I Watch Telenovelas to Improve my Spanish

My wife and I both speak Spanish fluently, but admittedly, we don't speak it that often. Ever since we got pregnant last year, we decided that we are going to make an effort to teach our son Spanish once he was born. This has been a challenge since it feels a little forced for us to speak to each other in Spanish. We've been experimenting with other ways to improve our Spanish in preparation for his arrival.  Our current favorite is watching Telenovelas. Here are a few reasons we like this option.

It's easy. There were plenty of free options for Telenovelas on Hulu that we can watch on demand.

It's entertaining. I don't think we'd be watching it if we were not trying to improve our Spanish, but it's reasonably entertaining. Definitely better than studying some book, or flashcards.

It's helping with comprehension. We are hearing native speakers speak at their normal speed. We've already seen improvements in our comprehension.

It's expanding our vocabulary. As we are watching the show we'll look up words that we don't understand. We quickly learned the words "chantajear", "asesino" and many others.

The only downside so far has been that watching does not get us speaking. Expanding our vocabulary and comprehension is important, but we need to do more to speak. I'd love to hear ideas about others do to keep up with their languages skills.

5 Reasons to Have a Waffle Party

Having waffles as the center piece to any social occasion is bound to be successful. I recommend them for weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvah's and single Mormon gatherings for the following reasons.

1. Who does not like a waffle? Are waffles more universally loved than pizza? Probably.

2. You can feed a crap load of people for almost nothing.  In fact, you can even rent your high end waffle maker out when you're not using it to pay for your luxurious lifestyle. It pays for itself!

3. People can bring stuff and it's really easy. Even your one friend who never thinks ahead and usually shows up empty handed to such gatherings might show up with a half used bottle of strawberry jam, and that's OK.

4. You can keep waffle supplies on hand at all times. All you need is waffle mix that is shelf stable for 70 years and water. This comes in very handy for unexpected guests or a zombie apocalypse.

5. Waffles start friendships. This guy and I became friends at a waffle party, it's true, no matter what Kevin Chesnos or one of his kids says.

A big thanks to Brad and Mandy Morris for giving us an epic waffle maker for our wedding.