Harlem, Grandparents, and Bears

Oh Hey!!

I know, I know. It’s been forever since I’ve written a blog!!! Well I’ve been keeping busy and have lots to share!

First! A few weeks ago I went to a Young Adult weekend at Catskills Christian Assembly in upstate New York! A friend of mine kind of runs things there so I was super excited to go. Besides the spiritual cleansing that a retreat promises, there was an added benefit of a possibility of seeing a bear! I drove up with Tamara and Danni (a new au pair!). We got caught in a hail storm on the way up, which was scary but thankfully, we survived!! 🙂

I didn’t take that many pictures, but as you can see it was a lot of fun! It rained for most of the weekend, but it still was a great time. There was even a bonfire (naturally, being the best blogger ever, I did not take a picture). The mountains where so beautiful and you could just feel Gods presence there. (I’m pretty sure if God where to come back to earth again, He would come in the form of a hillbilly)

And then it happened!!! I saw a bear!!

Not that bear

And not even these bears, but after close inspection of this photo I am sure that they are closely related to the bears that we saw. I’m thinking 2nd cousin on the papa bear’s side. Anyway, it was night time and about 5 or 6 of us were walking to the bonfire and about 100 feet away crossing under one of the trail lights is this big beautiful bear!! I’ve never seen a bear before, except for at the zoo. But that doesn’t really count because I doubt that they even know that they are bears. I was so amazed and excited. Not scared at all! (well it was walking away from us). Then, just as it walked out of sight, out popped two little baby cubs!! I really wanted them. I would name one Goldilocks (for the irony of it), and the other Herman (just sounds like a bear name). But they walked out of sight with their mother, unknowingly leaving me with a memory that will last a lifetime.

It was such a good time!!

Tamara was getting ready to leave to go home to Germany and really wanted to go check out a baptist church in Harlem that she had heard about, so Josh and I went with her. Now, I had never heard of this church before, but apparently at least 400 of the people in line with us had. It is called The Abyssinian Baptist Church (have you heard of it?). It is supposed to have one of the best gospel choirs around. We arrived at about 9am to attend the 11 o’clock service. The line we were in stretched the entire block and around the corner. Tamara had informed us that there was a dress code to get in, but a majority of the people in line apparently were not aware. Elders from the church walked up and down the line and pointed out anyone who was not dressed appropriately.
The dress code was:
Women-
No shorts
No jeans
No skirts above knee
No flip flops
Shoulders must be covered

Men-
No shorts
No T-shirts ( collared shirts only)
No sneakers
No jeans

Now this describes the wardrobe of every tourist ever, and the line did thin out quite a bit. We moved from being on the corner to about half way down the block. Tamara befriended a lovely German family who all were dressed “inappropriately”. She did her best to help them. Even lending them her sweater so that their daughter’s tube top could replace her short skirt (being the excellent blogger that I am, I did not think to photograph this… Even though we stood in line with them for 3 hours). 11 o’clock came and went and it wasn’t until 11:45 that we were told they only had enough seats for the first 80 or so people, which did not include us. It was with a sad and a heavy heart that the poor German girl pulled her tube top back up to her chest and gave Tamara back the sweater. But laughs were had and new Facebook friends were made.

Wow, I actually remembered to take a picture. (and by remember I mean, the other two people I was with stopped to take one… So it seemed to be a good idea)

The family I work for went on vacation to Portland for 10 days, so I had time off. I was actually really sad that I wouldn’t get to be with Emerson for a week ( too attached, I know) but it turned out that my grandfather was moving out of his house of 40+ years, so there was much to do. The best part was gathering all the glass that was garbage into a bag, and tossing out of a second floor window into a dumpster below.
Best. Sound. Ever.
(again, no picture… Sowwwiee)

Tamara went home last week 😦 I hate when a good friend leaves.
On the day that she left there was a huge back to school expo in Bridgeport where 600 backpacks full of supplies were handed out to needy families. Since I still had time off I went to help! It was a ton of fun and so many families were helped!!

