Let's see... there is a nice enough zoo here. Not so big you can't get through it in a day, but big enough you can focus on different areas each trip. The art museum is cool. The PEAK group (the forth link leads you to it) is very active with park days, and Mom's Night Out. We also have some active homeschooling 4H clubs in the area. There is a local gymnastics place that does a homeschooling gymnastic gym class. If you like gardening there is a really long growing season. If the kids like to swim, there is a long outdoor swimming season. Oh and the sun comes up for more than a few hours during the winter (heehee), and goes down at a reasonable time during the summer. Can't wait to meet your family in a few months.

I normally don't go out by myself. Last time I tried doing that so I could go bra shopping and that was just depressing. It is so much more fun to unwind with friends. My local homeschooling group tries to pull off a Mommies Night Out once a month. We are about to bump it to every other week.... lol. I would love to say I get the support I need from DH, but honestly he tells me to go out and then guilts me once I actually leave.

Have you talked to your doctor about this yet? Obviously if you eat/drink dairy and you react the obvious jump is to lactose interolence, but the other foods shouldn't be associated with it. You really should get a full physical and mention the other problems you are having. There may actually be some intestinal issues going on.

I think it started with the opening and shutting of Brandon's door, followed by his big brother's called down the hall to him, ending in a high pitched scream as they didn't play well together.

If you like yogurt there is a low carb one by Dannon (the package is red in the corner). I get Russell Stover sugar free granola bars which are only 1 carb a bar and taste good (our Walmart carries them by the protein bars/boxed milk in the cereal aisle, green box). If you like cranberry juice Ocean Spray has a diet version which is only 2 carb for 8oz. Walmart also carries a good supply of low carb tortilla wraps in the deli area (again that's here). A lot of these items do depend on Splenda for a sweetner, so if he has problems with artificial sweetners they could be a problem.

Here is a great site with a fairly comprehesive cover school list (officially they are called church schools) with links to the school's homepages. It is broken down into statewide schools and localized schools. There are listings for support groups too. The counties immediately surrounding Montgomery are Autauga, Elmore, and of course Montgomery County. My cover is very hands off and only requires the attendence, but does not have all the field trips/sports as some of the really large groups.

Ok, if you are going to be doing the dining plan whatever you do, do NOT assume you will be able to get in somewhere worth going. Figure out which days you want to do each park and then pick your top 3 restaurants for each location and call ASAP. People make reservations 180 days out. I just called a few days ago for DH's and my ADRs (spur of the moment trip for the exact same week you will be there), we didn't get some of our first choices and it is just a party of 2. I don't say this to scare you, but if you wait until you get the book (did anyone mention it is like 700 pages?) and read it before making decisions you might cost yourself some good reservations. If you go through the book and want to change things then you can always call back, but you still have a fall back if you can't get anything else. Here is a direct link a site that lists the participating restaurants and links to their most currently aquired menus (it is part of the disboards people suggested). http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-dining-plan.htm Oh and check out the food pics in the restaurant section, makes me crave Disney everytime.

Important lesson to teach. Thanks for the heads up.

anyone with an inside word?

The Smokey Mountains of Tennessee?

So glad our tooth fairy isn't the only one overbooked. DD sleeps in a loft but she has a tooth pillow that hangs up on her bedroom door.

Big thing about going from MK to GF is that there are no buses that run there. Save yourself the walk to the bus stop and hop on the monorail (learned this the hard way when the monorail went down and we stupidly went and waited for a bus in front of GF when we should have hopped on the ferry). The person that took our reservations (we are doing something similiar as you were originally planning) told us to schedule an hour for travel time. I think it really depends on if you "just missed" the monorail and how many people are getting off and on at the resorts between you and the hotel. The hour is probably extreme, but you never know.

Save the second one for your first morning urine tomorrow. I would assume stress is your victim though.

Ah this will be funny when he starts bringing home the dates. You can always remind him of the time he let his friend brush his teeth with dog doo doo while sitting around the dinner table with the newest crush. Oh and don't forget when he has a 12yo son and he does something similar you can remind him that payback is a *****.

Sounds like you have a great week planned. I don't know if you know this or not but make sure you leave a lot of travel time for your trip to Boma. You cannot go from resort to resort on the buses, you will have to go to one of the parks/DTD/or the bus depot and then on to AKL. I personally didn't think that Hollywood & Vine was very good, but I am on a restricted diet and they just didn't have much I could eat.

My dh knows better than to wake me up in the middle of the night for anything less than a serious emergency. His pelvic region is NOT an emergency. He has expressed if I ever wake up in the middle of the night wanting to "chat" I am more than welcome to wake him up, but he is a heavy sleeper and would probably forget to stay awake.

I vaguely remember shaving about 6wks or so ago when i went shorts shopping. It has never been important to me to be smooth constantly and DH just had to learn to deal.

I can't wait to see what it is.

My dad made me wash windows with my arm after I got my tetanus shot. It is supposedly better to keep the arm moving even though it hurts. Odds are it's still gonna be sore in the a.m.

I would love to hear the answer to this. I am sure there are a number of factors, such as what type of printer you use, cost of it's ink, number of pages copied. I was a silly person with one of my DD's workbooks, I copied every lesson in it, and it wasn't until she was nearly done with it did I think that she could have been doing the reading part from the book (it was a reading comp. workbook) and I should have just copied the activities. All of her workbooks that are under $10 she is writing in at the moment. She also does her math into the workbooks because I want a confined record of her doing it.

Thank you so much with your suggestions. I think i will focus on the dot to dot activities i have currently and do the sugar on the baking sheet (although I might use sand and an old sheet). He gets very frustrated still about getting things right and he spends forever with the eraser on the paper.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I looked at Handwriting Without Tears and the site looked overwhelming. What stuff do you consider the essentials to have from them? I have never considered teaching cursive first, but I can definitely see the advantange. Unfortunately I do not use cursive in my everyday life (short of signing my name to a receipt), so that would cause a second hurtle to overcome. I lucked out with DD, she had a desire to learn cursive and set her mind to doing it without needing much help from me.

I was informed that a lot of viruses have rashes as a symptom. Some people are more prone to that symptom showing up than others. DD has gotten them several times in conjunction with strep and ear infections (the 2 things she had time and time again).

First mistake, turning the paper the wrong way... oops. I will make sure I turn it the right way tomorrow. Thanks for the replies so far.

My DH keeps insisting that it is time to put my 4yos (twin boys) into a Pre K class and of course I am inisisting I can teach them everything they need to know. I will openly admit I probably haven't pushed learning schoolish things with them to much but they know their ABC's in order and can recognize over half of them and actually know the sounds better than the names (gotta love Leapfrog DVDs). Nathan can type his name on the computer, but I think he has just memorized where the keys are...lol. I have dreaded teaching the boys to write though. Not because I think this is a really hard skill to teach normally, but because William is a lefty and I have no idea what to do for him. No one in my entire extended family is left handed so I don't know where to turn for advice so here I am. Are there any tricks to know when it comes to being left handed. I know a lot of lefties turn the paper a certain way and hold the pencil differently. We just practiced doing straight lines and he had a harder time than his brother did staying on the line and I don't know if it was a hand position thing or just a lack of fine motor control. So if you are a lefty or have a lefty HELP! jenn- mom to 4