Au pair state of mind

08/23/2017

Super quick post because I'm actually ashamed at how little I've been posting.
I'm currently on vacation for a week, I'm in Florida while my family are in Massachusetts.
Tonight is my first night in Miami, my trip started off with one night in Washington DC where I went to Shawn mendes' illuminate world tour, I also seen all the monuments ag*in, which was nice considering the last time I was there it rained a lot.
After Washington I flew down to the key west. Which is a beautiful town right at the bottom of Florida, it's the southern most point in the USA. My full day there was full of fun...parasailing and snorkeling which was awesome!
I'm now in Miami for 5 nights and it's awesome here, it's so nice to be back near the beach. I really did miss the ocean air.

My host family are still as awesome as always. Maiya spent her second summer away at camp which emma spent a day at for "rookie" day. Which gave her a test run of the camp. She will probably start going next summer.
The summer this year went very quick and the weather wasn't as good as last years, but I still had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories.

After this weeks vacation there is one more week of summer before school starts (it starts after Labor Day, September 6). Emma will be going into third grade and Maiya will be going into fifth grade, which is middle school. So my routine is going to change a little as her school hours are different to the elementary school. I'm looking forward to the change though.

During the summer both girls celebrated their birthdays. Emma is now 8 and Maiya is 10. They both got very spoilt with their presents this year. Emma got her own ipad and Maiya got a GoPro and a phone.

My super quick post ended being longer then I planned but that's okay! I've missed out on a lot of posts because of my laziness. There's a lot more to come within the next couple of weeks though, so keep a lookout.

03/26/2017

Hey there guys, sorry for the lack of posts lately, been working on something pretty fun with a bunch friends. Check out the Authentic Aussies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G08UlkOrtGg

This video is about About time you found us !!

01/26/2017

I hope everyone had a good Australia day!

Yesterday (wednesday) which is usually one of my most stressful days actually ended up been one of the best so far here.
A typical Wednesday usually means a busy afternoon, the girls finish school early, at 2.30 we go to starbucks, get drink and have a snack. then we drive to Maiyas therapist. Emma really doesnt enjoy having to come and wait with me, we usually spend the time doing homework and reading.
We get home around 5:00 and i then have to cook dinner, get Maiya to do her homework and work with emma on her creative spelling.
Every week she gets ten spelling words, every day during the week for homework she does something with them (put them in a sentence, put them in alabetical order ect). On wednesdays she has to put her creative mind to use and make something. She usually wants to make a game, we have done things such as bowling and mini soccer. The only problem with all of this is her ideas are so big and quite often they are too big to make, or we don’t have the right things to use. its a struggle when i have to try and alter them, or downsize them as she gets upset and says “I’m ruin her idea”.
We have now discovered that if we plan a week, i can get everything ready ahead of time and we can meet her wishes and create these masterpieces. She worked very hard on these and it shows because she is getting all of her words spelt right at the end of every week and her class also loves what she makes.
Her creation this week was mini basket ball, we worked together to make all the hoops and nets and it came out great.

Maiya didn’t have therapy today so she had a playdate over, they spent the whole afternoon in the basement where they set up a restaurant. they invited emma and i to a meal and it was a tone of fun to relax and play all together.
we all sat down to a yummy dinner of meatballs and veggies, while we planed next weeks meals. Im sick of trying to find them new foods to try and going to the supermarket every day. so we decided to plan more, i went to Walmart and got a white board, at the start of every week we are going to plan out every meal and i will go to the shop, one day to make sure we have everything. We all got to look through our cookbook and chose one meal, Maiya chose a tortellini dish, emma sloppy joes and i chose turkey burgers! I’m determined to find a meal that they will both eat and enjoy!!

these girls are my little sisters, and they are becoming more and more like me, and me like them.
while i was cleaning the kitchen tonight, emma came in and said “ashlee, can you please come and help me clean the mess from creative spelling…. because its not just a mess i made, you made it too”. This is usually what i say to her when i ask her to clean up a mess. All i could do was laugh, and help her …..of course!

Today is thursday, Maiya is currently doing math with her tutor, emma is at dance.
Soon we will pick up emma and lea, drop lea home, then pick up zoe (maiya’s friend) and head to gymnastics!!

01/17/2017

Good morning aussies, how is everyone?

So far in 2017…..

The girls went back to school after their week off for the holidays, their activities are starting up ag*in. This week Maiya is starting to do two days of gymnastics a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and emma begins her in school activity (within school for an hour in the afternoon) which is called ‘little makers’. We have our other normal activities such as Hebrew school, tutoring, therapy and dance as well.