I had many jobs that day, but at this point we were asked to get some of the kids to dance.

The lady with green hair just appeared off the street and started dancing with the kids. White girl can dance.

Last Tuesday was Ronja’s last day, so Josh and I went to NYC to spend time with her before she left. It was tricky finding her because she didn’t have a phone and there were soo many people at the Grand Central where we agreed to meet. But she found me and we all had a lovely day of walking around manhattan and visiting a local Target near the airport.

This was the only picture I thought to take that day… (I’m so good at this)

On the way to the airport I was able to have a SKYPE call with Victoria in Sweden!! It was so amazing to hear her voice again. 🙂 I miss her so much!! Finally we arrived at the airport. Saying goodbye to Ronja was so sad. But we shall meet again!! I really need to take a trip to Europe soon because I have so many friends over there now!!

Ok, well I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll try post more often so the blogs don’t get so long! thanks for reading!!

Oh, and the blog wouldn’t be complete without a cute picture of Emerson. 🙂

Ich Libe Dich!! ❤

Wiggle! Blink! Wiggle while your Blinking! Bam!!

I first want to say that the shooting in the Colorado theater was disgusting and senseless and my heart and prayers go out to all the victims and their families. I can’t even wrap my mind around why things like this happen, but I pray that God has mercy on the souls of those poor victims.

Oh Hey!!
So this weekend was FABTASTIC! (I actually wrote fantastic, but my phone auto corrected it to fab… when have I ever used that word?!) Here are some highlights 🙂

🌸One of the many benefits of my job is that I get to take Emerson on play dates, even though most of the time they seem more like dates for me because she can’t really socialize yet. On Friday we hung out with my good friend Jacky and her two kids; Isaiah (3years) and Zoe (1 month). Isaiah is my best little bud and he loves me because I am his fairy godmother. Zoe is so tiny and proving to be her big brother’s mini me (adorable!!)

I told Isaiah to smile for the picture, and he did his best to help his sister smile too!

Beautiful!!

We went for lunch at Cracker Barrel (my favorite restuarant! Where else can you order two main courses, a kids dinner, and a dessert for under $25?!! ) and hung out at Emerson’s house. The rain ruined our plans for the zoo.

🌸 On Saturday I was invited to a girls night and it was a blast. You can never go wrong with Just Dance 3 and chocolate cookie things who’s main ingredients were oreo, marshmallows, and butter.

I didn’t get very good pictures, but I’m sure you can tell that everyone involved was having the most fun they’ve ever had… ever (Jessa even accidentally recieved a lap dance. )

🌸 Later I spent the night at Autumn’s house! When is the last time I went to a sleepover?! (I’m pretty sure I was 18 and had to share the bed with my BFF, Coco. When I woke up my legs were hanging off the bed because somehow she had moved herself to lay diagonally across the bed… I never slept with her again ) Autumn is a nanny too, but she lives with the family. They live in a huge mansion that could be mistaken for the White House. (Except it’s blue.. And the family that lives there isn’t black.) It was super fun and we stayed up into the wee hours of the night, talking and embracing the fact that we are both night people and not morning people. We slept until 10am and we both agreed we could of done better (our goal had been 11… don’t judge us). For lunch Autumn suggested this amazing Asian place (if I knew the name I would insert it here..) which did not disappoint.

Since we were in Greenwich, and the Asian place was on greenwich ave we decided to shop. Except I don’t live there, so $289 for a shirt is not what I consider to be a bargain. Autumn had a gift card for Sephora, so we stopped there and met this great sales girl, Shannon! The main reason I liked her was because she taught us how to apply eyeshadow and eyeliner (I am 24 years old and until yesterday never knew how to correctly do this) AND she was shorter then me!! (she is 4’9, I am 4’11… And for my European friends, she is 144.78 centimeters, I am 149.86 centimeters ) She also kept saying “Bam!”. Kinda like Emeril Lagasse, just more. “And you start with a dot in the corner of your eye, BAM! And you swirl your brush along the crease, BAM! And blend, BAM! And look at yourself, BAM! BAM BAM BAM!!” She kind of reminded me of a backfiring car… but a backfiring car who I would LOVE to be friends with.

