Macaroni and cheese. Tomato jam on hot biscuits. Both made just like my dad used to. (Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I miss you everyday, but know you are looking down from Heaven on my family.)

Having traveled through Britain and France for extensive periods of time, we never had a problem with E.Coli. I will eat anything in Britain, but abstain from meat in other countries just to be super-safe. Having said that, though, DH is a meat and potato guy and has never gotten sick from eating lots of different types of meat.

You can get glucosamine in capsule form at Wally World. Just open the capsule and sprinkle on food. That has really helped my in-laws dogs who both have arthritis in their hips.

Mine is 2.79. I like to keep it at 2.80, but summer has been sooo busy that I haven't spent much time posting, only reading.

FIL (at age 79) had mitral valve repair and closing part of a loose heart flap in addition to part of his heart being frozen. Surgery was on a Thursday morning and he came home the following Tuesday. Only complication was developing diabetes after the surgery (apparently not uncommon). They had scheduled him to come home on Sunday, but it took a couple extra days to get his medication dosages worked out. He was breathing better immediately after the surgery and save for being sore, he felt 100% better. Diabetes disappeared after 6 weeks. He is now 7 months post-surgery and doing great. He and my MIL left on a 10 day cruise exactly 3 weeks after his surgery. His heart surgeon said he could easily live to 100 now. The whole family laughed as my MIL has a large insurance policy on my FIL. It expires when he turns 99. :lol:

Fiskars. here, too.

I know we do through our co-op.

DS is also adopted from China. He took Chinese lessons for a year from a private tutor. We then had the opportunity (by virtue of DH being a university professor) to get Rosetta Stone online for free. So we switched. DS is doing wonderfully with it, but only because he had the basics with his tutor. He knows the tones and how to read the accent marks. Those tones are soooooooooo important.

I belong to a small (50 family) co-op. It is great as it doesn't really interfere with schooling. The club days meet 5 times during the fall and 5 times during the spring. On the off weeks, field trips, park days, etc. are planned. If you sign your child up for classes you are only committed to the 5 days (from 2-4 in the afternoon). Everything else is totally up to you to decide if it fits into your schedule. The benefits I see is that DS has some friends that live close by since the co-op is based very locally. The moms always have a MNO once a month which is greatly appreciated by everyone. Even though we don't meet over the summer, park days are always occurring. Right now the boys from the co-op have been having an ongoing Nerf War. We had battles I-IV over the past 4 weeks. Now that it has become so hot, we are changing to water gun battles. Very relaxed and the children really get to know each other while the moms sit in the shade and solve the problems of the world :D.

DS picked up a big book of questions and mazes on day at B&N. I just thought it was mazes (he LOVES doing them). In reality, it is a huge book with a question at the top and three answers. You have to complete the correct path to get to the right answer. He does this in the car and always asks DH and I what we think the answer is if he is really stumped. DH and I have learned a lot! It has those little pesky questions that you need to know the answer to, but it just doesn't fall neatly into a category to teach at home.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I would call Amazon. Their customer service for the Kindle is awesome!

Intense, empathetic, driven

All I can say is that when I was your DD age, I said I was bored one time too many. We did have the cleanest house and nicest yard in the whole neighborhood that summer. It really taught me a lesson that I remember to this day!

We live in GA so the same as TX. Our bill for last period was right at $150. Don't know the KW. Just FYI that I found out this week - we are having to replace two central HVAC systems ($$$$$$$$$$$ :svengo:) and each company that we have gotten estimates from have determined how much heat each person in the house gives off to determine the size of the units we need. Since you have a large family, according to these guys, it takes more energy to heat/cool your home. See -- it isn't your fault :D.

:iagree: I did a lot of yelling at the television in the vain of "Just answer the question, pleeeeeze!" DS heard me and said all the candidates should go back to pre-school and hone their listening skills :lol:.

We have Muggins - KnockOut and Muggins on the same board. DS really enjoys it and he is very advanced in math. You can increase the difficulty of both games as time goes by. I see it as a great way to manipulate numbers mentally.

This might give you a little perspective. DS is a just turned 6, is in the 90th percentile for height, is mature for his age and tests at the 6th grade level across the board. There are numerous play production organizations around our area that DS would be really enjoy. They are all for 3rd graders and above. I cannot get anyone to allow DS to join. The people that run them all know DS, say he would be an asset, etc., but won't wiggle on the grade/age requirement. I have had to take a step back and look at why it wouldn't work. One of things that I have seen is that the students do get critiqued on their abilities. At 6, DS is just not ready to have a whole bunch of criticism thrown his way. Developmentally, at 6, children don't know how to take and use constructive criticism. That would be my only worry for your daughter. Rather than build them up to be better, I think it would be detrimental to them to be torn down (or their projects) when they have worked so hard. Don't get me wrong - DS gets constructive criticism from us, but it is in a kind and loving way that we can control. A class may not be as nice. (In academic only classes, DS holds his own in the 3rd-5th grade classes that he takes once a week. Very different environment.) Good luck on your decision.

DH and I get that one ALL.THE.TIME.:001_huh:

Have you seen these? - https://www.sockclip.com/

I'm Grandma and DH is Grandpa or Pops. In our extended family, we have Nana, NaiNai, Mimi, Grandmother, and MeMaw for the gals. For the guys, it is Grampy or YeYe.

Here is our schedule for 2011-12. Since DH is a teacher, we roughly follow his schedule. We take off for the summer (only do review math/reading). Start July 25 Break for 1 week - Sept. 19 Break for 1 week - Nov. 21 Break for 2 weeks - Dec. 19 Break 1 week - Feb. 20 Break 1 week - April 2 Finish up the week of May 7 The ps calendar for the students has the above breaks, but they start back on August 3 and finish May 25. We did approximately the same schedule this year and it worked great. Perfect amount of work/break periods.

We live in Atlanta and everyone is saying the same thing as you. I cannot remember it being this hot so early in the season. We skipped Spring and just went straight to the end of summer weather. The forecast for the next 10 days remains the same - high 90s and no rain. Just bringing down the garbage cans causes DS to be dripping with sweat. I don't even want to think about our cooling bills :ack2:.

That is precious! Thanks for sharing.

Our whole, extended family will be cruising out of Charleston in July. Does any one have any recommendations on hotels where we can spend a couple of nights, leave our car for the duration of the cruise, get a shuttle to the port and it not be exorbitantly expensive? Thanks in advance.

:iagree: