I wish that I had been smart enough to think of that. I remember having wet feet at school for almost all winter through most of my school years.

We get bears in our yard occasionally. We've also got a compost pile. If you cover it with grass clipping or weeds you'll make it a lot less attractive. Avoiding meat and dairy would be a good idea though. Planting an apple tree or berry bushes is just inviting trouble. Just don't even think about that. ;)

Where does your dd go to school? Obviously with WA's recent decriminalization of pot that state wouldn't cause a problem. It would be laughable to ask that about BC. I think where she is would be a huge factor.

I'll embed my answers in red.

You can also go to Safeway and use their salad bar.

I'd say about $20/hour.

I agree. I didn't mean to imply that I thought that it was OK. It was more an explanation. Really, people should refrain from making rude remarks even in the staff room.

That's nasty. My dh is an MD. I don't know if he's ever witnessed this kind of nastiness but he has told me about doctors joking about people's weight while they are unconscious. I think that doctors probably just feel like the patients aren't there and say the sorts of things that they might say to each other in the staff room. One thing to remember with doctors is that they are utterly human. In my dh's graduating class of about 120 people two were smokers and quite a few were alcoholics. A number of them were already divorced. For some reason our society seems to still elevate doctors to a higher status. I wonder how many doctors going into their professions seeking this respect. Obviously money is another draw. Not all doctors are jerks (like my dh :wub: ) but the profession sure does seem to hold high percentage of them. Editted to add: I don't want to sound like I'm condoning any of this bad behaviour, just giving some thoughts and possible explanations.

I've got a question about WA in particular. If you lived in a small town and your family was fairly distinct (ie. big family with girls in dresses and covers) do you think that someone with the local district would be likely to notice that you hadn't sent in the "intent to homeschool" document or does it get filed by someone far enough upstream for it not to be too noticeable?

Maybe this is overly simplistic and I'm willing to change my working definition. Generally I refer to liberal as someone who would probably align themselves most closely with the values of the American Democrats or Green Party and conservative as someone who would more closely match the values of the American Republicans or Tea Party. Even for folks that are apolitical or not American I would still use these terms this way. I would concede that given this definition people could be "liberal" in some parts of life and "conservative" in others.

:iagree: I really resonate with this. The fact that I was asking at all came about because I was simply surprised by how many Christians didn't consider it sinful in the other thread. It's definitely not an obsession of mine. I consider myself apolitical. The destruction of lives through war (even US led wars) and abortion chokes me up a whole lot more than this issue.

OK, sorry everyone, I tried my best. I didn't want to offend anyone. All I wanted to know was where the board stood. I reported myself and asked for the thread to be deleted.

I was a little surprised by how many Christians on the boards are accepting of homosexuality. Maybe I didn't realize how many liberal people were on here. Rather than starting a raging debate lets just see what our demographics say. Do you think that we can accomplish this without getting crabby? I don't want to argue here I just want to see where you all stand. Feel free to answer anonymously. Update: I editted the wording. Hopefully this is more straight forward.

I'm not intending to do this. I'm asking more curiosity then anything. In what states could you easily get away with flying under the radar and not comply with state laws. I'm thinking that in some places you probably have to register with the local school which would make flying under the radar schooling difficult in a small town. The school officials would notice you and know that you hadn't registered. Other area would be much easier to go unnoticed. In BC no one would ever know if you didn't register (we do anyways). So what states do you know about?

I always have these visions too. The weeds never factor into my imagination. I wish I lived where I could fall garden. First frost is like the 20th of September where we are.

One other thing to consider is local homeschool laws and if this applies to you, spanking laws. Homeschooling and spanking are completely illegal in good portions of Europe. Obviously visitors would be exempt from homeschooling restrictions but residents wouldn't be. Make sure you do your research before relocating.

One thing that can help for stinky feet is a deodorant crystal. After a shower you just apply it to your feet just as though it were your armpits. I use one under my breasts in the summer.

Canada definitely has four seasons. ;) Vancouver Island is particularly beautiful and culturally rich. The weather is mild but there's a lot of rain in the winter. It's so green and lush though. There's also a large number of homeschoolers on the island so you'd have a good network to work with.

Abeka? I find all the patriotism really distasteful but maybe you won't mind that so much.

