Birthday, Thanksgiving and a full 2 weeks!

Hey,
it's finally time for an update, so here we go! :)

1 week

My first week here went by super fast.
We had family over from New York, Pennsylvania and San Francisco and it was so great to meet them all and to get to spend some time with them.

monday I got to pick up M. from "mdo" all by myself for the first time and it went pretty well. Since then I've been out by myself a lot of times and am starting to find my way arround a lot better.

Birthday!
On the 25th of November it was my birthday, which I got to celebrate with the family and also share it with one of my hostmoms friends! We had a nice dinner together and a lot of fun playing a game. I was super blessed with some awesome gifts!!! (Thank you!!)
Later in the evening I went out with my friend Anna.
We went to the Mall of America for the first time, and let me tell you, it is BIG!
Sadly the shops were about to close, so we ended up at the movie theatre and watched "2012".
It was ok, just a little overdone.. and it went on for 2 hours and something...so I got home way later than I had planed!

Thanksgiving
We had an early dinner with the family, which was soo good!
Afterwards we all played games together and just had a great time hanging out!!

I started taking the bus more often now. It is great that I actually have a bus going here. Most of my friends don't even have a bus in their area. It's a great way of getting around, although I felt a little lost the first time I took one, just like first grade when mom puts you on the school bus for the first time by yourself. ;)

Saturday I finally got to meet Sam at the MOA (Mall of America). We only had time for a quick coffee, but I was glad that I got to see her!
I stayed at the mall and bought a bunch of stuff to get started with my scrapbook! Spent way to much money on it, but hey, you need a hobby, right?! :)
Then I went to see "New Moon" later. I decided to get tickets to the VIP theatre. It's inside the normal theatre, but every friday and saturday they have VIP rooms. You have to be 21 to get in and the seats are bigger than normal and you have a small table next to your seat. But the coolest thing were the waiters. You didn't have to get your Popcorn or anything, the come and take your order!! :) So I got a beer and a lemonade and made myself a "Radler" :)

Sunday I went to church with my family and then Anna came over to my place and we took a bus downtown.
We walked arround a little bit and then decided to go to the MOA so Anna could look at Scrapbooking stuff too..

2 week

Since the last week had been pretty busy with having visitors, this was my first week of "normal" living here at the house.
And you know what, I still love it! :)

I didn't so to much this week, since I was tired after work or just sat down to Scrapbook a little. I got 4 pages done so far, and I really enjoy making them.

Wednesday my hostmom gave me a gift. Striped Pyjamas!! Everyone in our family has them, and they are only to wear during the month of december! :) fun! I look like an elf in them! :D

Yesterday I met some new girls and went out to dinner with them. We were six germans and I had a good time meeting them and finding out where they live arround here.

Tonight I hope I can go out with Sam and some other girls.


Well, that's it so far.
Work is going very well, I enjoy spending time with the kids and have a fun time with them. Of course there are things I have to get used to first and things I need to learn how to do, but that's all part of the fun!

Hope to hear from you!

4 days, great time, great family

So, here I am again. I hope I will stay good in updating, cause right now it feels like time is flying by!

So on friday I got to meet a bunch of new great people. Friends of the family, neighbors,...
There are a lot of new names to learn, but I was welcomed so warmly by everyone, that that won't be a big deal!
My hostmom and the "old" AuPair and I went out of the house after dropping the kids off at school for a little bit and so I got to see Lake Harriet for the first time up close. :) That'll be a place where I'll be spending a lot of my time in the summer, and hopefully get some nice walks in during the wintertime aswell.
In the evening mz hostparents took us out to dinner, and I had a great time with them. Getting to know eachother a little better.

Saturday was sad, since Cilla had to leave for California, where she will be for a few days before returning to NewZealand.
In the evening we went to the house of friends for a Pizza dinner, which I reallz enjoyed. (not just the pizza, but the people too!)

