I agree with Pamela. A teen should be allowed to start making their own decisions. This is part of their training to become adults. Present the benifits of Spanish, but let her decide. Besides, you never know where she'll end up. In some fields, French is the better language to learn.

I was talking to my PA (physician's assistant) about a research conference her office holds regularly. She said it really hampered her in evaluating the quality of the research papers. Since my health depends on a lot of these scientific studies, I'm glad that others in the group do have a good statistical background. My dh is also constantly ditching news reports because of the quality of their statistics.

My ds(15) only wore gym shoes until we got him a sports jacket, pants, tie and men's dress tie shoes. He now wears everything but the tie to church without prompting.

Many societies have set marriage up front to include multiple wives for one man. Others have concubines in addition to more than one wife. In some societies, a man is expected to marry his dead brother's wife even if he's already married. Other societies gave lip service to monogomy, but winked at affairs. There is even one society where the wife has multiple husbands. (That is the exception because of very poor resources in that land. I believe the husbands are generally related to each other.) It sounds to me that marriage has very rarely been truly expected to be monogamous throughout history. And when we read some past threads hear about the appropiateness of male-female friendships on these boards, you may get the idea that many people here don't expect a monogamous relationship without a lot of barriers set up betwwen the sexes.

You don't? Lesbians can easily have children via a willing male or artificial insemination. Males might find a woman willing to carry a child for them, or they might adopt and unrelated child. Alternatively one partner may have a highpaying career that involves a lot of moving and the lower payed partner has trouble getting a career going. Therefore the lower paid partner is a dependent of the individual whose career they follow. I've seen this happen with heterosexual couples more than once.

But lawyers can't draw up documents permitting/requiring health insurance coverage that's subsidized by the employer. Also a lawyer can't draw up documents that permit a "stay at home" partner to get social security benifits or the tax benifits of filing taxes jointly. Nor will the will allow the partner to inherit the property free of taxes. There are some tricks that can be used to reduce the taxes, though. So our society has structured many things available to heterosexual couples that a lawyer can't get around for homosexual couples. Marriage is the standard way to gain these benifits. A civil union would be an alternative.

I was also anticipating that the cooler year would lengthen the growing season for them.

This sounds very different from what I was imagining. That will make spending it on general family needs much easier.:001_smile:

Run, do not walk, to see a doctor.

This is great! But I'd be trying to show that I'm spending the money mostly on my disabled child. Food expenses, some housing and utility costs and the the child's educational expeses fall into this category. But I'd be careful of spending it on your educational expenses and setting up for a private business (unless you can prove that it allows you to work from home mostly for the benifit of your disabled child), The back payments may give you a bit more leway if you can show that you delayed these other expeditures in order to pay for dc's direct expenses. I don't have experience with these things, but I'd just be naturally careful in how I used this money.

Why are you trying to harvest them now, unless you want small onions? They still have about 2 months or more to grow in your area.

I've always heard that milk of any sort wasn't good for most mammals, including large (most) portions of the human race because their digestive systems werern't designed to handle milk after childhood. I'd avoid milk products in general in adult mammals.

I know 2 people who have them, and both of them like them for different reasons. But neither individual uses the actual timeshare they bought into each year. They exchange them for a vairety of locations. The married couple just enjoys traveling and having access to various condos in unusual locations. The single adult that owns a couple of time shares likes them for several reasons. because she's single, she likes having a secure condo with kitchen facilities so she doesn't need to go out in the evening to eat. She also needs to have the commitment of the timeshares to ensure she gets away for vacations. (She's self employed), Finally she likes being able to invite her friends to join her.

Backpackers will eat just about anything dried -- but dehydrated eggs. Ok, for long trips a few will carry heavily doctored dried eggs. For short trips they'll carry fresh eggs. But meals are frequently designed to avoid eggs. If you really want pure, dehydrated eggs for cooking with, check this product. http://www.rei.com/product/753943 Check the reviewers comments on how to prepare a better tasting product. Normally what you find are heavily doctored dried eggs (such as scrambles eggs with bacon, etc). ETA. I've never used this product.

