Fourth week

We are back and I am here for already a month! Time flies, but I really like it here! This week was a busy week, so that will be a good blog!

Hike

We had a extra day off, so our weekend was a little longer then normal. Monday was a Jewish holiday, that's why they had a day off. I wanted to do something nice with the kids. I was thinking about taking them on a hike, but I wasn't sure if they already did that and if they would like it. So I asked Leah about it and she thought that they will like it and that I can try. I know that the kids love to hike for a little to the lake or the creek near by the house. We were looking for a place to hike what wasn't that hard to do and near by.

We went to the Rock Creek Regional Park. It is a beautiful place with a big lake in the middle and the trail was around the lake. You can walk around the hole lake. It was a long hike but a nice one! The place had so much different things! The first half was a trail through the woods where you also can find picknick tables, a place where you can rent boats and a nice place to go for a picknick. We had some lunch by the picknick tables. The kids kept asking me to learn them some things in Dutch, so I did. They did it very wel and some things they said it really good! After the lunch we continue our hike and end up at the end of the lake. We crossed a bridge and followed the second half of the trail. This one was more boring, because it was one straight road. We decided to follow the forest paths, because those were more fun! In the end of the hike the kids were very tired, but we were close to the car. We went to get a ice cream on the way back to celebrate our first hike!

During the week

Of course isn't everyday the same, but I’m not gonna tell you everyday separate. So I will tell you some things that happend this week!

A new goal for me is to try to make a 'fancy' lunch for the kids and me. This week I made some banana pancakes and they were so good!! After that I started thinking to do this kind of lunch more often. So for next week I will try to do that and I will let you know how it went!

Emmett and Ainsley were in a creative and experiment mood this week. Ainsley made some crafts and tried to make something out of baby powder and water. But it ended up like an explosion of pink stuff, it was what she called glap. Emmett started playing wit h play-doh and coloring. When Emmett was at soccer practice I stayed at home with Ainsley and did some games in the basement. She also has a tumbling track what she can use to practice het skills, but that day we used to do some tricks.

The 'yellow slide' playground wasn't some place we could miss this week. We went there a lot this week, just like every week. We saw your friends, the other family. We also went to a new playground in the area. It was a little walk to come there, but it wasn't a problem when we went to the playground, but back home was harder... Also because the kids were in a mood when we went back.

Tuesday evening was a special night, this week was the first presidential Debate between Trump and Biden. I thought it was really cool and nice to see how goes here with the elections. At first I thought that it will be a normal debate like in The Netherlands, but soon I saw that it wasn't like that. I'm use to that people respect each other in a debate and that you answer the questions. But this debate was the opposite of everything I thought was normal. They didn't answer 1 question and kept talking through each other. They acted like children, but I had fun watching haha. In the first 2 weeks when I got here Leah and Ryan started whispering if they already gonna tell me about November 3. That or there will be a party or a lot of people are sad.

LCC meeting

Normally you have 1 meeting a month with your lcc group, but with corona they aren't allowed to organized meetings. My LCC, Tina really misses us and want to see us. So we organized a little meeting (not a real meeting, because we aren't allowed to call it like that) but just a little date with a few girls from my group. Wednesday we went to Starbucks to talk and had a drink. It was really nice to meet new au pairs in the area. We did a round where you have to tell something about yourself to get to know everybody, because there were 3 new girls in the group (one is me). After the Starbucks date me and 5 other girls went to get something to eat. We went to a sport dinner place where we had some burgers. It was really fun and nice to meet them! :)

Farm

Yes also this week we went again! We can't without them anymore, it is part of the schedule. Friday we went to Butler's Orchard farm. Wednesday I talked to Kinga, a Hungary girl that I have met at the first lcc picknick. We talked about that the kids have a half day on Friday and that I had to find something to do with them. Her host kids were also off in the afternoon, so we planned to do something together and it turned out to go to a farm.

Butler's was a big farm with different things to do. There were cool slides, some climbing equipment, a hay barn, animals and different mazes. We played here and did everything, the hay barn was my favorite! It was so cool you can play in there, jump from the hay bales and throw the hay in the air. After playing we went to the pumpkin patch, you had to drive to come here. It was a real pumpkin patch, the last one I went was just a field with pumpkins but they weren't stuck or with leaves. Here some of them were still stuck at the plant and you saw them growing! We picked 2, the kids picked 1 small pumpkin together and I picked one for my room. MY FIRST PUMPKIN! I picked a little white pumpkin and the kids an orange one. After the pumpkin patch there was an apple field, where you could pick your one apples. We also did that! I feel so much like a real American doing all of this stuff! I really love Autumn!

We picked some apples and did a mini fotoshoot in the field. It was so much fun to pick the apples and search for the good ones. :)

Girls trip

When I was on my way home I got a message from Juanita, if I was in to join Sharon and here to get some dinner and go to a garden. Of course I said yes! We went to a flower garden, named Brookside Gardens. There were so much beautiful flowers and trails to walk to. There were also spots to sit covered or in the grass. After the walk through the flowers we went to get some food at a Chinese place.

Night light Event

Saturday morning I went to Sam's Club with Ryan and the kids, it is a really big store where you can buy large amounts of different kinds of food. They go there to buy snacks for the kids, toilet paper or soap. Things you always need and can safe for a long time. The store was so big, you can buy everything in there!

After the store I went to pick up Juanita, because we are going to a Light festival!! The festival is in Pennsylvania and it is a lantern festival. It was a 1,5 hour drive and when we arrived we got a little package with a lantern, a lighter, a bingo card and a marker. The location was at a motor racing track, a really cool place. Everybody brought a blanket to sit on, later the day the entire festival site was filled with blankets and people. There was a stage where there was some entertainment like a magician, a bingo game and live music. The vibe there was perfect! Everybody was enjoying the music, the lights and each other. We had to wait until it went dark before we could release the lanterns. The sunset was beautiful and many people bought a little fire to keep your warm. When the sun was gone it was getting really cold. The view was just very pretty, but it turned out to be beautiful after everybody released there lantern. At 7pm it was dark and we counted down to release the lantern, it was only kinda hard to but the lantern on fire. That was the reason we didn't release our lantern at the countdown, but a lot of people didn't. The view was perfect! It was like in a movie, a fairytale. We release our lantern a little later then most of the people but it was still very beautiful. The sky was filled with lantern for half a hour. <3

BUCKET LIST CHECK!

Clarksburg Premium Outlets

I went to an outlet with Valerie, I really wanted to get some new clothes for the winter. The mall was really nice and the brands where so cool! They had everything, from Levi's to Gucci. Unfortunately I didn't find anything. We found a pretzel places and we really wanted to try that! We had mini hotdog pretzels and a big pretzel with cinnamon sugar. They were both really good. After the outlet we went to Target. I made a list with things I really needed so we went to get all of that at Target. I really love Target, it is so big and they have everything. Target is also cheaper then the normal stores, but not really that cheap. I bought way to much.. but yes you need it. There was also a hole Halloween section. I really love the Halloween spirit and I’m going to buy some more stuff to decorate my room. For now I only got some orange lights. I really like that the houses are decorated for Halloween and that it is a big thing here. This week the first houses started to decorate for Halloween, we did to! The kids decorated the front yard and it was really cute!

And then the week was already done, I will talk to you next week!

Hugs,

Naomi