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Swimtaxi234

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Everything posted by Swimtaxi234

  1. If you get to Muir Woods early enough, you can enter the park for free - while avoiding the crowded parking lot and/or the crowd in general. My daughter and I had the 1 mile trail to ourselves until we reached the beginning of the loop when it was hard to walk because the trails were so packed. The parking lot and overflow parking lots were packed when we left. When we left Muir Woods, we took a right and drove over the range to spend time on Muir Beach. Your boys would probably love to explore the area with a private beach feel, tidal pool area, and a wetlands area. I think there was also a hiking trail nearby. http://www.nps.gov/safr/planyourvisit/the-visitor-center.htm - this visitor's center has a nice little museum, plus clean restrooms! We took a free walking tour with a ranger that was one of the highlights of our trip since we got to go under the bleachers on the waterfront (not many people get to ever see that area). There were only 5 adults on the tour, so the ranger shared a wealth of information on the history of the fort and maritime area, but I don't think younger children would appreciate the 90 minute walking tour. If you think you will take a cable car ride, you can buy your tickets anytime to avoid standing in a long line just to buy the ticket and then another long line for a ride. You can go early to avoid the long line (if you are starting at the park across from the visitor center in the above link. Since our hotel was just off the Fisherman's Wharf, we took a cheap trolley car ride back after the cable car ride.
  2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsp.android.friendlocator&hl=en Everyone in our family has this app on their phones. It would have been handy for you to have tried to located her and offer help since it would have picked up on her last known location. Just a thought about for the future. My son needed to be picked up recently and used the app to find out who was closer to his location.
  3. Do you have a friend you could borrow a hand-held Nintendo DS console and a few games? Animal Crossing would keep her busy.
  4. My 14-year-old son and I flew on Southwest Airlines last weekend and he had to have an ID to get a boarding pass AND to get through the security section. Thankfully he has a military ID that he used.
  5. I am flying into LAX later this week and I have a question about the best driving route in that area. Please send me a private message. THANKS!
  6. Our two homeschooled children play club water polo year round, plus they are able to play on local high school water polo teams in the spring. I thought it was exciting to read about an all homeschool team playing in the high school league and wanted to pass along the info: http://blueribbonnews.com/2015/01/water-polo-earns-recognition-as-home-school-high-school-sport/
  7. This is an easy 4 hour drive. You get on I-40 in ABQ and don't get off on the drive east until you reach Amarillo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch - we stop here every time we drive through Amarillo. We have been luck enough to find paint cans so we can leave an art signature, etc., but you could always bring your own and leave it for others if you have left over paint in the can.
  8. I had several thousand family photos to scan, so I bought a Flip-pal. I would take a stack of photos to swim/water polo practice and scan the photos while I waited. It seems like it took forever, but I got all of the photos scanned before I knew it.
  9. http://swimtaxi234.blogspot.com/2012/10/baked-creamy-chicken-taquitos.html This is a family favorite that I am going to doctor for tonight's meal using leftover turkey. I have made this with doctored rotisserie chicken, so fingers crossed that it works tonight since I will be serving it to a bunch of teens. EDIT: Huge success - I made 20 taquitos and they are all gone.
  10. The topic of this thread is about electronics (or lack thereof) and somewhere in this thread you also mentioned that your husband has an ipod and ipad - two super fun toys to keep away from your children. Interesting! :glare: Our children each have a cell phone (data plan), tablet, and laptop, plus our son has the xbox and I only have a phone and laptop.
  11. This is the biggest issue for me. The husband has a fun toy that he gets to play. If you want the children to have ZERO electronics, the husband needs to give up his toys (cell phones included) because it is creating a "do as I say, not as I do" issue. We had to face that issue. We were a ZERO electronics family and I was completely against getting our son an xbox until a dear friend pointed out that children who only get to watch TV, watch passively compared with playing video games like Minecraft, etc.. A few of the studies she gave me showed that lot of the games I was against were actually proving limited use to be good for children because of the cognitive benefits (logic to determine the next actions, etc.). Plus it is fun to play video games. It is all about the balance in our family. Our son works hard in school, does his chores, is in the water 16-17 hours a weeks (becoming an elite athlete in two sports), enjoys reading, and gets to play xbox on the weekends when he is home. Since he has xbox live, it also gives him some social time with friends around town that he rarely gets to talk to because of his sports.
  12. Since I started using this Empi Tens Unit in 2010, my liver has thanked me a thousand times because I get relief from the pain without needing to take meds (95% of the time).
  13. When our children were 9 and 6-years-old, our moving truck caught fire and we lost everything. While those first few weeks were a blur, I remember one night curling on the air mattress with our children and wishing I could escape with them with a few of their favorite books but we just snuggled. I didn't care how late it was, but I told my husband I was going to re-buy their favorite books that night and thankfully there was a Books-a-million open. We spent hours the next morning reading books and I knew all was right in the world - at least for those few hours. As a military family, we have moved 4 times since then and with each of those moves, I see the two 12x12 boxes packed with their children's books and with each move, we spend time re-reading those books. Happy, happy emotions and memories ... so I will keep the books for our grandchildren. Since I lost every possession once, it is easy for me to purge - just not my children's books.
  14. We had one when our children were younger. They loved it and so did their friends. The 50-foot cable was 6-feet off the ground and it was on a slight slope. My husband put a stop/block 4-feet before the end so no one would hit the tree, plus he always kept extra mulch down there. We had a scarf tied around the handle so the children could grab it and run to the starting point. I think it helped our children develop a strong core at a young age, plus they always had a blast.
  15. I took the team bus (nice coach bus) with our children's team last fall and had a fantastic time. Someone else did the driving, the seats were comfortable, and I had access to a restroom on the 8 hour each way trip.
  16. Do you have a retractable cord? Do you like it? Is it worth it? I read this comment on Amazon: "The only negative is that it retracts so forcefully that it will wack your hand if you do not protect it somehow. I use the edge of the ironing board as a shield." :scared:
  17. It seems like I have to buy an iron every few years because the bottom coating starts to flake off and I am in the market for a new one. Do you have an iron that you love? :bigear:
  18. We have two Schnauzers, male/female litter mates and a decade before that, we had male/male litter mates - so obviously we love them. All four Schnauzers have been/were the sweetest dogs. Yes, all four dogs were typical barky dogs (it is actually called a reactive disorder or something like that), but if they don't see other dogs, they are fun to walk. We did agility training with our current dogs - high energy and super smart, so they excelled in agility.
  19. Since I wasn't sure about the school profile, I found this from a internet search:
  20. I got this idea from the hive a few years ago and it has been so successful for our family. Monday - pasta Tuesday - beans or soup Wednesday - beef Thursday - chicken Friday - left overs Saturday - left overs Sunday - dinner out
  21. Last December, I wrote a letter to the board of directors at the local community college complaining about the penalty tax they made homeschoolers pay. The school offered free tuition to public schoolers as dual enrolled, but considered homeschoolers to be college bound so they had to pay tuition. I don't know if my letter helped, but as of July, homeschoolers now get free tuition and are considered dual enrolled. However, when we were paying tuition, we were able to get the cost of the tuition and books back when we filed our taxes. Our oldest will graduate high school with 29 high school credits and 30-32 college credits, so when she is ready for college, she will probably enter as a transfer student and not a freshman.
  22. I don't get the "Donna" love. Rose was the worst, so I would rank Donna just above her.
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