I agree with this, for my experience too at least. The season in life I felt the most lonely was when all my kids were 10 and under, my husband was working long hours but we also struggled to find babysitters for date nights, homeschool community was hit-or-miss in terms of making friends, we didn't always feel like we were connecting well with people in our church. It also didn't help that I had a friend I really wanted to be closer with...But ultimately I wasn't her bff, and her bff was who she wanted to do more with socially (and, thanks so social media, I knew she actually was spending time and doing lots of fun things with her bff and posting about it). I really wanted a bff and I was sad that I wasn't finding one. I think what helped a lot was getting a do-over by moving to a new community, having my kids get older (and now DH and I can and do get out more together whether it is for dinner out or just to take a walk alone around the neighborhood), and we've found different kinds of friendships...board gaming friends, friends we trade dinner nights with at each other's houses, etc. As our kids are older, there is so much less pressure for couples we are friends with to be a "perfect fit" for our family in terms of all the kids wanting to be friends. Our kids can each choose to come or not if we are going to a friend's house, or we can plan an 8pm game night after friends' kids are in bed. I do feel like I am the kind of person who is actively looking to building community and relationships - one couple we are friends with, we basically became friends after I really put myself out there and invited them over for dinner when they were new to town and we met in a very tangential way. It turned out we just really clicked. I feel more prepared to build community now than when I was a frazzled mother of younger kids.

I voted "other" for the top question. I can totally see and would not be bothered by a school asking for acceptances and scholarships... sharing rejections feels much more personal.

Beast Academy only goes through 5th grade level math, so it wouldn't work for your purposes. Their secondary level products, Art of Problem Solving, are the opposite of what you are looking for. They are very in-depth and would not work well as a quick summer introduction. Sorry I don't have any online recommendations. I am using a textbook that I think is very engaging for Algebra with my 11 year old - Elementary Algebra by Harold Jacobs. Older copies are available for under $20 and answer keys for the reprint editions match the vintage books for almost all problems. It is very readable and could be moved through quickly in the summer, especially if not all problems were attempted. I am using it an introduction before doing the AOPS Algebra book with my 11 year old, because he was finished with Pre-Algebra at such a young age and needed a bit of maturity before tackling the AOPS Algebra book. But I think the Jacobs text could be useful for a variety of circumstances.

Welcome to the board! When you are looking for options specific to your state (it sounds like you need to find an "association" as a part of following your state laws?), it often works best to look for a facebook group or website that covers homeschooling issues for your state or local area. I know in my state there are quite a number of Facebook groups that cover issues relating to finding co-ops, following the laws in our state, etc. It's possible someone here will know about options for you, but you might find a lot more options for your state in a state-specific group given that this forum has national and even international reach. There absolutely are so many options for curriculum - when I was first starting out I enjoyed browsing an earlier edition of this book: https://cathyduffyreviews.com/books-by-cathy-duffy It might give you some ideas of what direction you want to go! Of course, there are a lot of options to see browsing through this forum and reading previous threads, but it can get overwhelming quickly! 😁

QFT... Like others, I've only watched previews, but yeah...even for families that aren't struggling, the whole "travel adventures all the time" thing doesn't fit well with so many things we do - music lessons, homeschool classes or co-ops, volunteering, church commitments, extra-curricular activities. Even before we had a kid in public school tying us to that schedule, we all of twice took a longer vacation (still only 2 weeks) when other people were in school. It was great to have a bit of flexibility to catch some national parks a bit out of peak season, but it certainly isn't even the best perk of homeschooling to me. I have issues with the whole road schooling/nomad life as being the pinnacle of homeschooling anyway...I don't think the "rugged individualist" life is healthy for most families. People need support and community...whether that is homeschooling community, faith community, neighbors, extended family, etc.

I have no idea where they order them from, but when DD graduated the high school (large-ish - graduating class was close to 400), took care of a bulk order. The kids got measured for gowns, paid a small fee ($20?), and then they were picked up at school in late May before graduation. It was very easy, and nice not to have to deal with any of the ordering or upsells other people talk about.