Sunday morning I went to church with my family and then had my first Clustermeeting at an IceScating Rink. I had a lot of fun and didn't tdo to badly after all. :)

Today was my first "workday". I started at 7.30 am with helping to get the kids ready for school.
G. is picked up by the schoolbus and I and a friend are taken either by my HM or me, or by the other boys mom. Today I drove to school so I would know my way there and then to another place to drop off M.
My Hm was out of town for most of the day, so I got to pick up M. which was my first time driving by myself here, but it went really well.
The day went by fast and without any bigger problems. The kids are great and I really enjoy being with them!

I am excited to see what the next days will bring!
Leave me a comment!

New York, Connecticut and MINNESOTA!

Hey guys,
I finally make it back to the desk to update about my new adventure that just started!

So, monday afternoon, my parents and Daniel and Sebastian brought me to the airport in Frankfurt where I met with some other AuPair girls, to check into our flight to NEw York.
After getting my bags checked I left the other girls again and we went for a coffee at Starbucks (where else ;) ).
When it was time for me to go through security I really didn't want to leave, but at the same time I was so excited, that I finally was on my way.
I met with the other girls again and even got to sit with one of them on the flight.

The flight was pretty quiet and I got to sleep a little bit at least.

After 8 hours in the air, we finally landed in New York City and met with a bunch of other girls and were taken to our hotel in Stamford, Connecticut.

There we had a 4 day orientation. Learning about childcare, american culture and so on. So nothing really new to me, but I enjoyed meeting the other girls, and even got to talk to them about my first AuPAir-experience 6 years back.

Thursday afternoon we were put on a bus to the airport again and a swedish girl (anna) and I took a plane to Milwaukee, WI and then one to Minnesota from there.
Let me tell you, I can not remember being this tired in a long time. My eyes hurt and I just wanted to finally meet my hostfamily.

We got to the airport in Minneapolis about 9 hours after leaving the hotel....!

I recognized my hostmom right away. She brought some baloons for me and gave me a big hug. It was just like I had expected it to be, as if we had been friends for a long time already. Well, we started talking in January, so it is kinda true. :)

We went home and after looking around the house for a wee while, I finally put my head down to sleep in my new bed!!! It felt sooo god! :-)

I felt so at home the first moment I entered the house, I can't discribe it. It is just amazing!

I will tell you a little more about my first day here later. Right now I am tired and can't wait to take a shower and get to bed.

Big hug to my friends in Germany, I will miss you!!!

many months passed, just one more to go...

Wow, I really haven't updated in a long time. But you know what, it's not, because there would have been nothing for me to write about..NO, it's because there was so much that I could have written about, I couldn't filter out the information that I wanted to share with everyone.

A lot has changed over the last weeks (months) and I am so thankful that God is in control of my life and knows whats best for me.

I decided to switch churches and am super happy with that choice. My new "family" is amazing and I won't even start telling you about them, since I would never find an end. :-)
I am thankfull for the years I had at my "old" church, they were good, but it was time to make a change.

It's only 4 1/2 weeks before I leave to the states, isn't that crazy!!!
I am super excited and can't wait to meet my family and see my friends Sam and Inga again!!!!

Since I don't have my own laptop anymore, I can't upload any pictures at the moment, but one of the first things I will buy once I'm in Minnesota will be a new one, and then I will update this blog more often again.

Until then be richly blessed! And trust the Lord with your future! HE KNOWS BEST!

1..2..3..TEENSTREET

I just got home from a great week at TeenStreet. (google it!!)

Before I went, I felt kinda unmotivated and would have rather stayed home to chill, because I had had a tough couple of weeks before, but GOD had better plans for me!!! (as he always has)

We left Siegen at 7 am on saturday (1st) and it took us about 4,5 hours to get to Offenburg, because we couldn't go any faster than 80 km/h since we took the caravan with us.

After we arrived we signed in and I got to go to the sleeping area where my girls and I would be staying. I think we were about 500 girls in one hall, which I thought would be tougher than it turned out to be.

In my group I had 5 girls that were 13 years old. We grew pretty close over the week and I had an awesome time with them! Since I went as a coach, I was responsible for them and had to teach a small bible study/devo every day. (which had already been planed out by the leaders before.

