If we ever had a girl, we'd have used Kathryn, Lauren, or Elizabeth (all family names.) I think we used up every boy name we could agree on.....

We usually stay in a house rather than camp (too many small people right now) but love the area. Some of our best vacations have been in the Adirondacks - we like the central area the best, around the Fulton and Eckford chains. The weather at the beginning of Sept is beautiful - already getting cooler and the leaves have usually just started to change. The ADK museum is a nice daytrip if weather is iffy (near Blue Mtn Lake) and we've enjoyed the Wild Center as well. Mostly we enjoy canoeing and hiking.

Normally we wait, but this year we're taking half of October off for a family wedding (long distance travel.) We pushed our started date up to mid August to accommodate the change. (I hate starting before Labor Day.)

Look at the Adirondacks in NY. Our favorite lake vacation spot so far!

I have a Fisher Paykel Aquasmart and love it, love it, love it. There is no center agitator. Occasionally things may get tangled, but it's not common. It spins the heck out of everything, so my drying times are better. I love that it has the option to function as an HE or a conventional washer (i.e. more water) particularly when washing really dirty things (like diapers.) We've had the washer for 4 years and I would buy another in a heartbeat.

I didn't think I was supposed to start falling apart until I was older (I'm approaching 34.) Apparently my last pregnancy sent me careening over the edge of oldness. My back hurts, so much so that I can barely walk when I get out of the car. It never recovered from pregnancy back pain and my little guy is a chunk to carry around. I know I need to exercise to strengthen the core muscles and whatnot, but I'm having trouble finding time to shower consistently. Forget trying to fit in regular, productive exercise. My thyroid is all whacked out - I have to have part of it removed next month because I have a huge nodule on one side (you can see it when I swallow - it's eew. It's actually making it hard to swallow.) I'm worried I'll have to be on medication forever because my thyroid is already enlarged and now I'm afraid it's going to just stop working. My thick, lovely pregnancy hair is falling out and I have two bald spots on the side of my hairline. Fortunately, the hair is growing back, but it sticks out funny because it's shorter. Thanks for giving me a place to whine.

I have a sneaking suspicion that people in PA are not taught how to merge onto a freeway. It's very common here for drivers to just STOP (a full, complete stop!) on an on-ramp and wait for a good break in traffic. Now, where I come from (metro DC) you KEEP DRIVING and gently wiggle your way inbetween some cars. That's what we meant by "merging" into traffic. It's a scary, bad feeling to be driving and checking oncoming traffic to merge and you look up and there's a car stopped where you wouldn't quite expect it to be.

We have a Frigidaire that we bought 4 years ago. Love it. We bought the biggest one we could find and I'm glad we did. I like having space for everything!

I'm a NoVa native that left the area about 5 years ago. We now live in PA. Although there are some great perks to living in the DC metro area, I would never, ever, ever consider moving back. I hate traffic (my 12 mile commute down there was a 75 minute drive in the mornings....on a good day.) Yes, we loved going to see all the great historical/cultural stuff down there, but who likes fighting traffic for most of the day to go to the zoo? COL was bad. I don't necessarily find that salaries are that much higher there to make up for the lousy prices of everything. I do miss some things, like great restaurants, a fabulous library system, and really good grocery stores. Having lived there my entire life I thought I would miss it more than I do. But I don't. We still live close enough to DC (1hr 15min) to go for the day if we feel like it, which we do every few months.

Before I had kids, I slept through the night without any problems. Now I wake up several times a night....sometimes because a kid wakes up, sometimes to nurse the baby, sometimes because I just do. I have a hard time falling back asleep. I'm hoping that eventually I'll get a solid night of sleep again....someday....maybe....but my hopes are not high.

I've used only the cheap cartridges in my Brother printer for the past 18 months and haven't had an issue. I do sometimes find the page yield to be lower, but that's something I can live with.

My brother and I are both gifted, tested within a few points of one another. As kids, I had ever sleep issue in the book (late to bed, insomnia, night terrors, sleepwalking, etc.) while my brother had no trouble sleeping. Napped like a champ, slept through the night at a very tender age. Still a great sleeper at 31. :tongue_smilie: My kids (who have not been formally tested but most likely are gifted) are all over the map as far as sleep is concerned. In addition to personality and whatnot, I think size also plays a role....in our own family circle, bigger kids (and babies) sleep better than the more petite kiddos.

I am not a morning person. DH is. My "internal alarm" never rings before 8am. His starts beeping around 5am. (How on earth did we end up married?) My sleep is complicated by the fact that I work night shift on the weekends and keep a regular day-time schedule during the week. It stinks big time. Our kids are a mixed bag. My 9 year old wakes up around 8am. My 6 year old gets up early, usually around 6am. My 3 year old would sleep until next Thursday if we let him. He has a hard time waking before 9am. The baby is a baby....he wakes up if he poops or gets hungry. Currently he's up for the day around 7am. I'm already feeling a little concerned about the next school year. :glare:

We had photos printed through unitprints.com and were very happy with them. (It was recommended to us by our photographer.)

I think we might live in the same part of the world. Another local thing here is to end sentences with "a while." As in, "Can I get you more to drink a while?" Or even, "Do yous guys want more to drink a while?" Yeah. Makes no sense. I've been here five years and can't wrap my head around it. Also don't like cutesy pregnancy related words, like preggers or preggo. I was recently pregnant (again) and HATED it when people referred to me as "Mama." I'm not your mother. We can't use "like" or "um" around our house, as in "Um, like, would you like more to drink?" "Seriously?" That one can go, too. I have a friend that uses that one all the time. My inlaws (all of them, the entire huge lot of them, everyone, in fact, except my husband) say "acrost" instead of "across." Drives.me.nuts. Thankfully we live "acrost" the country from them and don't hear it all that often, as they do type the word correclty. I grew up in a house with a mother who wouldn't say the words "toilet paper" above a whisper. At the store, she might say, "Wait a minute, I forgot to get <whisper> toilet paper." Like it was a big secret that we bought that kind of thing? We don't refer to Richard's Sporting Goods by name around her, either.

We both earn, I manage, and DH operates as a consultant when needed. (My DH, with a degree in finance, who won't do our taxes or balance the checkbook. Yeesh.) That said, our finances generally look better when I am "in charge."

Hugs for your kiddo. I am a non-glasses wearer who has learned a lot about eyes in the past several years between my DH and my oldest DS. My DH is a strabismus patient (and still sees a pediatric ophthalmologist at the ripe old age of 35.) His strabismus was quite noticeable from birth - he wore a patch for a while as a toddler, had some vision therapy kind of stuff, and had 2 surgeries as a kid, one at around a year old and one at age 7. Two weeks ago he had an additional surgery as his eye was "wandering" again (and he's very self-conscious when it happens.) His surgery went well, and he's now looking into lasix as an option, since his vision is going down the toilet (not from strabismus, just from bad genetics or whatnot.) His "lazy" eye is weaker than his "good" eye (which isn't all that good anymore.) Almost as if he doesn't really use the weaker eye to see? I sometimes wonder if therapies today are different than they were back in the 70s and 80s. So really, I'm not very helpful. I agree with the PP, though, you need to feel comfortable with your provider before you consider surgery (if that's even necessary, might not be.) We've been happy with the doctors we've found so far. Good luck!

Read the book, I really enjoyed it! (So much so that I'm not certain I will even see the movie....I don't want to ruin the pictures in my head....)

As a fairly new homeschooler who happens to live in super-regulation-crazy Pennsylvania, I can tell you I was very intimidated by the oversight our state has regarding homeschools. However, it's been a very positive experience for us. Our evaluator does just what is outlined above....she looks at my individual kid, his work samples and test scores, and, most importantly, talks to him about his year. She has given us some good ideas for moving forward. Then she signs the paper and I turn it all in. Our state standards. which sound awful and intrusive, are in reality very easy to work with. (And, for the record, very, very few homeschoolers in PA do not pass. According to our evaluator, it's typically just cases of neglect.) I guess I've been pleasantly surprised so far at how the regulations have been easy to work with.

Never heard of it, but gee whiz, that looks really fun!

I work 2 12-hour shifts on the weekends (Fri and Sat night, home on Sunday.) I've had this schedule for the past 5 years or so.....while it allows me stay home all week, and homeschool the kids, and avoid daycare, etc., it cramps family time, particularly as the kids are getting older and more involved in things, and I've pretty much given up what little personal time I had. That said, I appreciate the stability of my job and the income it provides. It's a fair trade at this point.

We go to the Adirondacks nearly every year and love it - we've been to Lake Placid, also Upper Saranac Lake, Long Lake, Blue Mt. Lake, Big Moose Lake, Fourth Lake....there are many, many gorgeous areas. Lots of hiking, most of the homes we've rented had boats included. I'd also agree with anything in NH, we've loved our trips there, too!

We've had a Fisher Paykel Aquasmart (topload HE) washer for the past 3 years and I love it like it's one of my own children. We bought it to replace a seriously bad LG front loader (which died a horrible and very wet death when the drum broke and it flooded our entire house 3 days before Christmas. That wasn't it's only major issue, either.) I have nothing but excellent things to say about our F&P washer. Everything is clean, including cloth diapers, it's easy on our clothes, and most importantly nothing stinks (like it did with our FLer.) I'd buy another in a heartbeat.

Thanks for the input, I'll take a librarian's opinion any time....

We need to replace our family room floor and are looking at cork (and a couple of other options as well.) I don't know much about it but have been impressed with what I have read online. Anybody have any real-life experience with cork flooring? Love it, hate it? Any advice?