The first weekend of the year brought so much fun but also some sadness. I worked Friday night and then for a bit on Saturday morning. Amy, Georgia, Sam and i meet up at Georgia’s for our final weekend all together, it snowed all day on Saturday so we made the most of it by going outside and having some fun, we ended up sledding down a hill behind Georgia’s house. it was so much fun and a great way to spend our afternoon, our plan for Saturday night was for all of us to go and get massages, but because of weather we were not able to drive, so we ended up staying in, ordering pizza and watching some movies.
On Sunday we got up early and headed into the city for Amy and Georgia’s last visit, we had shake shack for lunch when we arrived and then spent the day hopping on and off the subway trying to see as many of the tourist attractions as we could. We managed to see the Brooklyn bridge, the statue of liberty, the flat iron building and central park. We got stopped but the cold weather when the sun went down so we got the train home and had a relaxing Sunday night.

Last week was a little different to normal, Amy stayed with me from Sunday to Thursday as she was finished with her family and needed a place to stay before her mum arrived. It was a lot of fun having her around and the girls really enjoyed spending time with her. The week was full of sad goodbyes to great friends which quite hard. Its great making friends here but its not easy to say goodbye to them.

The weekend that has just pasted was a long weekend for us, Monday was Martin Luther king day. I was lucky enough to have a three day long weekend as my family went away on a skiing trip.
On Friday i had a movie night with Tess, then on Saturday we went to see ‘La La land’ which we really enjoyed. On Saturday night i went out to dinner with Imogen, her brother who is visiting, Sam and Caitlin. it was yummy and a lot of fun, unfortunately it was my last night with Imogen before she finishes her year so it was quite sad saying goodbye to another friend. Sunday i went on a hike at Rockefeller state park with Tess and spend the afternoon relaxing before i meet up with Maddy the au pair thats replacing Georgia.

2017 has come so quickly, i cannot believe it is already mid January. Why is time going so fast?

12/14/2016

Heres a quick catch up!
Cant believe Im already up to my 10th month here.. Ive been super slack with my posting. sorry! (my new years revolution is to post way more)
Things are so busy over here, especially at this time of year. We has halloween in October, Thanks giving in November and before we know it, christmas will be here.
Its beginning to feel a lot like it Christmas too, it has gotten quite cold and it there are decorations and lights everywhere you look. Im all ready for it as well, my shopping is done, christmas sweater purchased and my room is decorated. We have had a few very mild snow falls, so fingers crossed its going to be a white christmas this year!
Both of my girls are still very busy with something happening every day, its unusual to have to dull moment. We are getting to know each other more and more every day, which Im sure is going to continue for quite a while.
Ive done quite a bit of traveling lately too, Ive been to Philadelphia and Boston, both were so so fun! Last weekend I also went to see Wicked, which was absolutely amazing and a dream come true. I will deffinitly be seeing it ag*in before I come home!

09/15/2016

Celebrating my 7th month here in the US by working all day with a sick munchkin. so much time here and i still have not gotten any better at posting on a regular basis.
Summer is now over and school has been back for two weeks.
Maiya is now in fourth grade and her last year of elementary school, Emma is in second grade and loving every moment of it.

We have been busier then ever this week as all the girls activities have begun. Mondays Maiya has hebrew school, Tuesdays Emma has random farms (kids theatre), Wednesday Maiya has tutoring and random farms, Thursday Maiya has gymnastics and Emma has Hip Hop, at the moment Fridays are free but pretty soon girl guides will start back up. With all of these activities plus homework we hardly have enough time to do anything else, which is good because im keeping busy but its hard not been able to do anything fun with the girls (cooking, scrapbooking, going to the park).

About a month ago I had vacation, I ventured over to California, it was so nice and the weather was perfect! it was so fun seeing another part of the country and its definitely somewhere i want to go back too.

In exactly 10 days mum, aunty g*i and trish will be here and we will be living it up in the city for week together! I cannot believe how fast it was come but i cannot wait!

Missing you aus

07/19/2016

woooops... over a month since Ive posted. I have been meaning to fill you all in on whats been happening over here, but every time I plan on sitting down to do it I end up doing something else.

Its now week 4 of summer vacation and Im loving it, i really wish we had the whole of summer off school in Aus.
Maiya is loving been away at camp, we usually get at least one letter a week from her and she is very excited at the moment because next weekend is family visiting day and her birthday! (she will turn 9)
Emma is also loving been at camp, her days are jam packed but she's loving it, theres never a dull moment at elmwood!

The weather is hot, with the occasional afternoon thunderstorm. Im really missing easy access to a pool, hopefully this week ill be getting my pool membership (You can't use the pool unless you have a membership or go with someone who does and fingers crossed I'll be able to take guests with me)

The biggest struggle at the moment is saving, but being honest its constantly a problem. Living in new York where everything cost a lot is quite hard when you don't earn much. On the positive side I've paid for my flights to LA for vacation, so its just accommodation and spending money that I need to work on now.

