If we had someone "preach" It would probably be around 15 min's tops. Sometimes there is a 10-15 min. talk by someone about what we had studied that week, then there are several hours of discussion that everyone there participates in and it's come and go as you please, snacks, etc.. Our "church services" usually last most of the day and are more of a big bible study. :)

I cover and prefer to cover all of my hair. :) I usually wear a tichel when I go out somewhere.. around the house I more loosely tie a scarf, or a snood. I snapped this pic. before we left for town last week.

At least 5 times a week, usually more LOL. However, we live in Costa Rica where the norm is 21 times a week :) We've got so we actually enjoy it. :) We do put homemade sour cream on it often (which here in Costa Rica is literally just the soured cream from the cows milk the day before) And it's always well seasoned.. but yep.. we eat it alot :)

1)What is the best time of year to go? We are thinking November, but we aren't sure. November would be good! Just do NOT go in the summer.. it's hot and crowded LOL 2) should we stay in a Disney hotel or not? What are the pros and cons, either way. (oh, pretend that cost is not a huge issue...we don't want to be wasteful, but we don't have to watch every penny either.) Yes. I've done it both ways and after staying on property would never do it differently. Being able to use the transportation and stuff is a HUGE HUGE plus. 3)what are the advantages of getting a package deal either through Disney, AAA or other travel agent? Everything's paid for up front. My husband is a tightwad deluxe. We would have never gotten snacks, ate at the nice restaurants on property, etc.. But with the dining plan (comes when you buy the package through disney) it was all paid for already. made it MUCH more enjoyable for us. It allows you to pay slowly through the year. 4) If we wanted to spend part of a day playing in the ocean, where are best beaches? no clue LOL 5) Which theme parks are a must and which ones can we put lower on the list? Not a fan of Hollywood studios. Our fav. is epcot and then magic. Not a huge fan of Animal kingdom either.

It depends on the kid I think. I wouldn't have sent my 7 year old to that store (we moved from waco a bit over a year ago.. you didn't attend the helping hands co-op did you? LOL) but she's a bit of a ditz to be honest. I do let her take her horse 2 miles to town here and go to the store.. but it's a completely different atmosphere. She can't get lost. She still manages to linger at a friends house and at times forget she was sent down to BUY something LOL.. So I'd just say it depends on your kiddo.

We don't.. I just posted something on facebook saying this.. While this isn't the end of the "real" year.. as we prefer to remember when God said the year starts (in the spring) the calendar year of 2011 was an interesting one. Full of new experiences and first, and the biggest test of our will and determination as we made homesteading in a foreign country work. Along the way we've met many amazing people and learned amazing things. For that and so much more I am very thankful for 2011. I pray 2012 is just as amazing. (we also don't celebrate Christmas, Easter, etc.. so we are quite boring)

I've kept a blog since the first of '07. I'm not sure exactly WHY but a decent amount of people read it. Views of the actual blog vary from 200-400 a day and there are about 200 that read it in a reader. I have no CLUE why so many people read it. I just blog about daily life. We are homesteading in Costa Rica but I had a decent amount of viewers before. I'm not funny, or that talented so I'm lost as to why it's interesting LOL. I really enjoy blogging though. For me it's a record of our lives. I can look up my pregnancy pictures, birth story, my kiddos firsts, etc.. It's so nice to have it all recorded. Like a very detailed journal. I've used blogger.com and wordpress.com and like wordpress.com much more.

This was our homeschool room in Texas before we left the states.. I loved it! We are currently living in a 300 sq. foot house WITH another family (a missionary family we host) while we build our "real" home so yeah.. homeschool room is currently the porch. Looking forward to having space again.

For our personal family I don't believe there is a valid reason for purposely ceasing reproduction.

Thanks for the help. :) I'll start looking for a good spanish grammar program. We've found learning hebrew to be a bit easier with our knowledge of spanish. The words have a similar pronunciation (at least more so than english and hebrew) and having a concept of the male/ femail words has helped as well.

I would. :) We were not able to be home for the 8th night, so we did it a day late.. Had the big meal, fixed the traditional foods, and generally had a blast.. a day late. :)

It’s certainly something we’ve thought about. It’s taken a year and a half since we first decided to do something about it to get to a place where we would be able to survive long term if the system went down. We pull our water from springs and a river, have hydro power, have chickens and cows for meat/ milk/ eggs, and have gardens going. We also have about 4 months of dried beans/ rice stored up at all times. We live in an area that once the rainy season starts we can not drive down to a town so we need food storage. That 4 months of rice/ beans would get us through until the harvest started coming in better. We currently have a few acres of rice and beans planted so hope to keep that going and keep a food surplus. We also have an outdoor cooking area (literally a hole in the ground w/ two concrete blocks holding up a grate that we stick pots/ pans on) that we use often to save the gas our stove and dryer run off and are buying a cast iron stove to use instead soon. The issue with having things you COULD do if you had no electronics/ power is that it would then be something you could HAVE done. If it goes you can no longer get any more money than the cash you have in your home, your car will not start, your electric can opener will not function. Your stove and fridge will not turn on, your lights won’t work. I know some people who would literally starve to death in 2 weeks. I don’t actually think this will happen in our lifetime.. but it is a possibility. I like knowing that in the off chance something DID happen we’d be okay. It’s not actually why we moved here.. we moved just because we sat down and realized we had no CLUE how to survive without help from cars and stores and we didn’t want to raise our children that way.. but it’s nice to know that in the event of a EMP we’d be fine.

I hadn't even read your post so what I said had nothing to do with you. :)

I love to bake.. I use real butter, I make desserts often, I make sugary muffins for breakfast most mornings, We put cream on food, and I've lost 20+ pounds since moving to a working farm 4 months ago. It's very truthful that when living a lifestyle were you have to work and be outside more often you can eat more. Of course she has a staff! LOL. But it's also infuriating that people believe that if you have hired workers you aren't doing anything. Shows an ignorance of the ranching or farming lifestyle. We have 3 hands on our (MUCH MUCH smaller) farm. That does NOT mean we don't have anything to do ourselves LOL I had to stop reading her blog because I can't stand 30 pictures of her dumping flour into a bowl in one post.. but I don't get the hate.

We are american's living in Costa Rica. We've been here for a bit over a year now but only been around other ticos for about 6 months. The girls are not fluent in spanish yet but can carry on good conversations and understand most everything that is said to them. We are developing a self sustaining farm here so our long term plan is to stay in this country. My question.. which do I focus on more? Teaching them language arts in spanish or english? Both? I couldn't teach spanish language arts well as my kiddos are more fluent than I am but I'm sure I could get a good workbook system. I'm just trying to think long term and they will most likely grow up in this country so it will not help them to know all of the rules of english grammar and grow up in a spanish speaking country. But I want them to do well in english as well in case they want to move back to the states to attend college, etc.. Anyway.. any input? I'd appreciate a good spanish language arts and spanish spelling curriculum suggestion as well.

We're american's with residency here in Costa Rica :)