She taught us that the secret to perfect top lid eye lining is to “wiggle” the pencil in between your lashes and then “blink”. 😃 Because of the mature adults that all of us are, this turned into a song and dance that I really think Sephora should market on. It goes:

“Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle!!
Blink Blink Blink!!
Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle!!
Blink Blink Blink!!”

The dance is to wave your fingers in front of your eyes during the “wiggle” verse and then blink your eyelashes while actually wiggling your bum during the “blink” chorus.
Confusing? Maybe. Fun. Absolutely. And I know it’s fun because your about to try it.. Aren’t you 😉

🌸 When we finally got kicked out of left Sephora, We found this awesome sail cloth store which makes handbags out of used sail cloth! So of course I bought one (any product that I can hose off on my front lawn is worth the money). It’s cute too!

I’m a terrible photographer…

🌸 That night we went to church and I was so excited because my dear friend Josh was there, as well as Ronja, her brother and their friend visiting from Germany. Josh has been away at the camp that he runs all month and so I was excited to see him. Ronja will be leaving soon to go back to Germany, and that makes me so sad. She and I have become such good friends and I really hate to see her go 😔

Alright, well I guess I should end this thing lol until next time!!

Too cute!!

The Nanny Diaries

Oh hey!

So the baby is sleeping, which gives me approx 5 min- 2 hours of free time. 😜 What baby you ask? Well I’m glad you did. I recently started a job as a nanny for a beautiful 5 month old baby girl named, Emerson. Before this I was selling blinds. Crazy leap? Well it may seem that way but I love kids and I love teaching them things and watching them grow. (And sometimes they spit up on you, which I consider to be some kind of baby blessing… A christening of sorts.)

The reason I’ve started a blog is because of my friend Victoria. She is from Sweden and was an Au Pair here in Connecticut for about a year. She writes amazing blogs and I love keeping up with her through them. I guess this blog is mainly for her,(Hi Victoria!) but I have a few other friends going home soon 😥( au pairs as well), who may want to be bored to death stay updated.

Ok so onto the actual blogging!!

So this past weekend I had a goal. That goal was to see The Amazing Spiderman… again. This would be my thrice third time seeing the movie, but honestly I don’t think I will have had my full experience with this movie until I have seen it at least fifty eight four more times.

If you have not seen it I implore you to do something with your life and go to the movies.

I dragged my little sister and my two cousins ( Sarah, Kelli, Jaycie) with me to the IMAX theater at the Palisades Mall in NY, where we enjoyed lovely cheesecake before the show. 3D IMAX is quite spectacular and again, if you haven’t experienced it… I really can’t imagine what you waste your time doing.

This week has been very HOTT! I love being outside, but unless I’m in a bathing suit lounging by a pool or beach, I really hate to sweat (this may also explain my distaste for gyms). Also, it’s unhealthy for the baby to be outside in such high temps, so I was beyond excited that today was so mild!

Cloudy? Yes. But still it was nice to be outside, walking, feeling the breeze whip through my ponytail.

Emerson loved it too. She kept smiling and making these constipated noises that she usually does when she’s happy.

Alrighhht, the baby is up! Hope you all are enjoying the mild weather and I’ll TTYL!!

(I’m pretty sure these are baby kisses… Although I guess we’ll find out when she gets teeth 😉)

First Blogg!!! (two g’s? one? )

Ahhh this going to be short and sweet just so I know this works(???).

Victoria sent me this chocolate from Sweden! So sweet of her!

Ok bed time