Years ago, we did the first couple books. I don't actually recall there being many supplies at all. It seemed like the journal was mostly writing/drawing activities - though it is possible that my DD just wasn't interested in the activities so we skipped them. The thing I do remember are the typos...not sure if they've come out with edited or updated editions of the first couple books, but I am fairly tolerant of typos and these books had enough to drive me crazy. This was when they were new, so I would hope they're updated by now!

I have 3 guitar players, 2 of whom play acoustic. Both picked out their own acoustic guitars when they were younger teens, after playing a 3/4 size as kids. So they had been playing long enough to know something about what they preferred. Each was able to go to a music store and find one they liked in the $300-$400 range. I'm not sure if some under that range would be "fine" for a beginner. My kids also wanted one with an amp pickup (I think that's what it's called?), to be able to plug in and play on stage for performances, so that might change the price structure a bit. But each chose a different brand of guitar and preferred a slightly different sound in their instruments, despite both having started out on the same 3/4 size guitar.

This may be a weird hyperlocal thing, but all the driving schools here require spacing out the behind-the wheel sessions with the professional instructor with 3-4 weeks between sessions (spread out to either 3 or 4 sessions, depending on length). We also have to hold the learner's permit at least six months in our state, but some parents here who don't read the fine print run into problems because they think their student will do all 6 hours in the last couple weeks before the test, when in reality they can't get them in that close together. I also was glad to have re-read the fine print while considering if I will sign up kid #3 with the same driving school as kid #2 or a different one...I thought maybe kid #3 would take the classroom portion this summer when he has a lot of free time, even though he can't take the permit written test until this winter. But even though state regulations allow a kid to take the class any time after turning 14, all the schools have a maximum length of time between taking the classroom portion and finishing the behind the wheel portion, unless you want to essentially pay 50% more. So if you can't get from starting classroom to finishing the behind the wheel in 15 months-ish, it costs a lot more. At the same time they suggest the last session should be as close as possible to the time of taking the behind the wheel test at the DMV. So it is really set up to do the whole thing in a particular time frame. I'm sure a lot of the details are going to vary state to state and even city to city...but I guess I always tell people to read all the fine print very carefully, because it seems like it is easy to get caught out with doing it in a way that might end up costing a lot more. I like the professional instructor hours behind the wheel because I think they are helpful, but I am slightly jealous that apparently every state doesn't require them! In some ways that would probably make the whole thing more flexible.

We live in a mid size city and both kids so far we've also taken at least once for driving in the actual large city so they could experience real traffic. More than once with DD because her goal was to be able to regularly drive there to visit friends. If you already live in a big city that's less of a concern, but if you don't it's probably better to have their first serious traffic experience to be with a parent involved than when they have their license and need to drive to a larger city for an event.

I'm almost to kid#2 getting his license...and then my break will be short before it gets to kid #3...big sigh. After the first couple hours in a parking lot, we move to slow speed residential streets. Then after that we start tackling common routes the kid will drive once they are driving independently, mostly by have them drive it as often as possible when going there anyway - church, school, friends' houses, etc. Then we add in long road trip driving on the interstate, and more complicated driving random places around town (maybe one way streets, places where it's tricky to turn left, etc). DH takes them out for parallel and 90 degree reverse parking, because I'm terrible at both. In our state we are required 6 hrs behind the wheel with a professional instructor, plus 40 parent hours (15 of which are at night). So far we've found the night hours hardest to get - we go out for special driving sessions to get those. Tonight I took DS16 out for 40 minutes around town. I tried to take him in areas we rarely drive to so he'd get a feel for navigating when you can't always see well the curve ahead in the road, etc.

Board games, biking (sort of .. he likes it more than me, but I do like it some and like Tandem rides when we can get around to them), watching F1 races, trying new restaurants (is that a hobby?). I'd say that we also aspire to more travel as a hobby especially when we become empty nesters.

