This is so bizarre to me. So why do not know other homeschoolers? Is it because of where you live? Do you not feel the need to seek out other homeschoolers? Are your kids not interested in having homeschooled friends? Do you live rurally and there just aren't many people in general? I'd love to hear about it! There are 6,000 homeschoolers in our county.

Hmm. This is an interesting thread. We've only lived in Florida since Sept and I can walk to our Publix. It's just a normal grocery store, to me. It's comparable to Harris Teeter and Harmon's in other states. For me, it's hit and miss. The organic stuff I buy is actually usually cheaper at Whole Foods (including the Ezekiel bread). Amy's pizza is cheaper at Target. I do like their wine selection. They do have great customer service. Their produce is fine. Their organic produce is usually old. The store is always very clean. I will say that we live out towards "the country" and my friend lives in a very upscale beach community. Her Publix is WAY better and they always have fresh organic produce and wider selection. So, I think it depends on your community. I end up driving to Whole Foods and Costco for a lot of things still.

Rosie, I am so sorry for your loss. :sad:

A gold medal for my ecstatic 6th grader!

Oh Rose, I am so sorry. As an adoptive momma, I can only imagine the pain. My hope for you is that he is able to heal and grow and will reach out again as an adult. You've all been through so much. :(

That sounds so cool!

"I could never do that." I hate that. Especially because this is after I tell them that we had a horrible year in public school and I left my teaching career to homeschool a child with special needs. I didn't think I could ever do this, either!!! We do what we need to!

I saw that too! I actually had always considered NY part of New England until I started planning this trip.

We are driving from Florida in mid July to go camping in Maine. I think I've decided on Blackwoods in Acadia. We'll then drive to meet up with my husband in Saratoga, NY. What would be the most interesting route for us to take?? Is there somewhere we should camp for a few days? Should we just stay in a hotel? We aren't in a hurry, though I don't want to spend a bunch of money on hotels. After Saratoga, he'll be working in Binghamton, NY and we are thinking about camping somewhere around there. My hubby is a side trip. ;) We don't need to be close. He'll be busy. On the drive to and from, we'll stay with friends in VA, and hotels other places. That's all I have planned and we really don't have any time restraints. What are your favorite northeast camping spots? (Dog friendly, quiet, tent camping) Any sites along our way we shouldn't miss? Any off the beaten path routes we should take? I'm just looking for a list of things to check out at this point. You all were so helpful in planning our BIG trip last summer! I feel much more confident this time around, luckily, because it will just be me, two almost 12 year olds, and the dog! I know we can do this. :) I should add that we've been to NYC and plan to do Boston as a separate trip. This isn't really a city trip since we'll have the dog. The girls have never been north of NYC except for a trip to Niagara Falls. THANKS!

In that case, I'll offer that as a teacher, I wouldn't have put much weight in a homeschool textbook like Fred because it would have been SO different from what I was used to. If any of your programs had a scope and sequence, I'd send that. Otherwise, I'd think test scores and a writing sample would answer most of my questions, especially if they are going to give their own placement test for math.

Ahhh, ok.

I'm confused. Are you trying to skip her ahead a grade? If it's a public school, she just enters based on her date of birth.

You can grab the Spectrum books from Barnes and Noble. Those are good for test prep. But honestly, the CAT is a fairly basic test. Other than some test taking skills, I wouldn't worry too much about studying.

I'm so sorry. The calls like that are why we aren't in school.

A lot. She's 11 and extremely social. In a typical week we do ice skating, archery, one or two homeschool group activities and one or two playdates. On the weekends we are out and about, usually both days. In other words, I'm lucky if we have one, maybe two days at home during the 7 day week. And when we are home, she spends 1-2 hours outside with the neighborhood kids or Skypes with her friends. If she doesn't have all that, she wants to talk to me. Constantly. All day. ;)

It's in Glen Allen, which is basically Richmond. Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. http://vahomeschoolers.org/conference-2014/

He can go for free (but he still has to register) and he can shop and attend the family programs with the kids. If he wants to attend the sessions with you, he needs to pay full price. http://vahomeschoolers.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014-VaHomeschoolers-Conference-Registration-Book.pdf

We loved it last year. It was worth every penny. We actually decided we are driving up from Florida to attend this year, partly to visit friends and partly to hear SWB. There aren't any good secular conferences down here. We went to HEAV two years ago. It was huge and the shopping was great. But, we aren't Christian, so a lot of it just didn't apply. I loved that the VAHomeschool conference was just focused on education and it was small enough that we actually made friends.