There were about 3500 youth and helpers from about 20 nations!

Every morning we had a short topical teaching and every evening met for "Throne Room" a time of worship and prayer. 

Seeing so many people praising Jesus, singing, dancing, laughing... was just amazing!!!

I met a lot of amazing people and we became great friends. Some I really hope to see again soon! (Love ya!)

It is hard to put the week into words, and there are so many things I could still talk about, but that would take forever. If you want to hear more, let's talk sometime!

I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was so overwhelmed by a lot of things, that I didn't remember... :-)

Nights, paper fights and fires...

My last week was packed with lots of great things again. :-)
I spend a lot of times with my new friends and I enjoy every single minute of it!
I don't get to bed early these days, but I guess I need to soak up as much time as I can get with them before I leave for the states. (Can't wait to finally meet you!!! )
We've watched some movies, went on night walks, hung out talking about a lot of fun and serious things and had a paper fight. Well, ok, I kinda only watched, but it was fun. :-)

Work was also good. We did a lot of circus things with the kids which was a lot of fun. Now there is one more week and then I am off for 3, but gone for two of them. It will be a good time, but I won't get to see some ppl for a while, which is sad. Oh well, guess I better get used to it now. :-)

Today looks like a slow day. I am at church sitting in the cafe with my laptop tiping this. I might read for a while and then go to the service. Going to bed early tonight sounds like a good option for later! :-)

pictures, Bilder, moments...

Just some pics I wanted to share for fun! :-)
Since my last posts didn't have any in them!

Love ya!

Ok, seriously what's wrong with me and updating this blog?? I think about it all the time and once I am at my computer I find other things to do or I'm to tired to write anything... DISCIPLINE YOUNG LADY!! :-D

I didn't get to bed til late last night again, which isn't to bad, since I am off work for the week. :-)
I went to a concert at Burger King again last night with Steve Savage whose music I really enjoyed!
Afterward we went to my friends house and the band came to join us which was great. We had a good time hanging out (in general, not just because of the band!) .

Lately I've been spending a lot of time with some "new" friends I met, which is awesome. I really enjoy their company and we have good times together. I get to meet new people a lot and also started going to some Jesus Freaks meetings which are fun. We've had some good conversations as well.

The sun decided to come out in Siegen finally about a week ago (ok, since then we've had some rainy days again, but at least we saw the sun for a bit :-) )
Sunday me and some friends went to sell stuff at a local flea market and somehow my skin did not like that at all. My sun allergy came out worst than ever! I had to go to the emergency- pharmacist to get medicine that didn't even help. I went to see a doctor on Monday but the stuff he gave me didn't seam to help either. I decided to just try using my allergy sun lotion and that seams to be doing the trick, it's getting better. I hope that once it's gone it stays away!!!
At least now I have my lotion that should keep it under control. I hadn't had the allergies in such a long time, so it's really upsetting that it's back now...

I've started cleaning out my apartment, which is more work than I thought. It's a lot of fun in a way though, because with every thing I get rid of I feel better. I can't wait to be done and then life with what's left for the rest of my time here in Germany.

Minnesota is only about 134 days away and I can't wait to finally meet my family!
I have recently come to meet those new friends here and I really want to enjoy my last months, but I am also super excited about my new life in MN for the next year or so! I can't wait. :-)

Ok, I should do some more packing now, my landlord is coming over on the weekend to talk about stuff, so it should at least look like a tidy mess in here and not just a messy mess...hahah

Take care!!!!

Long weeks, large photos and no time...

Hi guys,

I"m sorry, it"s been a while again.

Ome problem was, that I changed mz camera settings and now mz pitures were to big and took ages to upload. I didn"t have time to make the smaller yet, but I still have some pictures I want to share with you, so I hope I can find some time and motivation to put them up soon. I am not at home while i"mm writing this, so there won"t be any pictures this time either.

Let me try to recall some of the things I did within the last month...

One thing I did, was go to a ballett show of one of my babysitting girls. It was her first show, she"s 5, and they were soo cute. They looked like little princesses up on the stage. All the otheracts were amazing too and so much fun to watch.

I went to a theme park that"s about an hour away from here with some friends. We had a good time and I loved the rides..and the food..haha It was pretty full, wo it took us quite some time to get in and also the waits at the rides were pretty long too. The weather was nice though, so it wasn"t to bad, and the rides are worth the ride most of the time.

Last thursday I went to a concert at Burger King. They put up a stage inside. It was s much fun! Some of my friends played and so I had a pretty good seat. It was so much fun to see all those people dancing inside of BK...haha My frinds music was awesome as well, and the singer did a very well job keeping everyone entertained!!

Friday after working 8 hours and babysitting for another 5,5 hours, I just needed to be with some adults and so I called one of my friends. I asked what they were doing and he told me they were going to Frankfurt and I was more than wellcome to come too. I found out that they were going to go to the airport to catch a plane to Spain, and in the end it was good that I was able to drive with them, since they needed the room in my car.

We met at a friends house and hung out there for a while and then left arround midnight to go to the airport. After getting there and checking them in we hung out a bit more and then me and one of the guys went to get some Starbucks since we were allready there. We then drove back home and I was in bed at about 5 am...looong day for me! But lots of fun again!

Love you guys! Leave me a comment!

BBQ, Swing Dance and Sad Goodbyes

I wasn't able to upload all my pictures, but they will be up soon!!

BBQ

A couple of weeks ago I went to hang out with the Bibel College Students at the semester BBQ.
We had a fun day with lots of games and food. :-)
We played a swedish game called Kubb which was a lot of fun. My team got had so much fun, mostly because we screamed out lungs out and tried to be all cool...haha but we lost anyway.. ;-)
I went for a walk with my friend Kelsey, (who's Mikes sister) and we took some fun pictures.
We were very lucky with the weather which was great too!



Swing Dance

Later that day we went back to the Villa and decided to have Kelsey teach us how to Swing Dance. It was sooo much fun!!! We had a great time trying things out and learning new things after we kinda got the basic steps down. :-)
A day later Kelsey tought me how to waltz too! :-D


Baptism

Sunday afternoon we went to a close lake where two of the students got baptized. It was a sweet time with worship and prayer. The rain stayed away long enough and it was even pretty warm out.

Graduation

Last wednesday it was time for the Bible College Graduation.
There were 14 Graduates!! We had a great time hanging out after the Graduation Ceremony and took our time saying goodbye to the few that were leaving the next day.

Sam's Goodbye Party

Friday after work I drove all the way to Sam's house to join her goodbye party.
The drive took me a little longer than it would normaly have, since there was a lot of travic on the way. So after about 3,5 hours I made it to her house.
There were about 17 (I think) people there and we spend time eating and just hanging out and talking about all sorts of things. :-) It was fun.
I spent the night at Sam's and the next morning we went into Hameln. (Google it if you have time:-) ) Her dad owns a restaurant there and so we met her parents and sister there and then went shopping from there. We were blessed with great weather again and I even got some bargains. :-)
I went back on the road a little later that day and made it home in about 2,5 hours since there was no travic this time, which was nice.

Sunday I was invited to cook indian food at a friends house. When I got there all the cooking jobs were taken and so I sat down with some friends and we hung out until the food was done. It was sooooo good! Good job Dami and Samuel! We were about 20 people at Daniel's house and it was nice getting to spend some time with them.

Ok, uploading pictures takes a long time lately, so I will come back later to upload some more!

Boys, Heroes and a nice weekend with Inga and new friends

Last tuesday and wednesday I watched "my" boys again and we had a lot of fun playing around with the camera, so here is one of the pics we took...it's hard to get 3 big heads into one small camera... :-)

Friday I had a day off, since it was a notional holiday here. Met my parents at a friends house for a little BBQ and then wanted to visit my friends at the Bible College. It took me super long to get there, since the police had blocked off half of the village it's in, because of some protest march that was going on. Lucky enough I know the area, so I was able to take the little side roads to school.

