Au pair life 2.0

Hi!

It’s time for another update! The last few weeks were full on au pairing with a taste of travel.

I’m living my au pair life 2.0. A life of changing diapers, yelling ‘no’ and ‘stop’, trying to make kids eat veggies and choosing your battles but also a life full of snuggles, reading bedtime stories, going on adventures and baking pancakes.

Daily life

Because no one is really interested in my boring day to day au pair life, I will give you some fun facts and highlights:

• It took me a while but I finally managed to make food that the kids like. And they all LOVE my ‘Belgian’ pancakes

• Giving 4 kids an art box that contains glitter is the most stupid thing you can do as an au pair. Sure, the kids were quiet and I could cook dinner in peace but had to deal with a house full of glitter afterwords

• Sometimes I can see the northern lights! Not strong enough to take a picture of it, but it’s still pretty awesome to look outside your window and see the sky light up in green colors.

• On February 4th Grande Prairie was the coldest place on earth! The temperature dropped to -47. I did some experiments outside like throwing a cup of hot water and blowing bubbles. -47 hurts your skin!

• Tim Hortons has a ‘roll up the rim’ contest every year. You can win prices with every coffee you buy. As many of you know I don’t drink coffee, but I do enjoy their tea. I won a free tea the other day and felt pretty lucky!

• In canada they really ‘celebrate’ Valentine’s day. The kids all have to take a little present to school for ALL their class mates. I think it is ridiculous, because I hate valentine’s day. It took me forever to make Valentine cards with the boys, but was pretty satisfied with the result.

I’m still off on the evenings and weekends. I’m doing good at ski lessons and I enrolled myself in the advanced class that starts tonight! I made some friends in ski class and still trying to make some more friends around Grande Prairie.

Jasper

Last weekend I went on a trip to Jasper. I was going to wait until I found a travel buddy because I didn’t feel comfortable doing the drive alone, but I felt like I would have to wait forever, so I just took the plunge and drove to Jasper!

It took me about 6 hours to get from where we live in GP to the hostel in Jasper. I did a few pit stops along the way. The drive is long and boring. You have to follow the same road for over 300 kilometers. But oh my, it was so worth the drive!

After a good night of sleep in the awesome hostel that I booked, I was ready for some runs on Jasper’s Marmot Basin. I parked my truck and snowboarded straight down to the lift. One of the girls from ski lessons was in Jasper with her husband and kids so we were able to meet up and ski/snowboard together which was awesome. It took me a while to get used to snowboarding again and to find the nerve to go down a black diamond (for all my european readers: this is a RED slope, they don’t have red in Canada). By the end of the weekend I found my balance and my nerve. So good to be snowboarding again!

On Monday I decided I earned a breakfast from the ‘Bear Paw Bakery’. After that I drove up to a lookout. After a 15 min walk/climb/slide I had an amazing view! Just before I left I drove all the way to Pyramid lake where you can just walk on the lake and inhale the beauty of Pyramid Mountain. Breath. Taking!

I really enjoyed my weekend away. This week has been busy. Everyone is getting ready for holidays. The family is leaving for Arizona on Sunday and I’m flying to Kelowna this Saturday to start my snowboard trip! I will be going to 3 different ski hills in Canada and will end my trip with a couple of days in Calgary. I can’t wait!

I’ll write another post after my travels!

Love,

Joke/Jay