I try to make school a relatively pleasant experience for my children. That's all.

We have loved the Eagle of the Ninth series by Rosemary Sutcliffe. DS and I are on the second book. One thing I like about well-written historical fiction is that it really helps immerse you in the time. Between Famous Men of Rome, Caesar's Gallic Wars by Olivia Coolidge and these Sutcliffe books, I feel like we've got a real grasp on Roman Military life. I know that doesn't help you with Britain, but it kind of chaffs my hide when people turn their noses up at historical fiction (not that you are but there are some....)

Hi Girlies! I'm around. It's just been a rough week. First heat wave of the summer. Got up to 110 on Monday. Supposed to be in the 90s today. Had a lot of ugly stuff with my oldest which has me emotionally worn out, and then this peri-menopause stuff.... Nothing like having AF here every other week for 2 months. Yes, I did see my GYN and she put me on BCPs, but apparently not a high enough dosage. Sigh! Dh is flying to Portland today on his boss's Lear jet. I think he'll have fun. I would. Lol. He'll be back this evening. So.... Today.... ** get the last remnants of school done with the kids ** call for an appt. for a pelvic ultrasound ** call swimming lessons teacher to arrange for lessons for my little girls ** dinner at my friends' house tonight, since her hubby is out of town on business, too. ** bake bread this morning before it gets too hot ** get supper in crock pot (I'm bringing the sandwiches, pulled pork)

No! I really don't! I call it my ministry to other moms. That's actually my sister-in-law's idea, but I took it up, too. If other moms come into my house and it was spotless or even semi-clean, they'd feel bad about themselves as a mother and housekeeper. This way they don't have to feel like they don't measure up. There have been times when I have to pick a path for my frail mother-in-law to walk so she doesn't trip and fall, and there have been times when I have to put a pile of stuff from the couch to the floor so someone can sit down. However, my house is not dirty. It does not stink. There are not bugs crawling about. There's just the general clutter of 5 kids and me who are home all day long and I refuse to make picking up after them (or nagging them....we actually thought we'd be able to train them to put their toys away as they finished playing with them!) my full time job. I think the idea of inviting someone in and visiting with them, even if my house is a disaster area, is better than not taking the time to chat because I'm embarrassed of my house. It's so much more important to make those connections with people. Though personally, I am presentable. I shower and do my hair and makeup every day.

I've read this a couple times now and just thought it hilarious! And of course, I'm always open to new ideas on how to fund summer camp! ;)

We adopted all five of our kids through foster care. You can PM me if you wish!

That's a tough one because everyone is different. When the kids were little, they absolutely could not go into houses. Period. Now, I'm a little more lenient, though there is one house my daughter is not allowed to go into. The family situation...not great. But, I also don't let kids in my house, due to the fact that the in and out and noise and chaos.... I don't want it. Sorry. My oldest is coming up on the age now where his friends do video games and stuff (he does, too, but we really limit screen time) and I struggle with the idea of him hanging out there playing video games all afternoon. It's hard enough for him to figure out how to entertain himself without giving him the easy out of hours of mindless gaming.

It's quite legal here, and on our block it is safe. It is not a feeder street, the only traffic is the neighborhood. On our block there are no less than 5 basketball hoops facing the street and on summer evenings there is a mob of kids riding bikes, roller blades, playing basketball, throwing football.... The street is the playground.

This!

Missed that part, sorry! But yes, take the ferry!

That sounds great! Hmmm, I wonder if we could start a group around here.

Drive over to Coronado Island and hang out at the Hotel Del for while. It's a great old hotel - lots of history and glamour and even a ghost. I went to college in San Diego years back and loved it down there. The naval cemetery and light house in Point Loma are nice to visit, too.

Boysenberry, warm, with a scoop of homemade vanilla icecream on top.

Send a nice card. We only send cash to nieces and nephews.

Oh yeah! I get one out and don't stop scrubbing until the darn thing has disappeared.

