Congratulations! Today was our first day too (although we only did a half day) and it was pretty successful. My 4th Grader is still doing his math work (at 3 pm), but he's always slow and doesn't have much motivation since he is grounded anyway. DD didn't even complain too much. Tomorrow my oldest son starts 8th grade at the Jr. High and we will do a full load. Hopefully, it goes just as good as it did today.

I just got back from Target looking to pick up the last few things DS needs for school. Ours is out of almost everything. I couldn't find red pens, rulers, or scissors. They have tons of regular folders, composition books, and clearance lunch boxes, but the rest were really slim pickings. Guess I'll be going to Office Depot this weekend.

We have preassigned seating. We actually just switched it up because my 10 year old and 6 year old were always fighting. So now, we have the 10 and 11 year old in the back (10 year old is still in a booster). We have captain's chairs in the middle and the 6 year old gets one with her carseat and my 13 year old gets the other. If we are going without DH, then the 13 year old gets the front passenger seat and the 11 year old gets to move up next to the 6 year old.

Last summer we travelled across the country and we never stayed in 2 rooms. All of the hotels we stayed in (mostly suite type hotels) could accomodate the 6 of us in one room for well under $200. Usually for less than $100 a night.

My DS is going to PS this year for 8th Grade. He's taking French I, which will give him HS credit if he passes it with an acceptable grade. He's also taking Algebra I, but he won't get HS credit for it, as it's not necessary. He'll just have to take 4 more math credits when he does get to HS. As for Honors classes, at this particular school, that was rather easy. Much easier than I was expecting. When I was turned in his registration and class selection, I didn't circle a class for English or History. She pointed it out and I said that he would like to take Honors, but wasn't sure what he had to do to get in. She circled Honors and said she'd take care of it. Guess we'll find out this Friday (when he gets his schedule) if it worked, lol.

I think your answer will depend a lot on which branch of the military you are talking about. Unlike the previous poster, there are still 6-12 month (or longer) waits on many of the Navy bases. We had to wait 6 months for housing here in WA. Even within the Navy, it depends on what base you are going to. Oh, and coming to this base, we weren't able to put our name on the list until DH was officially checked out of his previous command. We didn't receive any special treatment, even coming from overseas. It really is dependant on your branch and the base you're going to.

At our old house (same county as current one) I would have to sign for it. No matter what it was. It was very frustrating. Here at the new house, he will ring the bell once and leave it at the door. He only rings the bell to let us know he was here. Fedex, UPS, and USPS will all just leave the package (unless of course it specifically asked for a signature).

Too far :sad:. 2,611 miles. I guess it's better than the 4,692 miles when we lived in Hawaii or the 5,208 when we lived in Italy. But it's still about 2,600 miles too far.

We lived in Italy for 3 years. We're hoping to get back there in a couple of years, but it's not looking very promising right now. Unfortunately, that's the only overseas billet my husband is eligible for (not counting Hawaii and Guam, which I know are overseas, but not the same, lol).

I voted other because I'll say it either way.

Wow. That seems like a lot. My kids have been in PS before and we never had to spend anywhere near that. Not even for all 3 boys combined. I would never be able to put up that much money for supplies. My oldest is going to PS this year for 8th and I'm a little miffed that I have to buy him a Ti84 graphing calculator. Those suckers aren't cheap. The rest of his list is pretty reasonable. I do have to buy him a mini stapler and a flash drive. With all of the things I have to buy and fees I have to pay (PE uniform, locker fee, school planner, student body fee, etc.) I'm pretty sure I could have bought whatever homeschool curriculum I wanted for him, lol. Money is tight for us right now and I'm going to have a hard time covering it all, so I have no clue how families that are worse off are going to do it.

My daughter will be 6 later this month and she's still in a 5 point harness.

I hate posts that ask you to repost something. Doesn't matter the cause, I hate them all, lol.

I couldn't see it at all. When I asked the kids, my 13 year old immediately picked it out while the other kids looked at me like I was crazy for suggesting one was different.

I would definitely not take the 4 year old out of a 5 pt harness. My daughter is going to be 6 on the 24th and she is still in a harness (the Regent I believe). I don't see taking her out anytime soon (although she begs me all the time). I've become quite the stickler for carseats. My 10 year old is still in a high backed booster.

I was 19 and he was 20. I expected him to change as in, we both still had a lot more growing up to do. His basic character stayed the same though.

I'm with you and you described our financial situation perfectly at the moment. We don't have any wiggle room in our budget. DH got rid of all credit cards a couple of years back, so we don't have those to fall back on. Luckily, we have enough to buy meals on and put gas in the vehicles, but there hasn't been a whole lot of extras around here for a very long time. If our washer or dryer broke, or our vehicle, we'd be stuck. My DH needs stuff done to his motorcycle (his only method of transportation to and from work). I keep telling him it will have to wait because I can't pull money out of thin air to pay for it. Hopefully, our situation will be improving over the next few months. But this past year has really sucked.

We first slept on one 4 years ago at a Radisson. It was just for 1 night and I LOVED it that night. Fast forward to last summer. We moved back to the States and needed a new bed. We remembered liking the Sleep Number we slept on, so we checked them out. Sales guy was a smooth talker and they were pretty comfortable to lay on at the store. So we bought it. I'm not liking it so much now. It hasn't helped my back pains. I can feel my husband when he gets up or lays back down (as in the air levels on my side go up or down when he moves). It doesn't hold air like it did when we first bought it.

I don't have all of ours yet due to money. I bought most of what I have by selling old curriculum, but that seems to have dried up now. My original plan was to start school tomorrow (8/8) since my oldest who is going to PS this year is away, but since I don't have all of our books, it's not going to work. Hopefully I can get it all by September, but if not, some subjects will have to wait to start until October.

Our current house has 4 bedrooms. The biggest house we've lived in was in Italy and had 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It was heaven and I was so sad when we left it (and yes, we did pay someone to clean it but over there you can get cleaning help for dirt cheap).

We made the drive from FL to WA last August (we took the Northern route through SD, WY, MT). We were fine in shorts/tshirts/flip flops until we hit Rapid City, South Dakota. Then the mornings and evenings were a little chilly and we had to bring out the pants and sweatshirts/lightweight jackets. But we were still comfortable in shorts during the bulk of the day.

We homeschool secularly (I am not a Christian) and use CLE Math. After trying several different programs with my kids, I finally caved and bought CLE. It actually works for them. It's exactly what they needed. As for what religion it contains...there are bible verses sprinkled here and there. They are easily ignored though as they have more to do with the theme of each book than with the actual math. I'm not even sure my kids notice it is there. Also, some of the word problems are of a religious nature. Most are just things like "Preacher Bob passed out x number of Bibles during Sunday School" or "What was the average church attendance during the month of August?". Those things don't bother me at all. I know definitely in Level 600 I had to cross off a problem here and there when the question had you read a bible passage to get information for a math problem. We've used Levels 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600 and I only remember those types of problems being in 600. They also had a chapter on tithing in level 600, but I had my son do it because it was a good lesson on percentages. I used it as an opportunity to explain different beliefs.

Well, my 8th Grader is going to school this coming year for pretty much these reasons. My children fought horribly this past school year and I need to take someone out of the equation to save their relationships. My oldest is smart and needs more than I am currently able to offer him with the attention I have to spend on his siblings.

It is an amazing place! We went there last year when we were on a cruise and we loved it!

When we lived overseas, I missed shopping (especially bookstores). I also missed fast food restaurants. But I have to say, after living back in the US for almost a year now, I'd give anything to go back to Italy.