So sorry. I can't imagine the devastation. Praying for your friend and her children. :grouphug:

Pm'ed you, Denise! :001_smile:

Sent you a pm. :001_smile:

My daughters and younger son love to get "real" mail and are excited about the prospect of penpals. Let us know if you're interested! :001_smile:

We are about 3 hours north of Plimoth Plantation so we've decided to drive down the day before our visit and spend the night. Any recommendations for a family of 6? We'd like to stay somewhere within an hour of Plimoth. Thanks! :001_smile:

I am homeschooling two this year while the other two are in school. Up until this year all have been in public school, but my oldest son (8th grade) was very unchallenged in middle school while my younger daughter (5th grade) is dyslexic and really needs more attention than the school can give her. My 7th grade daughter and 2nd grade son are doing just fine in public school. I may homeschool all of them in the future, just because I am missing having us all together as a family, but with the time I need to devote to my dyslexic daughter I really couldn't have all of them home to start with.

Oooo, thank you all! These sound like some delicious options. Can't wait to try them! :001_smile:

I've got lots of potatoes, and no tried-and-true potato soup recipe. Any suggestions are appreciated! :001_smile:

Just want to commiserate with you! My son, 14, and husband both just got contacts for the first time on Monday. I've worn them for almost 30 years and I had totally forgotten that it's hard to get them in and out at first. So after three days now my husband is getting them in and out by himself (takes a while, though); my son can get them out but I am still putting them in for him. But he's making progress--today he held the contact on his own finger and I guided the finger to the right place on his eye. It worked! :lol:

My husband will be happy to hear another PCA church has seen the light! :thumbup:

At the weekly worship service. My husband is the pastor (we are PCA) and the way he explains it is that the preaching of the Word and the administering of the sacrament should always go together. So if there is a sermon you should serve Communion. Not all PCA churches are the same, however.

So we took the kiddos apple picking on Monday, and now our cup runneth over with apples. We've made apple crisp, apple bread, pork chops baked with apples.... Any favorite recipes you'd like to share? Thanks! Kristen

:iagree: Yup. And although I have lots of home schooling friends IRL, I didn't want to bug them ALL the time. :lol: I started out looking for materials on the For Sale board then migrated to some of the other forums.

This is exactly this situation in our schools. We have been in the public elementary school for 8 years, and we have seen the shift--less and less time for science as they try to focus more and more on reading and math. In the middle school it is still one of the core four--LA, SS, Math, and Science. It's foreign language, arts, etc. that are getting shorter time slots this year to give more time to the core subjects.

This recipe is so awesome! (It's not mine originally so I'm not bragging.) :001_smile: People who don't like pumpkin pie (me and dh) love this, and people who do like pumpkin pie love it too. I make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas and it's great to take to any kind of get-together--yum, yum, a real crowd-pleaser! :thumbup: PUMPKIN CRUNCH Ingredients: 1 box Yellow Cake Mix (Duncan Hines w/o pudding) 1 large can (28 or 29oz) Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) 1 large can (10 or 12oz) Carnation evaporated milk 3 Eggs 2 sticks Butter or 1 c. Margarine 1 c. Sugar 1 teaspoon Cinnamon 1 c. Chopped Nuts (Walnuts or Macadamia) Melt butter in a small saucepan or plastic container in microwave. In a separate large bowl, mix pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar and cinnamon. Line 13x9 inch pan with tin foil (spray with cooking spray). Pour pumpkin mixture into pan. Sprinkle cake mix (dry) over pumpkin mixture. Pat down with spoon. Sprinkle nuts. Drizzle butter. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Let stand at least 10 minutes before turning out on cutting board. Better to stand 2 hours or may refrigerate to speed cooling. Turn cake over on cutting board. Peel off foil. Slice. Serve with Cool Whip Topping or Vanilla Ice Cream. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!

The schwa sound is found in unaccented open syllables. While there may be some regional variations, there are many words that I would think any English speaker would say with the schwa. The initial "a" in "above, "awake", etc., the final "a" in "comma", "tundra", etc.--there are tons of words with these usages of schwa.

"Homeschools can provide 'special needs services, (but if) a student (does) not fit neatly into the system (they) can fall through the cracks'..." To me this was hilarious--this is exactly why we are now homeschooling two of our four children--because students who do not fit neatly into the public school system fall through the cracks. My eighth grader is very academically gifted--he was entirely frustrated by middle school and needed more of a challenge. My fifth grader has dyslexia and other learning struggles that make public school a nightmare for her. She simply does not learn the way they teach. So these two are at home this year while the other two more "traditional" students remain in school (at least for the time being). :001_smile:

I say "all of a sudden". I grew up in the Kansas City area, on the Kansas side, and I've lived in Montana, Florida, Texas, and now Maine. I've never heard it said any other way in all the places I've lived. Very interesting! But speaking of seeing people write things a different way and finding it annoying...it drives me crazy when I see "one in the same" instead of "one and the same".... :lol: Kristen

And I did also request to join the Yahoo Group.... Thanks!

Not sure exactly how this works, but you can sign me up for Maine. :001_smile: Kristen

It is much more slow-paced than NoVa! :001_smile: Does your friend know anyone in the area? If you'd like, I can send you my email address as a contact for her. We've lived in Portland for almost 10 years, and when we moved here my kids were very small. I found it very helpful to connect with other moms of young children, and I could recommend a couple of groups she might want to try. Blessings, Kristen