It depends on the year! We travel a lot and we've moved twice in the last three years. We'll do another local move this fall. We've taken a lot of time off this year with visiting family and we'll leave in May for three weeks in South America. We'll do more school this summer than we usually do. One summer we did math and some sort of spelling or writing every day. That was a summer we spent mostly at home. Last summer we traveled for three months, so we didn't do any traditional school work, but they learned a lot!This summer we'll have a few things I want to get caught up on before fall, so we'll do some work. We live in Florida now, so I see us doing school during the summer because if we go outside, we'll melt. ;)

Just call ahead. A lot of times the info online is wrong. When we traveled all summer with our dog, some of the hotels online said they allowed pets, but when we called they said they only allowed service animals. We also called ahead to make sure the pool was open, to verify a non-smoking room, to ask for a roll away, and to ask for a room away from the elevator.

This is how I feel and I have no desire to have them in the front seat anytime soon, and they are 11. It's just not worth it. I have two kids, they each have a spot in the back with room for a friend in the middle with a shoulder belt. It's one of those things that is just easy for us to do, so we'll do it.

Halcyon, We live close to Oxbridge. Funny, you are the second homeschooler this week that has mentioned it to me. It just seems so expensive. It's also in kind of a crappy area. I wonder how often they get out. Also, it's a stupid thing, but I hear their lunches are amazing! Gourmet meals! The 40 minutes each way thing is sooooo relative. I would have never thought I'd be driving so far when we moved to Florida. We regularly drive 40 minutes to activities. Things are just oddly spread out here. I also think you could set up a carpool with other parents. (But Oxbridge would be really far! So now I'm curious, what's the private classical school? Also, the more we think about high school, the more I realize that honestly, I *know* I can give my kids a better education by homeschooling. It just comes down to whether or not I want to do it and whether or not they want to do it. I think we make decisions for different reasons and sometimes certain values trump others, and that's ok.

CA to Florida? Well, just do the mileage, then I divide by 20mpg and multiply by $4. AAA also has a gas calculator. I can do 400-600 miles per day when I'm driving back to back. 600 is pushing it. You figure about $125 per night for a hotel when it is all said and done. Our trip would be a little different because we would be going up to Utah first, then to Santa Barbara, then back to Florida. I came up with $1200 for gas and $1000 for hotels. Then you have to add all the driving you'll do at your destinations, and add food. I can't tell you if you could do it, because I don't know your kids or your stamina, but it might not be worth it for you. ***Virgin Airlines flies round trip from LAX to Ft. Lauderdale for as low as $200***** Then you could rent a car through Costco. For us, the benefit of driving is to take the dog, plus do some site seeing (though it's hard with the dog). Some things to think about: -It's really, really, really, really hot. -Are you comfortable with the possibility of breaking down in the middle of Texas. -Do your kids listen really well and would you have the whole gas station bathroom thing down pat -How will your 1 year old do in the car for 5 days straight? That's a loooooot of sitting still. -Do you all sleep well in hotels? What happens if you don't sleep well one night? Will you take a day off? Last summer we (my husband came) took a cooler. We'd shop at Whole Foods or the like for healthy stuff and eat out of it at rest stops for lunch so the dog could run around. Some states are horrible about rest stops though (Utah for one), so you have to look ahead. I would love to do it even more without our dog because there are SO many cool things to see in our country. National Parks, memorials, museums, etc. Also, we put 10,000 miles on our car last summer. We needed a new radiator halfway through and we had to remember to get the oil changed a few weeks into our trip. Other than that, it was fine. It's a 2006 Subaru Tribeca. It's a lot of miles to put on a car in a short amount of time, but it was totally worth it to us. I'm weighing that heavily this time around. Renting a car would be an expensive option and driving a rental car makes me have anxiety, so it's not something I would opt for. If I had unlimited funds, I would do it in a heartbeat and I'd go slow.

We are going to Colombia for three weeks and are working on our Spanish in the meantime. Then I'm considering driving from FL to CA and back again because we loved our trip so much last year and apparently I am a little crazy like that. We aren't signing up for any camps this summer so we can use the money to travel.

We downsized from 2400 sq feet (4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, two living rooms) to about 1,000 (2 bed, 1 bath). It was hard at first, but then I came to love it. Less to clean, less to manage, less money to spend on crap. There are 4 of us.