Horrible rain! We're having a break from it right now but it's supposed to pick up again in a bit. Hoping to keep our basement dry.....

The Capitol is pretty much on the mall (well, one end of it) and is totally walkable. Don't bother with the metro once you end up at the Smithsonian station. From that point, you can pretty much get anywhere you need to by walking (museums, Capitol, Washington monument, etc.)

Oh. My. Ditto the hand-holding.

Apples arrived yesterday and we read the first 2 chapters today as our "warm up" activity. DS got a kick out of it and wants to know how on earth a 5 year old ended up as a professor. He's requesting to buy the Calculus book so we can find out the whole story. The math is kind of minimal right now but the book is engaging and he enjoyed it, so I figure it's worth the time/money. We are using MM as our spine.

We've only done Disney once, last October. At that time our kids were ages infant, 3, and 6. We took Amtrak's auto train down - same price as plane tickets for us, plus we ended up with our own minivan (stuffed full, let me tell ya) and no rental car. We stayed off-site at a condo with kitchen, laundry, etc. (We timed it every day, and from our front door to the gates of the park was never more than 30 minutes. That included parking/shuttles/etc.) Ate breakfast at the condo, took lunch, snacks, and drinks in a cooler, bought dinner at the park a few times. Went to the park all 7 days, bought a hopper pass but only "hopped" once, so I won't do that again. No water parks for us that trip. Our total for condo, auto train, tickets, and food/gas/parking/souvenirs/etc. was about $2600 for an 8 day trip.

I've been thinking about this. We're on week 2 of homeschool. DS#1 is in 2nd grade, so he's had 2 years of PS. Initially the homeschool journey was about moving away from public school. I'm now entering the "moving toward something else" phase of thinking. And I need to figure out what that is. Obviously, we want to provide our kids with an excellent education that will allow them to pursue whatever educational/career goals they have. I'm still a little hazy on how to do this....thankfully, I have a few years to figure it out and a whole lotta help from this board.

Ditto this except that I use the shoebox size sterilite containers.

The youtube link was very interesting, thanks for posting that. My DS#1 used everyday math for K and 1st and I was not happy with it. Lots of fluff, and they introduced the calculator in K. ???? He learned his addition/subtraction facts at home, with flashcards, because his teacher informed us there wasn't enough time to teach that at school. After watching that video, I'm even more relieved we are out of the PS mess. This is our first year (first week, actually) of homeschool and it's great to see how excited he is to use math mammoth.

We have MM, Miquon, some MEP that I printed, LOF, and Zaccaro's Primary Challenge on the way. Let's see....today is Wednesday, so we're on day 3 of homeschooling. I wonder what else I'll own by week 2? :001_huh:

I would love this. You people are my go-to resource for curriculum reviews....I read them on other sites but I tend to find my best info here. It would be fantastic to have everything in one spot.

:grouphug:

There would probably be a scarcity of food in a city if the supply chain was disrupted, and most food isn't grown/produced in a city. I think people who go head off into a remote area are more likely to have the basics for growing/producing their own food. When I think of a city in that kind of situation, I would picture a lot of problems with sanitation/disease/crime. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud with my fingers. :tongue_smilie: We do keep food/water on hand in case of an emergency, between 3-6 months worth of food, and about 2 weeks of water, and a few other necessary items. We also have backpacks with 3 days of stuff in them in case we would have to evacuate. Our arsenal is pretty empty - no guns or anything. I try not to let fear guide my decisions. However, the thought of something happening (bad weather, society breakdown, who knows what) and not being able to feed my kids worries me. That's why we keep stuff on hand. Worst case scenario, I would rather have the food on hand to share with my neighbors and hope for the best.

We're in PA an hour north of Baltimore....my parents (down the road from us) felt it and DH felt it at work (10 minutes away.) I had no idea until they called, apparently I'm not very observant. :001_huh: I felt the same way about the poor people evacuating the buildings in DC. I can't imagine how they felt.

Another vote for Joe-Joes (especially those peppermint cookies at Christmas. Holy moly.) If you have a Wegmans near you, their store brand oreos are excellent, we vastly prefer them to real Oreos.

I have 3 bookshelves in our school room. I do not use them for non-school books, all the boys have their own bookshelf in their bedroom. I, however, do not have one for my own books....they live in boxes in the basement (so sad!) or in a big stack by my bed.

