It is $450 in my area. Insane.:glare: It isn't offered through the school anymore, so everyone gets to pay that price.

I bought the Progeny Press Lit guide for Prelandra. I thought it was OK. Not great. It was enough for my son that was 9th grade at the time, but if your student is very good in Lit. you will probably find it lacking.

I have the Nikon D3000. I love it. I paid $450 for it. I think it is the bare bones DSLR. I haven't learned all there is to learn from it, but I am having a lot of fun with it.

My 15 year old enjoyed the local Track club this spring. He ran distance and enjoyed it. He got to be part of a team, yet it was very individual.

Powell's Books was fun if you like books. I could have spent the entire day there, but my teen was ready to go after just a hour or so. OMSI was fun. We spent the morning there. My teen liked it, but just a few hours was plenty. We did both of those in one day with a stop at P.F. Chang's for lunch (across the street from Powell's).

I graduated in 1990 from a 3 year high school that was overcrowded. This played a big part in my decision to homeschool because my kids would be going to the same school that I did. Because of the school's size, there were a lot of opportunities for different activities if you were the best at what you did. It was very easy to get lost in the crowd otherwise.. I was on the college track, and felt that I was getting a good education until I went to college and realized that I didn't have a clue. It was also a little sad to be sitting at graduation and watching several people that I didn't even know were in my class walk across the stage.

I have had one in braces and it was $5500. That break zone that a previous poster mentioned is real. My son fell and broke his teeth. He is still going to need some work done after he is finished growing. It was expensive, but worth it. We had started saving when he was very young. All of my kids have a "dentist" savings account. My husband and I both have/had crooked teeth so we knew our kids would need braces. I hope my daughters are a little cheaper, but I doubt they will be. Then we have one more son after that. My kids have my new car in their mouth. :001_smile:

My 20th is this year and there is no way that I am going. I have made so many wonderful friends since high school. Why would I want to go and try and dig up the unhealthy friendships that I had in high school? No, thanks!

I think it is a nice gesture. Nothing big, just a small thank you. I am going to get ours either a Starbuck card or a plant. :)

Very cool! That was definitely sitting there waiting for you. What a treat!

I voted that I use it daily. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love that it is an easy way to communicate, but I hate that I waste so much time on there.

The cardboard things are good, but it is more of a rope/swissel (sp?) type thing. They just love to tear up the cardboard. It does provide an outlet for scratching, but the tighter scratching boards will trim their nails more. If he scratches on the cardboard, you shouldn't have too much trouble getting him to scratch on the others. If you are really desperate, the vet can trim your cat's nails. For a fee, of course, but they are really good at wrapping cats.

Would he claw on those kitty emery board things? My cat loves to claw on his, and I don't trim his nails.

My kitty is strictly indoors. I do feel sad for him because he will try to escape if given the chance. He is very overweight and I sure that it is because he lies around all day doing nothing. However, he is the best cat we have ever had. He is so people orientated that he has to be by us all the time. We live near a busy road, and my neighbor lost a cat to it. The kids would be devastated if we lost a cat that way, so inside he stays.

Maybe. My husband keeps telling me that he might want to go to graduate school, and he would need the GI Bill for that. If he decides to stay in the Navy for longer than the 22 that he is committed to now, then he may skip graduate school. We will see. He keeps telling me that he would rather give it to me, but I don't care to go back to school. It is great that it can be transferred now. I have seen you talking about the yellow ribbon program before. Is there somewhere that I can get more information about this? I am confused how this works. Thanks!

I am sorry. We had this over the weekend. It is rampant at my church right now. The good news is the vomiting doesn't last too long. The bad news is that it takes a few days to completely recover. Not much going on at my house today either. Get well soon!

My husband will have 20 years this summer and the plan was to retire and stay where we are in Washington. As always, plans change. Now he will be in for 2 more years and is thinking about 3 more after that if they give him what he wants. Who knows? We live near my family now and it would be nice to stay near them, but I would go wherever the work is for my husband.

Just Latin here.

Give it a couple of weeks. I gave up caffeine and it took almost 2 weeks for me to feel like I wasn't crawling on the ground. Herbal tea is not the same, but the warm coffee cup in my hand did help a little bit. I know it sounds strange, but I have more energy now than I did when I was drinking 4 cups a day.

The cowboys are our favorite team here too! I am so glad that they are still in it. :001_smile::lol:

That is what happened to me too. Isn't it wonderful?

We were both 20 and had been dating a couple of weeks. I was dropping him off at his ship late one night when he looked at me and said, "I love you." I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Thank you." :D He still teases me about that.

My 9th grader checks his own daily work. I think a person can learn a lot this way as long as they go back and figure out why it was wrong.

I pm'd you.

:iagree: While living in Singapore, it was not uncommon to see middle school children studying in McDonalds at 10pm still in their school uniform. Children have much more freedom, but they choose to use their freedom to study and work hard. Of course, I am sure there are exceptions. You either make the grade in school, or you have to find another school. I didn't have any children in the school system at the time, but I watched my friends' children be overwhelmed with homework. I think that was the biggest culture shock for familes. Singapore is very Americanized, but the Singapore-American school wasn't.