I don't think I am especially anxious...I feel like it helps that my mom was/is a very anxious person, and I am very conscious of not wanting to be like her. I mean, when I was 18 and home on a break from college I asked if I could borrow one of the family cars to visit a friend in a nearby large city. My mom told me she was worried about my safety driving in the city, so I would need to take the bus! On the other hand, when DD was 16, I let her drive 1.5 hrs each way to the same city to visit friends. We helped her prepare for this process of driving in large-city traffic by practicing with her in the city before she had her license. I feel like I occasionally have brief situational worries...like when DS14 and DS11 ended up needing to be home alone for about six hours one day recently (longer than usual for them without DS16 being there too)...I slightly worried they might do something dumb like forget to turn off a burner on the stove, But it didn't control my day, and I was able to shrug it off... they were fine. Or when DD was late getting home from work one night...I was slightly concerned that maybe her car had broken down or she'd had an accident. But it wasn't debilitating...Maybe that is experiencing "anxiety" but I tend to be able to move on after having those kinds of thoughts. I might think to myself...hmmm...DS16 is sure not taking much action on finding a summer job. Maybe he'll wait too long and there won't be many jobs available by the time he gets around to it. But then I remind myself that probably he can always go work at McDonald's even if that's at the bottom of his list of preferences...and even if he doesn't get a job, the worst case scenario is that he'll have less money to spend for college and it might limit his options slightly if he doesn't have as much cash in the bank. It's not the end of the world if he doesn't get a job this year. I have to admit though, none of my kids are prone to serious trouble so far...if I had a kid that was already getting in trouble with drinking, drugs, sneaking out, etc...I might worry more because the consequences of such behavior are higher than the consequence of something like DS16 not getting a job.

Ours goes between rooms and through doorways easily. The only thing that might cause a problem if would be if there was any difference in level (In our upstairs, for example, one bedroom has a tiny step down just inside the door). I do need to use doorstops to prop open the bathroom/laundry room doors though because otherwise occasionally the Roomba will accidentally shut itself into the room by pushing the door closed. We have a Roomba j7+. I'm pretty happy with it but haven't tried any other brands. Our first Roomba was a more basic model (battery life got to be a problem for it after a couple of years - it can still do short jobs without needing to charge), but we upgraded for our main floor vac. I like that it is self emptying.

In regards to what needs to be done to fix the OLM/pad area for the next launch, I've been enjoying this guy's analysis on Twitter. In another thread he said that when he worked for NASA, his job title was "Physicist of Launch Pad Materials ".

I recently read Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race, and that also highlighted the many ways in which we did not know what we were doing...😳 Space X's iterative design process looks so different than how NASA runs things these days, that I think it can be confusing to people wondering why SpaceX has had so many "big booms" in the Starship design process (all the SN test ships that blew up before SN15 landed). Both processes can get to the goal in the end. I visited Starbase in Jan 2022, and I thought that maybe the ship/booster combination I saw would be the ones to take flight (this was ship 4/booster 20)...it turns out they had more iterating to do before we got to today. It is really incredible that you can visit and get close enough from the public road to watch what's going on.

Agree about the flame trench. The truck was super close though. Whichever channel put that vehicle cam there must have known that debris damage was a possibility. This cam shows a good view of where the truck is. But the sand raining down five miles away is not going to make regulators happy. I watched the main SpaceX stream live but then went over to Everyday Astronaut to watch their reaction. It was pretty crazy to watch him and his co-presenter scramble inside due to the sand/particulates raining down.

I voted suitcase but I do take advantage of hangars in the closet - especially on trips where I am traveling with dressier items.

Why would it be before the drop/add deadline if the class is already done and dusted before the high school class list is even published? The drop/add DE deadline would be a couple weeks into the summer class, well before the high school fall class schedule is released? To the OP's question, I think what I would tell my student would depend a bit on their college goals. If the student isn't aiming for selective colleges, in the long run it really may not make much difference... average-state-university isn't probably going to be making an admission decision based on one weird class selection. If the student's goals is for tippy-top admission, I'd probably tell them to ditch the DE and plan and grin-and-bear-it for the more "typical" transcript situation. Student can study for the exam outside of class if the "bad" teacher doesn't do a good job presenting the material.