Don't be certain that you can't handle high stress situations. For me, at least, a huge part of the stress comes from feeling like I don't know or understand what is happening. Feeling like I know what is going on and what to do about it diffuses much of the anxiety for me. (FWIW, I felt exactly like you did, except that my ick factor comes from sputum instead of vomit. And I hate germs, but I figure that I can wear gloves/gown/mask at work if needs be. I don't wear gloves pushing a cart at Walmart, that's probably way worse.:tongue_smilie:) I now work in the ER and have seen more than my fair share of freakiness and have become much more comfortable with scary/stressful/vomity/germy situations. Just remember there's a learning curve and you can become desensitized to things. That said, there are about a zillion different kinds of nursing jobs and if it's something you are interested in, I have no doubt you'd be able to find a comfortable situation.

I never planned to homeschool, but I did plan to have kids and I knew that I wanted a job that would allow me some flexibility to stay home at least some of the time. Hence, I went to nursing school. (Nursing did make my short-list of career choices, schedule wasn't the sole reason I chose it.) I have worked part-time since my first kiddo was born. I enjoy my career and having that job security is very nice. I don't enjoy working every weekend (my choice of schedule so that I can be home with the kids during the week) and I do not like working holidays. Given the opportunity to go back and choose again, I probably would either stick with nursing or possibly do radiology (xray or ct tech.) I applaud you for thinking so seriously and practically about your future. Something to consider is that many companies will pay for additional schooling once you are employed. For example, most of the CNAs that I work with are in nursing school courtesy of our hospital system. (I did something similar while in nursing school, didn't have to pay tuition, had to work for the hospital system for 2 years to "pay back" my "loan.") My husband (he's in finance) can go back to school for an MBA paid for by his company. That can sometimes be an option for furthering your education without taking on any debt.

This (except I work part time.) My mother taught me the same lesson. I would continue to work my part-time schedule and with DH's life insurance we would be fine until the kids were out of college. I would hope to stay in our house and keep as much of our routine the same as possible. We do need to update our wills, it's on my to-do list this fall.

I wasn't brand loyal to any particular detergent (including homemade, which I tried....ended up with gray whites) until I tried Tide HE powder. It's all I use and for my washer/water combo, it does the best job.

I would highly recommend The Beekeeper's Apprentice, I enjoyed the entire series.

This is my first year homeschooling, we're in PA. We've completed the start-of-the-year-hoop-jumping exercise, and although it was annoying, it was not difficult. I did submit my DS's vaccination record (because I happened to have it on hand) but that was it as far as medical records went. I just had a statement in my affidavit that said he receives regular medical and dental care his records were kept on file with his physician. The most helpful thing I've done is to meet with our local homeschool association. They host a "how to for newbies" kind of session twice a year where they go over the law in detail and show examples of how to complete all that paperwork. Made me feel a lot better. I'm kind of looking forward to meeting with an evaluator next spring and getting some feedback on how we're doing. While I may know we're doing okay, and my husband or mother or friend tell me it's fine, it will be nice to get an outside opinion on how things look. Does that make me somehow codependent? Nance, those pics of your portfolio were EXTREMELY HELPFUL. I am keeping a running list of reading materials, but it was great to see how you organized everything. I am hoping to keep this organized throughout the year so that when the evaluation comes next spring, I'm not running around trying to throw something together. Not that I've ever procrastinated or anything like that. Hm.

That's very good logic....it's the same as mine. :tongue_smilie:

Sort of? I was adopted by one parent (step-dad) when I was 7.

We started with DS#1 when he was 1 1/2, used them exclusively with #2, and for the first 6 months with #3. I do love them. They beat "paper diapers" hands down.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually started a real schedule yet. That said, my middle (age 4) will be in preschool MWF mornings, so we plan on doing a bulk of our work when he's out of the house. He'll join us with his own stuff on T/TH mornings, afternoons of all days will be saved for history/science/art projects/etc. Thankfully our little guy (age 1) is fairly good at entertaining himself. I hope to get up early enough (?!) to squeeze in some devotional time during breakfast. This does assume that we won't be eating breakfast in the car on the way to preschool like we did last year......:tongue_smilie: