My second child was born in the front passenger seat of a Mazda!

My Eagle Scout received some gift cards (places like Bass Pro Shops, or Amazon) -- he used those to upgrade his camping/hiking equipment. He also received gifts of money, which he set aside for the same purpose. A family friend gave him a nice Eagle Scout wallet.

Regarding the piano: I know finances may not permit this, but maybe she could get a keyboard with headphones so she could play all she wants without disturbing the neighbors. It's a lot easier to get a keyboard upstairs than a piano!

Thanks for the responses. I did read the Common Sense Media review, but I wanted to see what WTM folks had to say, too. I think we'll let our two older kids see it, but wait for the younger two.

They are familiar with the original Star Trek series, and don't tend to scare easily. Would this movie be okay? Thanks -- Bonnie

I've lived in a modular home for 11 years now, and we've been happy with it. We don't have a basement, but there is a taller than usual crawl space under the house. It was amazing to go in one morning from having a foundation to having a house in place! Our house is three stories, and consisted of four modules. I don't think anyone would know from looking that it was modular. It definitely saved us a lot of money and time -- I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Yes, just getting started (or will be within the next few days, once I stock up on food).

I write down a sentence or two about each day. My intention is to do this each morning. What really happens is that once a week or so, I sit down with my calendar and write down the stuff that happened (where we went, what we did, etc.) A lot of it is mundane stuff (baseball practice, school at home, etc.) but sometimes there are milestones, too (birthdays, anniversaries, ds learning to ride a bike; getting together with old friends, etc.). I keep these notes on a legal pad, and then on New Year's Day we flip through and read the highlights of the year out loud. Once or twice, I've even used this family journal to verify when something important happened that I never would have been able to pinpoint otherwise.

In recent months I've been coming to realize what's stated in the first paragraph; I look forward to feeling the empowerment described in the second paragraph (but I'm not there yet).

How about Daphne or Penelope?

I would love to read a follow-up post by your oldest son regarding his gap year experiences. Now that he's been through a year or two of college, what does he perceive to be the impact of that gap year on his college education?

We went through the same decision-making process with our daughter (softball travel team) last year. We lost a lot of sleep over that decision! In the end, we went with the travel team. It wasn't always an ideal situation (in terms of coaching), but dd developed her skills way more than she would have been able to otherwise. The friend issue was part of our initial decision-making process, but she's made new friends on the travel team, so that was no longer a drawback after a few short weeks. She is with the same travel team again this year (although with different coaching). She thrives on the more intense practices and games; that's just her personality. Who knows if she'll ever play for college or not; right now, she's enjoying the whole experience, and that is worth a lot. I hope something in this may help you. Good luck with your decision-making!

Background: DS14.5 is a Life Scout, and has finished his Eagle project, but still has two merit badges to finish. FYI, we've never said that we 'required' him to attain the rank of Eagle, and right now he is self-motivated to finish. But . . . if he started to say he did not want to finish, we'd probably make him. By the time a Scout gets to Life rank, he is SO CLOSE to finishing. I've heard a number of Scouts, at their Eagle ceremonies, thank their parents for pushing them. These were boys who nearly aged out, but whose parents pushed them to finish Eagle before they did. I don't think those boys will ever regret getting their Eagle rank, but I believe there are probably lots who regret not finishing when they had the chance to do so. Bonnie

. . . but how about "Rhys" (pronounced "Reese")?

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