I'm going to add only one book, and it's not one you'll find on any other list of must reads. It's Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee McPhee is a non-fiction writer, but his works read more like fiction. But I recommend Encounters because he takes one individual passionately devoted to a cause (environmentalism) and "pits" him against 3 others passionately devoted to the opposite cause. What makes it so great (besides the writing) is that both sides are presented sympathetically. The reader get to learn that both sides have good reasons for their strongly held opinions. These days, I think that's an important lesson to learn.

My mom had my nephew make series of large, fat e's, all connected. That combined with my sister emphisising neatess helped my nephew develop neat handwriting. YMMV

I doubt it. Jackson Hole, aka Jackson, WY, was a touristy town 20-30 yrs ago when I went there. It's also close to the Tetons and Yellowstone. But it's definately a town. Wall Drug used to be a drug store that's taken over several old buildings next to it. The various buildings can all be accessed without exiting to the street. The buildings still have wood flooring and have a "gun fight", free cold water and a restaraunt. And lots of junk to buy.

On I-80 in Nebraska is The Great Platte River Road Archway. It's a fun transportation museum covering the area's history and importance since at least Lewis and Clark. It literally spans the interstate and is a good mid-day travel break (2-3 hours for my family). It was the highlight of my mom's trip several years ago. Ds also liked it. Other, shorter stops on the way included Wall Drug (a hit with ds, not me) and the Corn Palace (interesting to see, but I wouldn't rearrange my schedule for it.) I've also heard great things about Custer State Park, but haven't been there.

Congrats on getting a new dog. Re: the questionaire. Our county had a personal interview in our home 15+ years ago. Supposedly it's to make sure that the dog is treated well and doesn't return.

Insurance companies will raise their rates for several reasons, even if you haven't filed a claim. Sometimes rates go up because of claims of others in similar situations, such as several claims in your neighborhood, or major losses due to type of construction. Rates also go up when your home reaches a certain age, unless you do a major overhaul of the house's mechanical and electrical systems. If your homeower's policy is for replacement cost, it doesn't matter if the market value of your home has gone down, the replacement value could have gone up. Finally, insurance companies invest the premiums, including those held to cover future claims, to earn money. Premiums often are raised if the investment returns are low.

I can't help you with a recipe, but remember that the "tops" make good greens. Don't throw them away.

Unfortunately summer has finally arrived. Since I doubt we'll have the beautiful weather in Aug. that we had earlier, you may want to spring for tickets to the Tour Mobile. Hot and sticky is no fun, especially while walking around the mall, and Aug is typically our worse month. Downtown hotels typically charge 50% of their weekday rates on the weekend. Plus you can skip metro fees if you're close to the Mall. But even if you do need to use Metro, their rates are non-rush hour all day on the weekends. Metro is no longer the great cure-all for tourists IF they want to use it during the work week. The problem is PARKING! Because Aug is traditionally the vacation month around here, parking might not be so bad, but the outlying station parking lots typically fill no later than 8am. My recommendation is that you stay in a hotel within 5-10 minutes WALKING distance (they oft advertise drivig time). If you're willing to camp, there's a National Park campground within walking distance of the Metro. I believe it's called Cherry Hill. I've heard many good things about it. Supper choices are limited downtown, and we rarely are there late in the day anymore, so I'm not familiar with latest ones. You may want to eat a large lunch and have sandwiches for supper. But the area near Friendship Heights and the station south of there have a lot of small restaraunts. The best pizza is Armands. If you stay at a hotel at the northwest end of the Red line, I can help you more with cheap chains for supper.

Your ds's problems may be due to lack of exposure, but he has been delayed a lot already. I would't waste anymore time by trying more intense instruction only to discover when he's 9 yo old that he struggles with reading because of LD's. I'd get him evaluated now. You can still try more intensive teaching, but testing now will answer any ligering questions. And if he does have problems, he can start therapy now before his self-esteem and likes/dislikes take too big of a hold. Unfortunately by 8 my ds's confidence had already taken a major hit. At 15 we're still dealing with it.