One, generally. HEB is cheaper than any of the others and even beats Costco for many things. There are a few things we occasionally get at Costco. We go there every 3 months or so.

When we went out to eat with my in-laws, we always paid. They actually refused to pay even if they invited us out. They moved to Ireland 13 years ago and FIL died almost 10 years ago. When we visited my MIL two years ago, she insisted on paying once when we went out (it was on my birthday and she had secretly arranged a cake and everything), but we insisted on paying the other times since, after all, there are 6 of us and one of her and she was feeding us at her house the rest of the time. We were there for a month and went out to eat with her 5 or 6 times.

The funny thing is it's quite a race with everyone trying to be the one to pay!

I love the Hunger Games books. All four of us who have read them in my house love them and my parents love them, too. The ones who read it in school here are in middle school, not high school. There are certainly many discussions that can come from The Hunger Games. I'm rather surprised there are enough kids who haven't read HG to actually take the time to read along to the audiobook in class.

Cupcakes! It's pretty random. It's mostly whoever whips out the credit card first :lol:

I'm doing a special book challenge in among my reading this year and a book with bad reviews is one of them. http://jennyinneverland.com/2014/12/18/2015-reading-challenge/

Other: Yes, but only if I'm in my van because it has a back-up camera. Makes parallel parking super easy!

Only 11 years, but ditto (IRL at least - I do know some on-line who are or were members). And that's in 3 states.

I started The Martian last night when I could barely keep my eyes open and had to force myself to put it down knowing my alarm going off at 5:30 comes awfully early. I read it some before we started school this morning, too. I'm about 10% of the way through it and other than the rambly repetition (which I get why, but it kind of annoys me on occasion), I'm enjoying is quite a lot. My 13 year old reminds us daily that the movie comes out on 10/2 which would make going to see it a fabulous birthday present since he turns 14 on 10/3. Calling Me Home is one of literally two books that have ever made me cry. The very end. So many feels. I read it for a book club. The discussion was led by a white woman who is married to a black man. We talked about how even now their marriage is looked down on by some people. Here in San Antonio people don't blink twice at them because interracial marriages are quite common (most commonly Hispanic and white simply because those are the two most common races in this city), but when they lived in San Diego they were surprised by how much negativity they received about being married and how much their children were made fun of for being biracial. The book group was full of women from my church and we wondered if it was bad that we were all really rooting for the two characters to sleep together even though they weren't married lol

I'd let her wear what she wants. Mismatched craziness is quite popular right now.

When we lived in Virginia, HSLDA managed to kill some very good legislation that both VAHomeschoolers (secular) and HEAV (religious) supported. HSLDA got hung up on some tiny part of it that most homeschoolers wanted included. I don't even remember what the legislation was anymore, but I remember it really annoyed me that they did that. I already didn't like them and that's when I realized they were worthless and quite probably do more harm than good and for the life of me couldn't understand why anyone would pay them actual money. Same here in Texas. I don't get it. It's a literal waste of money.

Happy belated birthday, VC! I moved The Martian to my Reading Now folder this morning. I haven't started it, just moved it, since I had to start school with the boys as soon as I finished Treasure Island. I am happy to say I enjoyed that one. I was a bit worried since I did not like Kidnapped. It was a little slow at points, but Treasure Island mostly kept my attention and was interesting.

Here's what we did this year to celebrate NOT Back to School: https://thefamilywho.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/not-back-to-school-5/

I've been to a bunch of taekwondo parties and my kids have worked at approximately three bazillion of them. The gifts are just the same as at any party. Our go to gift is Sequence (the board game). So far it's been a hit for every single person we've gotten it for.

Porcelain crowns on molars are not advised until growth is close to finished. If you get one too soon (about 16 for girls and 18 for boys), it can shift as they grow and cause more problems. They are done very differently from stainless crowns. Go with the stainless steel one for now. That's advice we've gotten from 5 or 6 dentists in various states over the years (my kids have horrible tooth genetics).

