Thanks. I checked and it looked like they are all in the same range so maybe it's not too outrageous. I guess the hard part is needing a third row, which years ago would have seemed frivolous to me until I had three kids and realized how much we live out of our car. We don't take many vacations, we road trip.

Well it's an Expedition, not an Explorer so it would cost more. I checked the blue book and under the part where it says suggested retail value it did come up about $14,500. Of course not for private party sales, that was much lower, so I assume if we saw one for sale by owner we could spend less, but it's harder to know if you can trust them. It has all the basics but it does have a sun roof.

just wanted to add.... I'm sure if we took time to look around we might find a better deal, but private sales and dealer's are hard to deal with. It just seems so much easier to go this route. We just don't have the experience or time to bother with that. At least this way their is no haggling on price and no one trying to up sell me a newer vehicle. Aargh! I just hate this...I really would have been more than happy to drive my car into the ground if it wasn't for this stupid thing with the seatbelts I didn't notice until recently.

Well there is only a 30 day warranty with Carmax so not much of one. My current car is a 2002 and it's got 51,000 miles. This one has 61,000 miles. I've searched a bit online and it looks like they are all around that mileage. Nothing real low that I could manage to afford. They appraised my car and will buy it back so I can apply that plus money I have. I can't afford a car payment so I'd like to stay under that amount of money. We were so lucky to find my previous car because it was practically new with only 8,000 miles and it made me feel like I bought a new car (which I've never done) so I guess I'm having a hard time decided to have to put out so much money for something basically the same age as mine.

We have to get rid of our small SUV because I just realized that the middle seat in the back has a lap belt, no shoulder belt. My four year old needs to be in a booster with a shoulder belt so we are hurriedly trying to get a "new" used car. We don't want to go with a mini van because they seem similar in price and mileage to the bigger SUV and we would prefer one that has a third row in case we ever decide to have another baby. It's just one of these rushed situations and I am having trouble deciding for sure on the one we looked at this morning. It seems great, I just can't decide. Just thought I'd throw this out here for some advice..... **can you imagine I got a stupid speeding ticket today and I am so angry about it....haven't had a ticket in over 15 years. I think the stress from that is affecting my thinking on this car. We don't buy cars very often and it will be a while so I want to make the right choice for a car we can live with a long time. TIA

Can anyone give me some information on AZ homeschooling? My sister in law lives there and has asked me for a friend of hers if I knew any organizations that would be good to check out for information. I'm in CA so I thought I should just pose the question here and ask you wonderful people. Where is a good place to start? TIA :)

I just joined the WTM group. I am addicted to facebook right now. It's such a fun way to keep in touch with family and old friends. Scramble...I'm addicted too!

:blush: Oops, forgot about stuff like that. Gosh I hate people sometimes. My husbands car got smashed in with a hammer on year and I'm sure it was our neighbors son. I'm not big on being friends with all the neighbors but I do understand needing to be friendly and keep relations peaceful. I guess I was thinking that if a neighbor parks in your drive he must not care much about neighborly relations.

I guess I don't understand all this "be nice, stuff" I may not own the street in front of my house but I sure as hell own my driveway and anyone but me better stay out of it. I can't even imagine someone so rude....it wouldn't happen where I live. I'd call the cops right away, and wouldn't feel bad one bit.

In my experience, while it's true that it doesn't go on to ruin your credit no matter how long it takes you, hospitals can be real pains about this. I set up a plan once and after a year they decided that's enough time and sent it to collections which resulted in harassment like crazy! I was so mad because I had made a real effort to pay them each and every month and we were barely making it back then. Just thought I'd add another medical bill experience.

Same here! I used to watch all my abc soaps regularly. Time has past though. I don't have any time to keep up on the never ending story lines now. Love Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris. His co-star on Doogie Howser went to my highschool.

Thanks Robin, Some of my favorite people!

OMG, I hope that never happens where I work...I think that would be the end of my job. Those critters will follow you home :scared:

I work at the library and we could never clean ever book that came in. We will wipe covers that are particularly gross with a cleaning solution. It's disgusting what some people will put in the book drop without even bothering to clean up. Lots of sticky kids picture books. We do have volunteers go through and clean off the covers of picture books from time to time.

As a bonus it really helps them build up strong arms. So far physical work is the only thing that gets through to my boys and when there done the attitude is usually forgotten...not always....but mostly. Things like jumping jacks, moving rocks in the yard, racking, usually something they can do outside so I don't scream at them.

I did it once years ago but only because I was in absolute agony over a case of Thrush I couldn't get rid of. Since then I just do it half heartedly to keeps things under control. I could really use doing it again, but it was very tough and I think I only managed because I was suffering. I also took a ton of herbs at the same time so I'm not sure if diet alone helped me. Once I healed I have never had a yeast problem that was as severe as original, so I can manage on doing some of the diet but not all. I think it is possible to do just some of it....it will still help you out.

I bought it from the CHEA booth, but I also know that Area 127 had it and they are an awesome source of supplies for classical Christian studies. It would have been fun to see your name, but it looks like she took that page out.

I just bought the Lesha Myers' book at my local conference, did you enjoy it? It's very similar to what I mentioned above but the Reinstedt books don't have a Christian POV as far as I can tell. I still like them though, they are very interesting.

So far I've used books by Randall Reinstedt; Ghost Town Publications. He has a bunch on the basics like the gold rush, missions, and rancheros. He is a history teacher, or was in Monterey and has some good adventure stories. We've been enjoying them. I bought the all at a conference once.

I couldn't figure out how to add my picture to my post without it being huge, so go check out my blog to see the picture I took of how orange everything looks. My blog is in my sig

Out in front of my house the shadows of the tree on my driveway looks orange from all the haze. It's really weird and I've never seen anything quite like it.

:iagree: That's what I was thinking.

Then you have the opportunity to see plenty of good Americans and so maybe you could have come up with a better title for your post.

We have been in the house for three days now because the smoke it just so bad. My kids are going stir crazy from no outside time but I can't breath out there. I don't recall it ever being this bad for so many days at a time. I live east of Sacramento.

:iagree: I feel so bad sometimes because it's just doesn't come easy for me to find ways for my kids to make money either. It frustrates my son because his friends are out there asking neighbors, and I just don't feel like I have that option where we live. I don't know all my neighbors nor do I want to in some cases. I don't know what to do either.