Yeah, but every time I go to Yosemite my blood pressure goes up and I can't even enjoy it. You gotta fight for parking, and the road through the Valley is one way and there's always some idiots not paying attention and running across the road to take a picture of the deer, and you get in a rattly shuttle bus to go up to Happy Isles and it's crowded and dusty..... If you really want to see the majesty of the Sierras without all the hype and tourists, drive down the Kings Canyon into Cedar Gove. Granted, there are no waterfalls, but it is breathtaking, IMO and you can actually enjoy it.

I wanted to go badly. I drooled all over my iPad when I saw the speakers. But... timing, finances, distance... All bad for me. I'm going to Valley Home Educators in Modesto next month.

When it was just dh and me, yes, we would. But now that we have a mob to feed, generally no. I would love to, but not with the ages of our kids, etc. it's easier to play it safe with a known entity.

I'm not sure asking why dad gets to leave his stuff laying around is necessarily a bad thing, but I do have one who can't figure out why he can't be treated "like an adult", either. and he is told in no uncertain terms that he will be treated as an adult when he is willing to shoulder all the responsibilities of being an adult. He just turned 11 and thinks we "owe" him a later bedtime and all of these privileges, yet he is resentful when asked to do more around the house, he "forgets" his chores unless nagged, and he really thinks that he should be able to do everything he wants to do just because he "is".

We read McCaughrean's version and really enjoyed it.

Safe, not on a feeder street, lots of kids....

I have no idea if this is on Netflix, but I'd vote for October Sky.

Hwy 1 is a lovely drive, but it is long and curvy. And can get tiresome after a while. DH and I did it a couple of years ago - we drove south from Monterey to Morro Bay and after a while it just got long. It is beautiful, though. Don't get me wrong. San Luis Obispo is a lovely lovely town. It's got the University and a very beautifully restored mission. You could also stop near San Simeon and see the elephant seals. They are amazing. Gross. But amazing. I second going to Monterey/Santa Cruz. We vacation in Santa Cruz every year and it's kind of cool. You got Santa Cruz, which is a very crazy, beachy, board-walky, university town and then you get on Hwy 9 right in the middle of Santa Cruz and within minutes, literally within minutes you are in these lush, beautiful redwood mountains. You can go up to Felton, where there's an old steam train that will take you on an hour ride through the old growth redwoods and if you're lucky you can see banana slugs all over the place (although we didn't see any this year, I think it's too dry). I personally wouldn't go to Yosemite. It's too crowded and crazy and I'm not sure the status of the waterfalls anyway. We're in a drought and everything is all dried up. You'd be better off staying on the coast.

Must be the age. Lol. My 5th grader has been successful with Singapore all these years and now..... he's just losing it. He's shaky on fractions (either Singapore doesn't do a good job with fractions or I did a lousy job teaching, but whatever the case....), he's shaky on a lot of things and he's barely finishing 4b. And this was a kid I felt was "mathy". I'm jumping ship and putting him on A Beka for next year. My dd finished A Beka second grade math a couple months ago and is doing third grade now and her math skills are so much more solid than DS's. I knew that I would need to supplement a little more with Singapore with the basic skills, but I didn't realize how much and now I'm seeing that I need a curriculum that will do it for me. Conceptually understanding math is important, yes, but so is having math facts, algorithms, etc. at your mental fingertips and my son, coming out of Singapore, doesn't have that. I'm not placing the blame squarely on Singapore, but for me, I need a curriculum that has that built in and so I don't have to do extra.... Whatever. KWIM?

We're almost done with #5. We use it more or less as written. We don't do every exercise, and we do a lot of the exercises orally. We also use the extra practice worksheets, mostly in place of doing the exercises from the book. For example, the lesson on capitalization, you can have the kid write out all 10 sentences from the text book, capitalizing the letters needed, or, with the worksheet, they can just underline the letters that need capitalizing. That is one thing I really don't like about R&S - that it's a non-consumable textbook. So, for us, it was worth the couple $ to buy the extra practice sheets. They're pretty cheap.