When I got there I found out that they were having their theme night that day and the topic was "Heroes and Villains" since I wasn't dressed up, Jessi said I could just be her hero. :-)

Some of the students really put a lot of work into their costumes, and it was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone again. :-)

Saturday my friend Inga came to visit me for the weekend. She will also be going to the states as an Au Pair for her second time and had an interview for her visa at the consulate in Frankfurt. She could have gone to one closer to her home, but wanted to visit me, so she traveled all the way here from her home, which took her about 5 hours.

We took the chance to invite some other Au Pair girls, who also came into Siegen for the day.

We had a great time together. It was nice meeting new girls that have the same experience ahead of them as I do, we were three return Au Pairs and two first timers. :-) It felt like we all knew each other already which was great. :-)

Inga stayed until monday morning and we had a great sunday together with some friend from church. I got to go on my first, no wait, actually my second ride in a convertible, which was a lot of fun! Fun for the wind too, as you can see! haha

hmmm, I can't upload another pic at the moment...but I will put it up as soon as I can!

Scotland, a Finn and a great weekend with Sam!

Scotland

Thursday the 9th I picked up my car from the garage (it broke down a week earlier) just in time to drive to Weeze where I got to park it at my parents friend's house, so I could go to the airport there (2 hour ride from Siegen) and fly out to Scotland to see my family there.

I had a great week with them. Especially since I hadn't seen them in a year! I stayed with my grandma and also got to see my aunts, uncles and cousin, which was amazing. They are awesome people and I love them very much! Since I am heading of to the states this year, I won't get to see them for a long time which is very sad. So it was even nicer being able to see them again. 

The three musketeers! :-) (auntie May, aunt Sheela and my Gran! )

sooooo gooood!!!!!!!!

...!

cousin love! :-)
red sheep on green hills..

uncle Archie :-*

an back home we go... :-(

Well, I made it to our friends house in one piece, then left their drive way and realize a weird sound coming from my rear tires... after an hour at the gas station, checking everything I could think of, I decided, that if I drive fast enough and turn the radio up real loud, I would not be able to hear it and make it home alright...haha ..well I did, thank you Lord! :-)

Finally made it to my parents house at 2 am and fell into bed...

Got up at 7 am the next (or same) morning to drive to Gerson and Brittany's place, where I had a little breakfast and picked up Anssi to take him to the airport in Frankfurt-Hahn, another 2,5 hour ride. :-) It was a lot of fun though, so it wasn't bad at all!

A weekend with Sam

Friday afternoon I left work a little early to go into Siegen and pick up my friend Sam (who I spoke about in my last post I think) who came to see me over the weekend. We had such a great time and did A LOT!

First we had a hot chocolate, sitting outside of a cafe in the sun! The weather was amazing all weekend and I even got a little red... :-)

After that we went to a restaurant where we got dinner sitting outside on the pavilion, it was so nice and the food was good too. :-)

Then we made our way to the store to grab some snacks, hit the video store and rented 4 videos. Went to my place and chillaxed the rest of the evening until around 3 am. :-)

We wanted to go to Ikea for breakfast, but stayed in bed a little to long, so when we got there they had started serving lunch already, so we had that instead. :-)

Then we walked around for about another hour and took pictures with all kinds of stuff :-) so much fun!

Then we went into town and walked up to our castle where we walked around and took pictures again. Walked all the way back downtown to H&M and into City Galerie and back up later on to get back to the car. Our feet hurt so bad that we decided to go back to my place and watch the other movies we hadn't watched yet.

Sunday morning we had to be at church for children's ministry and afterwards just hung out in the sun and played some games of Rummy Cub. We then went to the 5 pm church service, which was good. I love to hear Arne teach, he is a lot of fun to listen to. :-)

Then I took Sam back to the train station where we had to say our goodbyes which was sad. But I will go to her place in a couple of weeks for her good bye party, since she will be heading off to Minnesota in 3 weeks already!

I met with my friend Linda at the Cafe del Sol for dinner and we had a good time just hanging out and enjoying our meal. 

I love my friends!!!

to much sun???...NEVER!