No....but I would love to do it! What a neat opportunity for your DD!! I have heard that you have to sit through an instructional period and then you get a short time (maybe 30 minutes?) with the dolphins. The rest of the day is spent in their water park. It's not your usual water park though....there are animals, swimming with fish, nice beaches, and such. And they only allow a certain number of people per day, so it's never crowded.

Honesty....even on the small things. For example, if the waitress at a restaurant fails to charge us for an item, we always let her know. Most seem surprised we did and are very thankful.

Exactly. I didn't mean not to educate them at all....I just meant formally. Learning can come in all forms.

I would just have him understand that everything will not always be fair. Sometimes he'll be invited to places, sometimes his siblings will be invited to places. As far as sending him to school, I guess that depends on the reasons you are homeschooling. We are homeschooling for a bunch of reasons, of course, but one of the main ones is that we are Christians and do not feel that our child should be exposed to a lot of the secular things in a public school. And so even if our child was a social butterfly (which, she is not), we still would not send her to school due to our reasons and that children do not always know what's best for them in the long run.

Well....are you gonna do it?:D

See, my daugher is 6 years old. She'd much rather play imaginative things with her sister all day long rather than do formal schooling. I love to see them in there creating things with blocks, "reading" to each other, creating zoos out of blocks and bins, playing "school" and exploring educational books on their own accord, pulling all sorts of things out of our art bin and putting them all together to make a creation. I hate pulling them out of that "zone" and sitting my 6 year old down to do formal schooling. I know that we don't have to accomplish too much at this age, but we still have to do math, reading, handwriting, and various other things. She doesn't loathe these things, but she gets extremely frustrated with it all very easily. I wish I could just put it all off for a while. But that would not conform to this society. There's an end of the year standardized test that she must do well on for our county. She'll need to learn certain things in order to keep up with peers during times like Sunday School and extracurricular activities. So doing less is not really an option here. I do feel like having formal schooling at this age is pulling her away from her childhood sometimes. Kids will learn naturally, at their own pace, without formal schooling in the beginning.

We have it in front of the bath tub.....and in front of the sink. Get another bath mat LOL.

Why do we start school so early? And I mean "we" as society in general? We begin schooling around 5 years old. Wouldn't it be better to wait? I know that so many high school students have no idea what they want to be when they grow up. I know that I didn't. I was a teenager, I had friends, I wanted to hang out and have fun. School was not something that I put a lot of effort into. I wasn't failing, but I could have done so much better if I'd only been more mature and had more focus. So many college students still have no idea what they are doing. They switch majors once, twice, three times. I'm not saying this applies to all students, but I know that it does to many. Why couldn't we wait and start formal schooling around 8-10 years old? Let children be children during their young years. They will learn things naturally....and whatever they don't learn, they will be more mature and ready to learn it when they begin formal schooling later on. And it will be easier to learn so you wont need 13 years of school. Maybe formal schooling from 10-20.....maybe by 20 someone will be more mature and focused to begin a career or go to college. More mature to handle a job. There's so many years to be a grown up.....I wish kids could just be kids while they are young instead of forcing them into formal schooling earlier and earlier.

Oh, I like the both!!! But in the end, I think I'm on team Gale.

Wow, 4:45 AM! What time do you get in bed each night? We already do a 4 day homeschooling week. Wednesdays (from Sept to May) is homeschool group day, so we don't do any formal school work. We don't stick to the 30 minutes per subject. If it takes less time, that's fine. We just have more free time at the end of the day. Each subject takes so long because my DD6 is VERY high maintanence. Everything takes twice as long with her because she can be quite difficult. She loves to talk and goes off on tangents. And she is easily distracted. I constantly have to keep her on the task at hand. Plus, she's a whiner and whines and slumps to the floor when schooling is not going her way. She's very difficult to homeschool LOL. Our subjects are Bible, reading/handwriting, math, science, speech therapy (we do this at home instead of going to a therapist), and an extra subject. Sign Language on Mondays, state study on Tuesdays, Art on Thursdays, and Story of the World on Fridays. So I don't really think we are doing a ton of work.

I feel like I can't get it all done!! I get up around 6:30, do breakfast, exercise, devotion, start a few chores.....I wish I could get all of that done before the kids get up around 8:30, but I just can't. From there, I'm still trying to finished my morning stuff before starting school around 10. We never end up starting school around 10 because I'm running late. I block about 30 minutes per subject. Yesterday math ran over that time, as well as science. We do 6 subjects a day. In the meantime I'm trying to tend to my 3 year old as well, trying to interact with her, do a little preschool with her. DD6 is very high maintanence and needy, so I have to tend to her more. All the while I have to make lunch, clean up from lunch, wash clothes, do dishes, pick up toys, do household chores. Not to mention I have to find time to go grocery shopping and errands. Plus, what about all the stuff we have to fit in? Church? Art class? If we are gone during the morning hours, school is pretty much skipped for that day because we cannot get back on schedule. And I need to find time to read more books to the kids during the day. Then dinner time rolls around I have to start cooking that. How in the world do you do it all? I feel like I'm losing my mind. And I only have one to school right now!

I believe in Creation by God....and I don't think it matters whether a day is 24 hours or longer. It's still called a "day" in the Bible. So therefore, wouldn't the OP have worded it correctly?

It sounds like he was trying to help her. I mean, 14 years old? There with his mother? Returned to his mother after the mother found the little girl? And had no getaway vehicle? All of that points to his being innocent if you ask me. If he is, I feel really bad for him. You can't even help people in today's society.