One month till vacation!
10 weeks till mum, aunty G*i and Trish come!

06/13/2016

Somehow managed to fit our whole weekend into a five minute video.. Missing you already Niagara :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhKLmIIbIP0&feature=youtu.be

Aussie au pairs tearing our way through niagara falls

05/27/2016

My top 3 Au pair problems (which I have to face 24/7):

Before I left Australia i had about a dozen people tell me that life here is a rollercoaster, they deffinitly were not kidding. I feel like im on two emotional rollercoasters, one short term and the other long.
Some days are obviously better then others and Ive discovered that the days I start early, keep busy and spend a lot of time with the girls are easier. The hardest part of the day is the middle, while they are at school. When your by yourself time goes slow, you get bored and you mood gets dragged down. Im not going to lie, i do enjoy getting some peace and time to myself but I don't want it to be for more then one day. Another thing i really don't enjoy is the random moments when you remember that your not at home, you remember that your away from family, friends and your comfort zone. Sometimes these random moments are motivating and make you realise what your doing and how great it is, other times it does the complete opposite.

Probably one of the biggest struggles is living off $200 dollars a week, especially when your so close to new York city. On weekends I really don't like being in the house, i feel like I need to make the most of all my spare time, there is so many exciting things to do, problem is most of them require money, which would be fine if i could spend my whole pay every week. But I cant because as we all know, saving is a must.

It is so hard going from having your own car, and doing things when you want, when ever you want. Im so grateful to be able to drive and use a car with my family. But im not going to lie, its a pain in the ass organising weekend outings when you don't know if there will be a car available.

Don't get me wrong, this whole experience has a lot of negatives and hard times but there is deffinitly a lot more positives, the biggest thing Ive learnt is that you have to find the positives in each day, which makes going through the challenging things worth it.

05/22/2016

The memories I've made in the past three months are going to stay with me forever and being able to scrapbook them makes me so happy.

05/17/2016

Its about the 5th time Ive sat down to write this post.. Ive been trying so hard to post more updates but Im struggling due to the fact that my days are so busy and jam packed, by the time Im off duty Im exhausted! I thought id give you all a look into what a day as an au pair is like!
Today, being the first day of the week was tough, it was hard to get our of bed (especially after such a great weekend in the city). I was on duty at 6.30, I got the girls lunch, school bags and breakfast ready. At 7.45 we all (incudling my host mum) went to pick up family friends for school drop off at 8.20, I then dropped my host mum at the train station so she could go into the city for work. Once I got home i had my second breakfast, watched my daily episode of Gilmore girls (its on every morning), cleaned up, unpacked the dishwasher, did 3 loads of washing then went to the store to get a few groceries. During the middle of the day I relaxed and tried to g*in some energy for the afternoon. At 3 i went to pick up Maiya from school, we came home, had a snack, practised our softball pitching (shes teaching me!), did math homework and then at 4 we went to pick up Emma. On monday's emma stays at school for 'bricks for kids' where she builds things from lego, today she made a paper crinkler! Once we were all home, we finished off homework, had dinner and then headed to Maiya's soft ball game. Heres a selfie from Em from before the game!
After the game we headed home and got ready for bed. My day was finally over at 9pm.
Tomorrow is even busier. Another 6.30 start, maiya will get picked up at 8 for clarinet lessons before school, ill drop emma off later then head to a shopping trip with a new au pair in my area (who is from wollongong too!!). Ill pick Maiya up from school (either at normal time or earlier, im not sure yet) and take her to the dentist, she got braces two weeks ago and one of them has moved so she needs to get it checked. Emma will go home with her friend then go to Hip Hop. Maiya and i will then go pick her and two of her friends up at 4.15, drop them home and then Maiya has gymnastics at 5. Thank god its mac and cheese night so i dont have to cook! just pick it from Panera bread during the day!
Bring on day 92! :)

04/28/2016

Good afternoon Australia!
I thought i would give you all a quick update before i head to bed.
Im absolutely loving being with my new host family, i have not stopped smiling since i arrived. Im enjoying getting to know Maiya and Emma and I already love them, my host parents are so sweet! I am already feeling settled and im happy to be calling Ardsley my new home.
The past couple of days i have had my host mum's parents over in the afternoon to give me a hand managing the schedule and afternoon/night routine. Ive loved having them around, they have made me feel so comfortable, I already feel like a member of the family.
Tomorrow im lucky enough to get a bit of a sleep in as my host mum is working from home (6.30 am starts have made me a little tired) then ill sort some of Maiya's things for summer camp then do school pick up, afternoon tea and homework with the girls.
Bring it on, I cant wait!