I get the impression that at some point the number of schools offering AP, weighted GPAs, etc must have tremendously increased. So, I graduated a little less than 30 years ago, and my high school of 1600 students in a town of ~65,000 people (so, not some tiny rural school) offered zero AP classes and did not weight GPAs at all even for honors classes. They did offer 1 AP exam, which those of us that took calculus could take because "what we learned was close enough" to AP to take the exam. I knew in high school about AP classes/exams but thought at the time it was mainly kids in rich suburbs who got AP classes. Somewhere along the way it seems to have become something all but the tiniest schools have to offer.

DS14 was on it for about six years, and we found it immensely helpful especially at first, but it was the first med we tried and so I have no idea if a stimulant would have worked equally well. It was just the approach the ped we had at the time wanted to try. As he got older we were not sure we were still seeing as much benefit from it, and he went off. Honestly, other than a day or two of headaches there was no difficulty stopping. He is off meds right now, as we saw very little difference off vs. on. We're still keeping the door open to meds as a future possibility.

I will have a rising 9th grader and a rising 11th grader this summer. Wow...seems hard to believe. Both boys will be doing pre-season training for mountain bike season, then starting practice later in the summer Both boys will attend a 4 day church camp/event DS16 is looking for a job. He doesn't want to go back to the job he had last summer (it was boring and lower paying than most all other jobs around here), and has applied but not gotten any interviews yet DS16 will most likely go to a math camp at a nearby university, while DS14 will do his last year of a local nature-oriented camp. Maybe a short family vacation, but it will probably just be a long weekend at this point. I'd like DS14 to do some kind of volunteer work this summer, but we are still looking into opportunities for this DS16 is doing PSAT/ACT prep over the summer. I think DS14 will have as a more "academic" goal working on some kind of programming class or tutorial over the summer. In general, DS14 probably needs more things to "do" for more variety in his summer, especially if we don't find a good fit volunteer wise. Still thinking this through.

I think I remember something similar happened to me. I needed to Venmo money to someone organizing an event - it was the only method provided for payment and I had never met this person and certainly didn't know their phone number (this was a school-adjacent event, so a parent on the organizing committee was collecting payments on behalf of all participating students). There must have been a way to bypass it, and I remember the same "warning" that I needed to double check the Venmo ID to make sure I was paying the correct person since I wasn't doing the verification.

I also think long term relationships can open the door for helpful, appropriate shorter term trips. One of the pastors at our church has developed long term friendships with a couple different pastors in Latin American countries. One his friends, a pastor in Honduras, invited our church to bring a team to help them with medical clinics they wanted to hold. Our church sent nurses, as well as unskilled volunteers (including my DH and DS16), and skilled and unskilled volunteers alike were able to help put the clinic on in a way that the local church didn't have the manpower to do. Whether it is setting up a room to be used as a clinic, playing with kids while parents or siblings are being seen in the clinic, or the nurses helping with the medical care, they did what the local church found it helpful for them to do. DH and DS16 both said it was wonderful to get to know families from the church there and see how much they have in common in the faith, even across cultures.

My older two went to public school in 8th and 9th respectively. It has worked out very well for them. They both wanted to make the leap and were ready to do so. My next in line, DS14 will give it a try as well for 9th grade. He is eager, but I have more doubts about how it will work with him for various reasons. But, it is much easier to try it and then pull him back out after a couple months if it is not going well, than to think about starting high school at home and enter public school later. At least in our area, that would be almost impossible or would involve repeating a grade. I think we'll be able to tell early on if it's not a good fit, and pivot back to full time homeschooling (or part time - he is actually taking one public school class this year, and he could take a class or two at the high school and still be a homeschooler as his primary status).