Since all these recalls, I've begun purchasing the store brands. I never hear of recalls with them.

I don't like bananas....and I'm allergic to them. I really don't like coconut. I don't like whipped cream. I'll take the chocolate sauce though LOL.

We have a Nintendo DS. It's actually mine but DD6 has full access to it. We also have a Leapster as well as an iPod Touch with games/TV shows. The iPod Touch gets used the most. However, we've never had to put boundaries or restrictions on it. It does not even get used daily. I allow her to use it in the car, or sometimes on a break from school work for a while in the afternoon. But it has not been a problem. It just depends on what sort of kid you have.....some will want to play it all the time. I've found this to be true mostly about boys though. Some kids won't play it too much at all.

For everyone who says the grandmother should just smoke outside for the duration of the visit.....that doesn't matter at all. There is still smoke on EVERYTHING. Her home will reek of smoke. And everything that you bring with you will reek of smoke when you leave. When MIL visits, her suitcase absolutely stinks. When she leaves from her visit, I have to air out her room by leaving the window open because it stinks in there. When DH went to Vegas and stayed in the hotel there and walked around the casino, I had to leave his suitcase outside when he returned home because it reeked of smoke. The house of a smoker will contain smoke whether they smoke outdoors or not. I've come to the conclusion that most smokers just. don't. care. My dad used to smoke with us in the car. He'd crack the window and hold the cigarette up to it. I'd complain because I could smell it and it bothered me.....he told me it was going out the window and there was no way I could smell it. Ummm...hello....YES, I could most definitely smell it. Smokers cannot smell cigarette smoke.

I have it and love it. Yes, there are some dropped calls....but I've had less of those since I switched to the iPhone 4. AT&T is to blame for that one.

We're having DH's cousin and her family over. We get along really well with them and they have three girls that my girls love playing with. We'll probably have hamburgers and hotdogs, maybe play some games, swim, etc. They will be leaving right before dark because they have to drive about half an hour to get back home. But afterwards, our little family may go and see the local fireworks. We'll see though....or just watch the fireworks that people set off around our neighborhood. We'll see.

MIL smokes and lives 12 hours away. We never visit her. There are no hotels close by. I am allergic to cigarette smoke. And even before I was allergic (which has just been in the past few years), we still didn't go. Smelling smoke is not good for anyone of any age. And I definitely would not subject my baby's lungs to it. When we see MIL, she comes down here. And when she stays with us, she does not smoke. That's our terms and she agrees to them. Sorry, our health is not worth doing otherwise.

I'm trying to declutter......more. I've already done a once-over of the house and got rid of things. Now I'm going back over it and "fine tuning" it. I'm tired of there being 6 saucers, 8 sippy cups, and 20 eating utensils in the sink waiting to be washed. Seriously, do we need that many? About how many of the following do you own? Towels....washcloths....eating utensils.....childrens plates or bowls....dinner plates.....sippy cups.....beach towels.....hand towels.....bath towels....stuff like that. I'm thinking we have too many but I hate to get rid of them. We have two children that use sippy cups and we honestly own about 15 cups. The kids asked for favorites for their birthday, we picked a few up at the zoo, picked a few up at Chuck E Cheese, and so on. How in the world to we go about keeping this stuff out of our house???

Well....I'm very shy and quiet, so honestly, I don't really have any friends. I'm very close with my family so they are the ones usually invited to things. However, having a fun party with games, food (we don't drink), and such is just not quite as fun with grandparents as it would be with friends LOL. Thanks for the suggestions!!

I hate tornado warnings. I hate storms in general LOL. The lightning down here in Florida is just wicked. I always get nervous when a tornado warning comes up. If I had a basement to get in, I think I'd feel much better. But down here in flat land, we don't have basements LOL.

My 30th birthday is quickly approaching (July 9th). I feel like this one should be special or something. You know, entering into my 30's, more established, have my own opinions and don't conform to others opinions as when I was younger....just more of my own person, ya know. So I wanted to do more than just go out to eat in the evening. What did you do for a milestone birthday? 30th or 40th....or even 50th? My birthay falls on a Friday so I thought about asking my mom if I can leave the kids with her for the entire day and have the day to do whatever I please. Eat wherever I want, browse any store that I want, possibly see a movie all by myself. I know that for some people, being by themselves does not sound fun....but I'm pretty much an introvert and I'd love to have a day to myself. My husband would be at work so he wouldn't be able to join me. Or....should I take the weekend and go on a weekend trip to somewhere? With hubby and the kids? We love Disney and I would do that in a heartbeat, but I just don't do Disney when it's nearly 100 degrees outside. That's not fun to me LOL. Same for camping....I love camping but it's going to be hot and all the packing is always on me, so that doesn't sound like fun for my birthday LOL. We could go elsewhere though, but I'm not sure where. Or I could go to a local water park. We might could do that on Saturday and I could still have my day to myself on Friday. A day with the family at the water park sounds fun....we haven't been there in a while. And then my whole family (parents, sisters, us, aunts, grandparents) would go out to dinner that evening (we always do that for birthdays) somewhere. Or....something completely different that I haven't thought of yet! I need ideas LOL!

Well, I think I have my answer LOL! I'll clean out my gmail account, block all the current spam that's in there, and open another one to use for signing up for things online. Thanks so much for the input!!