Every year, we organize an opportunity for Host Families to get together. This year, several of us Maryland counselors organized a Host Family Workshop in Potomac. Thank you for all the families who came! We hope you walked away with some tips to make your year great with your au pair.
When moving to another country, a person isn’t always aware of how to stay safe, or how to keep others safe. In addition to staying safe themselves, au pairs have the additional responsibility of keeping their host children safe. We were fortunate to be able to have a Montgomery County police officer speak to nearly 70 au pairs in this multi-cluster meeting. We discussed winter driving, car seats, road rules and driving rules in Maryland. We also discussed personal safety for the au pairs.
Montgomery County Police Officer presenting to the au pairs
Halloween is a fun holiday for our au pairs. They do arts and crafts activities and dress up with their kids. Here is a sampling of some fun things.
Au pair masterpiece!
Au pair carving pumpkins
More pumpkin carving fun!
Queen Au Pair
Masks made for kids by an au pair
We were able to squeeze in two meetings this month. I missed seeing the au pairs so I baked some chocolate muffins and invited them to our local Starbucks for coffee, muffins and a chat. The government was shut down and it was pouring outside…but we were nice and cozy!
Starbucks
Our second cluster meeting was a huge multi-cluster Scavenger Hunt at the National Zoo which had to be delayed because of the government shut-down. Thankfully, we had a beautiful sunny day!
Cluster girls
I decided to do something different this time for our cluster meeting. Why not try out “Yoga and Picnic on the National Mall”? This cluster meeting included au pairs from another Bethesda cluster. We tried out all different poses to help us relax, focus and stretch. Namaste!
Done!
Girls and the Capitol
August is a very busy month of arrivals for this cluster. This August, we had 11 new au pairs arrive! Along with several other nearby clusters, we went to RFK stadium to watch DC United (our local soccer team) play.
Girls just want to have fun!
Many au pairs!!
We are fortunate to have so many different places nearby and so many different activities we can take advantage of. For our July Cluster Meeting, we visited the Potomac Massage Institute and participated in an Essential Oils Workshop. We learned about, and tested out many different types of essentials oils that can be used to cure all sorts of ailments.
July Cluster Meeting
Some au pairs are sometimes not able to come to planned cluster meetings so an impromptu coffee and chat is a nice way to touch base with each other!
Coffee Klatsch
For our June Cluster meeting, we were going to meet at the local community pool, but as it often happens in this area, the weather was not cooperating. So we ended up moving the meeting to my house. It was wonderful to catch up with some of the au pairs!
June Cluster Meeting
Wishing all of our Jewish Host Families and Au Pairs a very happy Rosh Hashanah! Tomorrow is a public holiday for all of the public schools in Montgomery County!
If you are working for a Jewish host family, here is a great site for children including information about the holiday traditions, games, word searches, Hebrew vocabulary and crafts.http://www.akhlah.com/jewish-holidays/roshhashanah/
