Yeah. I would do core work spread into other semesters and count "History:Country B" and "Language Country B" as electives and "tour country B" as extracurricular. Then spend the time you're there immersively exploring. When I was an exchange student, while we did spend time in school we actually spent more time exploring the country- visiting historic places and touring factories and even grocery shopping and ordering in restaurants and navigating a busy city - those are the parts that stuck with me. We took our kids to the UK for about a month (just 1)... at home that semester they both studied British History and British Literature. We did no "school" while we were there but every visit and tour found its way into our field trip list .... Sherwood Forest and Stratford Upon Avon are pretty great British Literature field trips. Castles, cathedrals, Hadrians Wall.... pretty amazing for British History. It was an amazing experience. The end of the semester they studied Geology was spent wandering around all the geologic hot spots of Utah and down to the Grand Canyon. They'd tell you this is what homeschooling is about and all the other stuff is secondary.

Please please. I apologize if what I'm about to say comes out wrong. Stop everyhing else you're doing. Treat this like you would treat any other EMERGENCY... this is not a time for contemplation. This is not a time for thinking about his long term future. This is a time to seek assistance, to make changes. Before you CANNOT. Imagine your son had been in a car accident and was hospitalized- what would you do? You'd call your DH and tell him come home right now. You'd reach out to your community- family, friends, temple for help with your other kids. Do that now. You wouldn't spend your time worrying about the impact on the school year, or his future career. You'd focus on getting him the care he needs RIGHT NOW. That's the urgency he needs from you. Even if he doesn't know it. Even if it looks like more of the same, it has come to a moment for action. Seek help and do it immediately, before he's 18 and you cannot help him. If it takes a couple of weeks to get help, you've got to get that ball moving. He's not going to do it. You said yourself, he thought the problem with making threats was that his friends ratted him out - not that making threats was the problem. Hes not capable of making good decisions right now. He doesn't see the seriousness of this, so you have to.

I was shocked at how easy and inexpensive getting a custom size was. Just paid for the next size up plus a small fee. Easy peasy. It is kind of shocking how well this old mattress has held up. (It is also shocking how bad I am at typing on my phone lol I've edited that post twice - and it is filled with typos.)

Not a text but check some of the MOOC providers https://www.coursera.org/learn/ecology-conservation Also Crash Course offers a 12 part Ecology series (we are using it to lightly cap off biology right now)

If you're willing to supplement his budget, set your own - "I'd like to help you get item, I'm willing to put up to $40." Don't change his bid or do it for him. Offer the gift you feel willing to give and then let him decide what to do... up his bid, try another seller, etc. Or turn you down. But expect he's gonna use every penny of that extra $40 and consider it a gift.

Our mattress is 18 years old. Its well past time for a new one! But ours is an unusual size (Olympic Queen) and we were reluctant to go down to a Queen and would have to buy a whole new bed for a King.... and we kept putting it off. And honestly its still.pretty comfy. DH decided this weekend that it is far past time and we were going to do it. We went to a local store (one with super hokey TV commercials that we find a bit offputting lol), we went to two other stores two but the local place was better) and they could custom make us any mattress they sell in Olympic Queen! Yay!!!! And it was affordable! (Only downside is you lose the 30 day return option for a custom cut). I didn't know I could be so excited for a mattress! )

I did end up buying a gift for DH's mother (cause man, he's hopeless LOL -- I send him links/keep an amazon wishlist for gifts for myself). For my Mom, I made plans with her for a different day as a Mother's Day Gift -- turned out to be on my birthday, in fact, so that's fun, too.

I've only got the one homescholar now. Heading into 9th grade, we are tackling a new one-day-a-week aerospace program in the fall, and are trying to keep our one day a week co-op. I'm nervous about the impact of that on our academic time so we've decided not to stop for the summer.... but I decided today that it is summer now and we won't do any Fridays until we start our Fall schedule.

We are hirers. Experts are often worth the money... plus the original builder of our house made weird decisions such as... our back door was a non standard size so we had to have changes made to install a new door - but professional installation has also come with lifetime warranty that we have had to use and been glad of! Plus we bought better doors through the private company than what we were seeing at Lowes/Home Depot.

Thanks, all!

My 18 year old is involved in a television/radio production certification program at the CC. He just landed a paid summer internship working for the local Minor League Baseball team (doing graphics, running the board and filming games, etc.) This is such a cool opportunity for him and it's so amazing to see him really moving forward on this path. He's the kid we knew would not be a traditional student but weren't sure where he *would* go. It's amazing to see him having some direction, and excited about it!

My youngest shoots left (eye dominance) ... but he is a recurver shooter. We bought his bow at a specialty shop so it was easy to try several.

I have $200 of games sitting in my cart ... waiting for DH to discuss lol

Take all the OTC stuff you may need ... I was surprised by how many things required a scrip in the UK that do not in the US. If you need certain allergy or cold meds or might need them .... take them! Dh was very disappointed with the cough meds selections when he got sick in England/Wales... I don't remember which specific drugs he wanted that he couldn't get but just that I was surprised by them lol

Offer science and they will come. Lol Our enrichment group serves hundreds and offers classes for K-12. The first high school classes to fill are always the science classes (most of which are anchored to Apologia but offering labs seems to be central) and then the improv class. We aren't interested in mostly academic classes but enrichment. My kids have taken military history and art and theater and music and culinary arts classes. We have other plans for core topics.