-writing them. I'm mean like that :D.

IKEA's ground coffee.

I do freezer meals (huge $$$$ savings) and this is a great source for recipes for those plus make ahead and crockpot meals. http://makeaheadmeals.blogspot.com

DS voted for a chicken. When I asked why, he said that chickens lay eggs and DS loves him some eggs!

You must have been sitting in our house this morning as DS had an absolute meltdown because he couldn't beat a computer program dealing with physics. Failing for our children teaches them to persevere - something they don't often have to do because things come so easily to them. Rosetta Stone has been great for perseverance in our home. DS easily knows the vocabulary, syntax, etc. but to get the program to recognize his pronunciations can be frustrating. Exhausting for me as DS thinks if he YELLS into the microphone, the program will recognize the pronunciation. :tongue_smilie:

We pulled out LOF Fractions this week. DS is concurrently doing Horizons 6 Math as well as Horizons Pre-Algebra this year. He LOVES LOF and isn't haven't any difficulty. Having said that, DS could have done it easily last year after completing Horizons 4 and part of Horizons 5.

Hope some of our experience helps you with your decision.

This is how we enrolled and DS loves Tim and Moby. Just be ready for lots of little 'tidbits' to appear in daily conversations :001_smile:.

:iagree: DS took private Mandarin lessons for over a year so that he would have the knowledge and ear for the tones. He has now moved onto Rosetta Stone Mandarin and doing fine. However, without that previous year of one-on-one instruction, Rosetta Stone would be a complete failure.

DH surprised me last night and pre-ordered a Fire for me :001_wub: . Gotta love a man that thoughtful. Now DS is already scoping out my 2nd generation Kindle as his first generation Kindle is slowly expiring. This was him this morning - :leaving:

Lunch today is at a local Italian restaurant - I have a super coupon so I am treating DS and myself. DS has TKD testing at 7PM so he MUST have a rest period this afternoon. I am hearing much grumbling about the rest period as DS HATES to slow down during the day. However, he is normally in bed at 7PM and without the rest, he will not do well at testing tonight. We are FINALLY getting cooler weather down here this weekend. Maybe a trip to the mountains for apples is in store.

:iagree: Also, if you plan on this being a long term purchase, be sure to get a keyboard with weighted keys.

Another Faber fan here.

I actually found our stainless steel Thermos in the camping section of our W@l-Mart. Expensive, but sooooo worth it!

DS is up at 7:00 and school starts at 8:00. That is plenty of time for chores, personal hygiene and breakfast. Privileges are lost (for the day) for every 5 minutes late. Rarely do we have a problem :) .

DH has a common name and it caused him to spend the night in jail years ago. He got stopped at a random license check and when they typed in his name, it showed that he was wanted for MURDER! The policeman was so excited that he didn't bother to check the height/weight/ethnicity of the wanted man and just carted DH off to the clink.

Wide awake here on the East Coast. Weather is actually chilly this morning - such a wonderful change from the high heat/humidity of the summer. Breakfast: Kidlet and myself - leftover noodle and ham casserole Lunch: I still have an hour to figure that one out. Nothing new starting up. Out of town: That would be us!!! We are headed to Williamsburg for homeschool days tomorrow. Should be a wonderful week!

I am also a tea drinker, but have learned to tolerate coffee. If you can find the pumpkin pie coffee at Target and get the pumpkin pie creamer by International Delights (it should be out soon), the coffee really doesn't taste like coffee anymore.

We have just gone through this. Last summer, we had the freon replaced and limped through without too much trouble. This summer, we tried it again and the freon didn't do too much for cooling the house. We were told that we had a leak in the in the evaporator coil or freon line. It was going to be extremely expensive to just find where the leak was occurring and then the question was rather to spend more money on trying (emphasis on trying) to fix the leak. We were contemplating just replacing the AC and not the furnace, but found out that the fan for the furnace, which is also the fan used for the AC, was not strong enough to handle the new AC unit. DH is verrrrry through when it comes to replacing large, expensive items. We had (drum roll, please) 13 estimates from 13 different companies! We had estimates to replace both our upstairs and downstairs AC and heating units that ranged from $6500 to $20,000 :w00t: . After we sorted everything out and began comparing apple to apples, we wound up spending $11,000 :ack2: for TRANE units. I will say that the company we chose also guarantees the units for the next 20 years. We pay a maintenance plan of $150 a year for them to come out in the spring and fall and change the filters as well as do whatever it is that they do. Anything that fails is on them. That was worth paying more $$$ at the initial outlay. Also, our AC bill has been cut by more than half (and we have had one of the hottest summers on record) thus making the purchase a very wise one. :001_smile: Our original units were builder grade and lasted 16 years (we are the original owners). All of the companies were surprised that the units lasted for so long as builder grade units are usually only good for about 5-6 years. Good luck. Get lots of estimates and make sure that you are comparing apples to apples (it can get very confusing).

Trail Guides to Geography MCT Island Series Like so many have stated, both get great reviews, but were real bombs in our house. Thank goodness I was able to recoup my money from MCT as that was expensive!

Get those frozen mini cream puffs. Defrost and dip in melted chocolate. Easy and elegant.

We are but on a light schedule. We have a super busy week with other homeschool activities so if we don't do some school today, this week would be a disaster.

If anyone has been thinking about using Reading Eggs, here is a super deal. One year for $32 and then a 20% off coupon. Good only for Labor Day - September 5. Half Off Depot - http://halfoffdepot.com/atlanta/all/one-year-subscription-to-reading-eggs.html At checkout, use the code "20percentoff". (I am not affiliated with any of the above - it just ran across my email this morning and I know some people in The Hive are using or are thinking about using Reading Eggs.)