Life in Nicaragua ~ Part 4

First ever boat ride for my littles! What better place than Lake Nicaragua! 

Homeschooling has started for us here. That sure makes the day fly by! I thought I would share a bit about my day-to-day life here in Nicaragua. 

5:00-6:00 a.m. ~ Somewhere between 5 and 6 a.m. I rise. This is a good chance for some time alone to pray, read my Bible, check Facebook, blog. I really need to get in the habit of getting my shower in this slot to avoid rush hour!

7:30 a.m. ~ Time to make breakfast. Sometimes it's a big breakfast of eggs or pancakes, sometimes a simple breakfast of cereal. 

8:00 a.m. ~ Breakfast together as a family. 

8:30 a.m. ~ Showers for all and school starts for my two highschoolers. If I haven't done so already, I put a load of laundry in. It takes us until about 10 a.m. to get in everyone's shower and get teeth brushed, etc. We're starting a new tradition today where each of our 6 children does one helpful chore. Our littles help out a lot but have never until now been assigned their own chore.

10:00 a.m. ~ Snack time for littles. Time to hang the laundry that was washed. Check on High Schoolers, correct Math, discuss Literature. Often a card game with some of my littles is included. :)

12:00 p.m. ~ Lunch time as a family. Then, time to wash the dishes. 

1:00 p.m. ~ Arithmetic and English instruction for our littles. This is about all the schooling I can do with them for now until we speak more of the same language (My teens, husband and I are learning Spanish, our littles are learning English and we are meeting somewhere in the middle!). 

1:30/2:00 p.m. (ish) ~ My husband goes to the market to buy food or often goes to buy water which is quite heavy and he carries on his shoulder. (He's gettin' pretty buff!). We go to the market every day or every other day mostly because we don't have much room to store our food (we have 9 people living here, us and our dear friend Tina who arrived last week). Our littles usually go outside to play in the water after school. Then they like to sometimes watch a movie when they come in. I need to fold laundry if it's dry and sweep. On heavy laundry days another load was washed and replaces the first load on the clothes line.

3:00 p.m. ~ Snack for littles. 

4:30 p.m. ~ Supper prep. 

5:00/5:30 p.m. (ish) ~ Supper as a family and clean up. Hang out after and just relax, play card games, littles watch "Dino Dan" before bed.

7:00 p.m. ~ Snack for littles.

8:30 p.m. ~ Prayer and bedtime for littles, though they are often immediately followed by the biggers going right to bed. 

Insert various hugs, pillow fights, wrestling that must be stopped as ceramic tile is unforgiving, various imaginative play, scooter riding, PS 2 playing, music playing, etc., etc., and you have our day!

Once per week we hire our driver to take us somewhere fun to see the sites of Nicaragua or go to the Mall or ride boats or see animals or to go to a water park (hopefully this week). We've gone to local playgrounds but unless there's a bouncy house there the kids are pretty over the playground. Sometimes we all go to the market but most of the kids would rather let papa go!

I can't believe I've been here for 4 weeks!!

"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24