I went to a hotel meeting this week. Actually I went to two of them.

A hotel meeting is when a publisher has their books available for perusal and you can order them while you are there, plus you don't have to pay the shipping costs.

A few weeks ago I went to an A Beka hotel meeting, to look for books for the boys.

Then on Tuesday I went to Bob Jones. We've been using primarily A Beka for years. However, people have told me that Bob Jones is much more advanced than A Beka. Let me tell you, they aren't.

Bob Jones' fifth grade math book was more like A Beka's 2nd. And we did Bob Jones' science books two in one year, because there wasn't enough in them. (Turns out I had used them. Bought them at a used book sale.)

I bought Bob Jones' Spanish instruction. It seemed to be similar to what I did in school and it has tapes. I don't need the teacher since I speak Spanish. But I don't want to teach the boys Spanish by myself. I tend to expect them to be able to do too much.

I also got my youngest the Bob Jones' English workbooks. They are not as pretty as A Beka's, but they had more different kinds of exercises. M- needs to work on his spelling and writing a bit more than we have been.

Then on Thursday I went to another A Beka meeting. They told me I had to sign in. I said no. They told me I had to. I didn't. When I went to buy my books, they wouldn't let me unless I signed in. I was pretty irritated. They already know who I am, they have my address and credit card number. I signed in, but I was p.o.'ed. I later thought I should have put in something stupid like Burger King, number of children 27, etc.

Anyway, I now have the boys' school books. We'll be ready to start the next school year in about a month.

I hope we're finished with the last school year by then.