How do I sharpen my skills without someone to physically talk to?

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to find someone who is fluent in German to physically speak to every once in a while. I am worried that my knowledge is slowly being diminished without the ability to use it. In South Dakota, there are many people who speak Lakota, Spanish and even French, but very few who speak German. I have been going through my old text books, and some language learning courses in order to hear the correct sounds, but I wonder sometimes if that is enough. My daughter Ari still remembers the majority of the words and phrases I had been using with her before we had a short lapse during my pregnancy with her sister. She will still respond to my questions in German with one word answers, but she does not volunteer words or phrases other than 'jacke' and 'biebe'(her way of saying ich liebe). I almost feel that I need to start over with how I was "teaching" her German.
In other news, I feel caught up in this whirlwind that is having two little ladies to spend my time with. I finally feel like we are starting to fall into a good routine. We still have the big trip coming up, and in order to prepare for that I am trying to mentally pack and repack the suitcases, the car, the cooler and the kids. We are taking a small car on a 24hr road trip and the logistics of the trip are on my mind quite often. I cannot wait to get home and get my girls into as many mind growing activities as possible.
I plan to start talking about some new topics with Ari to get her back in the groove and improve her vocabulary at the same time. I think we will be focusing on weather (always a fun topic out her during the spring), and of course the days of the week, both topics that we have not really worked on with her before. Here's to some interesting weather!

We're Back!

Having been away for nearly a year, there has been a lot that has happened. First things first, Ari is not the only baby learning German in our house anymore. She has recently been joined by a little sister, Evelyn, or Evie as we call her. Along with welcoming our new addition we are welcoming a whole bunch of new German words to practice, like schwester and familie, which for some reason we had not used before we became four. We are still working on increasing our usage of German everyday, but I have to admit that things have slipped a tad over the past 9 months. Now that we are starting a new schedule and getting into a routine, I am hoping to continue to speak to Ari and now Evie, in mostly German.
We have a lot coming up this summer. We are traveling home to visit family in Pennsylvania, which will include my sister's graduation from high school, my husband's graduation from college, my alumni weekend for college and my ten year reunion for high school and my nephew's baptism. Amidst all of these activities we are also intending to visit museums, zoos and aquariums so we can expose our girls to as much culture as possible while we are home. With these activities and plans a whole world of German vocabulary is opening up for my girls to experience.
I intend to update this blog much more frequently now that things have resumed some sort of order, and I am looking forward to a fresh new start. Be seeing you soon!!