Au Pairs celebrated Earth Day this year by purchasing and using earth friendly products, collecting trash, planting seeds, hiking, biking, going to the beach, doing yoga, taking pictures, and of course, visiting the tulips in the Skagit Valley. Our Earth Day winner, earning the title of Earth Mothers of the Cluster and a gift card was Marine from South Africa for her self watering vegetable garden. Congrats to all for their dedication to cleaning up 
Tag Archives: cross cultural
Team USA (Unbelievably Smart Au pairs) Makes Top 16 in Trivia – March
March Madness Trivia stars shown above know their stuff. When questioned about arts, culture, geography, history, they pulled out some great facts and figures and represented well. Our team “Team USA (unbelievably smart au pairs)” came in with only 16 other teams remaining. Smarties in Seattle! Thank you especially to Anna, Laura, Sharon, Natalia, Mariana and Sofia for representing. We are still apart, but we are together.
Getting our Happiness on for the New Year – Jan 2021
After watching an inspirational TED talk, we launched a happiness challenge as a group and over the next 21 days, those willing to take the challenge will be doing these 5 things daily: 1 random act of kindness, list 3 daily gratitudes, journal about something good that happened within last 24 hours, exercise, and meditate. We will be sharing our efforts in our WhatsApp group throughout the month to inspire one another. Au pairs also are encouraged to take an amazing class (this APIA counselor very much enjoyed) offered by Yale University entitled The Science of Well Being https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being.
The world is in a dark place right now, but we are digging deep for the light and these ladies have what it takes! Their American adventure this year and last is like none others yet in history and the teachings are deep. We will emerge even more wise, strong and fierce. This is our pledge.
Not a Normal Holiday – December 2020
Au pairs gathered by zoom to talk about their favorite spots to go with kids, family traditions from home – swimming and eating fresh fruit in South Africa in the heat, BBQs in New Zealand and Brazil, sending letters off by balloons to Santa in Colombia, the Austrian Krampus, the German passion plays and Christmas Eves, and cooking in pajamas in Panama. They revealed gifts and secret Santas and shared the 2020 silver linings: baby yoda, cheese plates, new romances, great families, wonderful host kids, and traveling around the state. 
Turkey Trot and Culture Share Zoom – November 2020
Au pairs and host kids did some walking last month! Together we donated our time and money to Northwest Harvest, an APIA local partner for over a decade, which helps to supply our food banks around WA.
Congrats to Camila from Brazil, living in Lacey, and her host kids for winning our Top Turkey of the Turkey Trot Contest! She and her family walked a total of 575,225 steps in November. Way to go…and they are not done yet…checking their pedometers this month too! Thank you to everyone who went walking! The walks are clutch about now.
And on a zoom call, au pairs shared a bit of their culture with the group and asked some questions about childcare and education. Low key and just us. Attached is a shot of some of our lovelies in this zoom (black background shot) and of me, in perfect zoom spirit with eyes closed. Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday.
Fall Bucket List Challenge – October 2020
We got the spirit! The au pairs and their host kids were off to the races this month, making the most of their October. We got tons of pictures of them in action, getting out and about this Fall. Here are just a few of them and the photo contest that started it all. Congrats to Annika from Austria and Anna from Brazil who won gift cards to spend with their host children teammates. Such fun to watch virtually from the side lines! And in addition to those two teams, Ikky from Italy and Mariana from Brazil also made the national APIA instagram account. Inspiration!
https://www.instagram.com/theaupairinamerica/?hl=en
Education in the Virtual Year
We gathered to talk about education in this crazy and challenging 2020. While we are not in classrooms, there are many new options available that were never there before. Au pairs are able to experience ivy league US American institutions at a fraction of the cost. We talked about some of the most popular classes, from Justice at Harvard to some wonderful ESL online options. The sky is now the limit for education in 2020 and isn’t that exciting. Silver linings.
And au pairs shared their most precious joyful moments of the summer. Here is that that looked like: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=AftnZKSCz_k
Sitting (alone, together) Pretty – July 2020
Au pairs in our cluster joined a group of au pairs nationwide to get pretty in a time when many of us are rarely leaving home. When we do, we are going to step out in style. Essie, a wonderful make-up artist out of NYC, showed our ladies some tips and tricks and we had a nice time learning and just relaxing. It was a fun summer evening, just us girls…
Bingo and Travel – May 2020
We had another zoom cluster event in light of Covid and enjoyed our cluster community playing Bingo and sharing the quotes that get us through the tough times. And last week, we traveled with Rousse to Peru and Maria to Colombia to see the sights, sounds, colors and food of their countries – virtually. This was fun listening to their APIA Global Awareness presentations and we travelers can’t wait for the world to re-open! https://www.globalawareness.com
APIA Class Reps Run Games in Zoom – April 2020
We kept safe and at home and in our zoom room this month again. Au pairs shared their favorite television shows, favorite zen places, and we did a temperature check of the moods/feelings we are all going through. These women are strong (together we are stronger) and their program will go on…just not how they had imagined.