We always celebrate the first day of school for the local kids by NOT having school. We're getting ready to go to a trampoline park and then to Mellow Mushroom for a late lunch. We'll start school tomorrow, complete with first day of school pictures that I will post on Facebook just like I do every year. My kids are excited not to be heading off to the big brick and mortar time waster. They did it for 1/2-1 year (depending on the kid) and don't want to ever do that again. Their friends are jealous of them ;)

We live 1/2 mile from the elementary school. I walked my boys to and from school the semester they attended. A whole bunch of other people walked, too. More drove (though some of them weren't actually walking distance - they just didn't want their kids riding the bus), but there were a lot of walkers. About 1/4 of the kids in the school. Tons of kids walked to my oldest son's middle school (we're over 2 miles from that one). A whole lot walk to the high school, too.

The last couple or so weeks I've pretty much only been reading classics. I think I am due for a fun, brain candy book, especially since we start doing school again tomorrow. I shall read The Martian as soon as I'm done Treasure Island (which I am halfway through).

I homeschool partly because I can, partly because I love it homeschooling my kids, partly because I loved being homeschooled, and partly because I'm lazy. Seriously, public school takes ridiculous amounts of time and I hate being forced onto their schedule. I have no problem with being on someone else's schedule for church or taekwondo or whatever, but public school's schedule really chafed at me. The big kids were in public school for one year and the little guys for a semester when we moved to TX (grades K, 2, 6, and 9). They were homeschooled from the start in VA and MD. About halfway through the year there was just so much on my plate and something had to give and the something that made the most sense was public school so we withdrew the little guys. The big kids chose to come back home at the end of the year. The schools in our district are, literally, some of the best in the country. People pay a lot to buy a house so they can live in our particular ISD in San Antonio. The education the kids got in school was superb. When we started homeschooling, when Ani was 4, we intended to homeschool them all the way through. Obviously we changed our minds and sent them to school when we moved here, but then we changed our minds again. We'll homeschool through the end (the kids are grades 2, 4, 8, and 11 this year).

We lived *with* my parents for a few years. We get along great. My husband adores them. In fact, he just got back from a business trip and drove the hour to stay with them a couple days. They'll be moving in with us hopefully soon. Everyone is just waiting for them. My uncle's death last year and my dad's pancreatic cancer this year have held them up. If the chemo does what the doctors hope, he'll be having surgery to remove the tumor next month and hopefully will be moving here by December or January. We are really looking forward to all being back under the same roof again. We actually bought our house with that intention. (No working together - my dad's retired now, but my husband and father do very different things anyway.)

It's down to 3 1/2 stars on Amazon. I just need it to go down 1 more star and I can read it and count it for the book with bad reviews category. My son is begging me to read that one, too. Watching The Phantom of the Opera (musical movie version from 2004) I decided I need to put the book on my to read list. Anyone particularly like a specific version - http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=the+phantom+of+the+opera(I read on the Kindle). It's a rather co-dependent and creepy story when you think about it. Reading Les Mis made the musical way better, and I already loved it, so I want to see if that happens with Phantom, too.

When we lived in southern MD we went to the National Book Festival every year. We loved it. One year my then 7ish year old son got to meet his huge crush: WordGirl! Happy anniversary! This is a good week for anniversaries. My cousins will celebrate 28 or 29 years and my parents will hit 50 years later this week! I'm currently reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. I actually like it so far. Slow, but not bad.

I suppose if you were willing to break the law, you could fly under the radar anywhere. I know people who were flying or have flown under the radar in both MD and VA. There are definitely reporting laws in those states, but they chose not to follow them. They were never caught. Military members and others who move a lot seem to have the easiest time flying under the radar since they will be moved on to another place in a couple or three years anyway. Place like in Texas where there are no reporting requirements, it isn't stealth or flying under the radar. You *are* complying with the laws.

I kept hearing that song in my head reading this thread. Also Tevye's Monlogue. Young marriage divorce statistics are interesting when you include reason for marriage. They are much more likely to end in divorce if the woman was pregnant when they got marriage or if there was extreme external pressure (familial, religious, whatever) to get married young. The divorce statistics are typical if you do not include those groups. My husband and I were 20 and 22 when we got married. We chose to get married young because we wanted to. We actually had pressure from his parents to live together instead of getting married so young. We were together almost 3 years before we got married. We've been married 17 and we still go on a weekly date together. His mother still doesn't understand why we didn't just live together first.

I love The Secret Garden, too. A Little Princess totally lived up to my expectations!