It's so hard to know. My ds4 has had full body hive outbreaks before and we have no idea why. Have you wracked your brains for any new foods that he may have tried in the last 48 hours? Make sure to keep benedryl on hand in case it happens again. I can sympathise. My son developed roseola this week the evening after getting four wasp stings. Until the rash developed we were getting pretty anxious about the 105F fever. All that I can figure is that the venom weakened his immune system enough to draw out the roseola. Maybe this is something like that.

I personally think that this would be a lot easier for Christians if they just quit messing in politics. Christians are supposed to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. An American ambassador in China doesn't get involved in Chinese politics. Likewise I don't think that heavenly ambassadors should be messing with worldly politics. I realized years ago that the idea of a Judeo-Christian government is laughable. We can't legislate righteousness. Lying is a sin but we can't outlaw that. Should we start executing idolaters? Any half-way measures reek of hypocrisy. A church takeover of political systems is NOT what Jesus had in mind. A government will never "love their enemies." In order to defend itself or uphold laws it must depend on force. If we as Christians are really going to take Jesus seriously we need to withdraw from politics. Sound politics are completely incongruent with Jesus' teachings. Calvin's Geneva should have shown us once and for all. I think that homosexual marriage is a form of sexual immorality BUT I don't believe we should fight for it to be illegal. Adultery, fornication and second marriages after divorce (assuming first spouse is still alive) are also forms of sexual immorality but no one is fighting to ban those nor would it even be sensible to do so. Similarly I think that we will eventually allow polygamy and I won't fight that either. I would rather compel people to voluntarily leave their sins rather than force them to pretend that they don't have sinful desires. One of the big reasons homosexual people want to be allowed to marry is for the security when dealing with separations and death. I had an uncle that married a man several years ago. His husband died about a year ago. His husbands family was really anxious to lay their hands on the inheritance but because they were married they couldn't touch it. Had they just been living together the family could have claimed that they were simply roommates. Honestly, I don't see why Christians can't just let the world work out these messy situation however they please. Why should we meddle with how someone wants their inheritance divided?

I'm still young but if I find myself awake at night and unable to sleep I wake my dh up and ask for some "tea." He's usually happy to help and it works like a charm. ;)

If you apply pressure to the sores do they blanche? To test, just depress one spot with your finger then quickly let up and see if the spot is momentarily white. My ds just developed roseola yesterday and my dh (an MD) ran this test as part of diagnosing him. He said that if the spots don't blanche then it's more alarming. Just from my glance at your pictures it looks like hive to me. Watch you ds like a hawk for any respiratory symptoms.

I was thinking of suggesting a call to the police too. I really like giving my dc responsibility and trust. I think that they usually rise to occasion. I personally think that 8 is just fine.

We do ALOT of camping as a family. Every time we travel we camp rather than rent a hotel room. Here's our worst experience: When our oldest two were about 5 we went camping with another family that had 2 children. We choice a campgrounds that we had camped at before that didn't have a ranger. The first time we were there it was lovely. In BC there are hundreds of campgrounds created by the ministry of forests that are usually about 10 -20 sites with a picnic table and firepit at each site and pit toilets. They're usually free. I think that we choice the last weekend in May. This was a BIG mistake. Our first clue should have been the road block we went through on the way in where the police were confiscating liquor from underage minors. They had a pile by the side of the road of what they had accumulated that amounted to probably 3 garbage cans full of liquor. We also had to pay $20 there which was a surprise. When we got to the campgrounds every site was full of teenagers. Apparently it was grad weekend. The next clue that there was going to be issues was the kids with the beer funnel. I don't know why but we decided to stay anyways. We set up our tents on the beach of a lake a little ways away. Things kept going poorly. My ds vomited hotdog all over his pillow. Next, our friends dd dislocated her elbow while having a tantrum. They had to take her in to have it set. Then a bunch of the teens decided to go skinny dipping in the lake right next to us :eek: . The noise all night was incredible. The next morning the kids cleared out and we though that things were going to get better. Then the weather changed to rain. We tried to set up our friends canopy. The wind blew it over and nearly knocked out my friend. We just gave up at that point and went home. In all our experiences camping this was definitely the worst. One time we went camping in WA along the Columbia river in a free camp grounds. We had another night of partying to deal with. I think that a number of the people there were living their whole summer there. We've learned to take ear plugs camping because you just never know what kind of folks you're going to have to face. My favourite way to camp in the US is to boondock on BLM land or in national forests. You get to be all by yourself with nature. Just make sure you bring enough water and a shovel. ;)