Did you lean Spanish prior to making the move?

I took classes at the local community college. My pronunciation was awful until I got here (now it's just bad). I've been here one month  and I can understand alot. Also I have found the ability to read the language invaluable. I would recommend some type of classroom instruction. Three years is plenty of time to build a very strong vocabulary and learn all the tenses (although you can get by with just the simple tenses). FYI- I took 3 classes over a year and a half period.

PS. If you take the class you can come home and share with your daughter- which is what I did with my son. Or check with your local JC- many have programs where Junior High and High School students can take classes or just audit. The fees are usually reasonable. If a JC is out of the question maybe meetup.com will have a language group near you. Best of luck!

My children and I are now learning Spanish with Rosetta Stone, so I sure hope it's not a waste of time.
I think once we finish it, we'll try to find a native speaker to teach us some more, so we'll at least be a little prepared when we make the move.  I am sure we will have to learn a lot more once we move, but hopefully we won't feel completely lost.

Groupon recently had Rosetta Stone at a pretty good price. I've been using it for the past 4 days. I haven't learned much in that time but the lessons are fun.

I work with a man from Ecuador, 2 from Columbia, 5 from Mexico, 2 from Guatemala and one from Uruguay.  I make it a point to say at least one sentence a day to one of them. They always understand me but often correct my pronunciation. I've found that once I've used these sentences in real life they stick in my memory more.

Sometimes I use Google Translate to come up with my sentence for the day. It's not perfect. More often than not, my workmates will correct me when when I've used a sentence from there, but it still helps in the learning process.

I also listen to Spanish language tapes on my commute home from work. In the beginning, all the words seemed to run together, but my brain is starting to decode it now.

I was proud of myself yesterday because I went to a Mexican restaurant and did my entire order in Spanish. And yes, when I got my order, it was what I expected.  It was my first time trying it out on a stranger!

I would recommend exposing yourself to the language as much as possible. When you run across someone who speaks Spanish, be bold and try it out on them. You will find them to be patient and helpful. After all they've already gone through what we're trying to do.