Archive for June, 2009
Central Lake YMCA Birthday Bash Vernon Hills, Illinois
No Comment |Posted by: krelstab on June 27, 2009
On Friday June 25, 2009 families attended the Central Lake YMCA Birthday Bash at 700 Lakeview Parkway Vernon Hills, Illinois
Cultural Care sponsored the face painting station. Au pairs Natalia Kim from Russia and Madeleine Gustafsson from Sweden painted children’s faces and placed Cultural Care blue heart tattoos on little hands, arms, and faces.
There was a inflatable slide and bounce house for the children to enjoy. In the backlot there were play stations for bubbles and sand. In the petting zoo there was a wide array of animals.
In addition there were several contests; chalk drawing, water balloon toss, cake eating, guess hot many umbrellas, and Y-Spy quiz.
Pear Tree Catering had some great BBQ food in their tent.
The Rockin Fenderskirts provided the fun boogie music.
Cultural Care raffled off a Mom’s Spa Basket with some great personal care items from Avon.
It was a pleasant summer evening and a great time was had by all.
Thanks Natalia for all your hard work!!!!
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Lawn Concert At Cuneo Museum and Gardens June 17, 2009
No Comment |Posted by: krelstab on June 18, 2009
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International au pairs help families in Lake County
No Comment |Posted by: krelstab on June 4, 2009
International au pairs help families in Lake County
By COURTNEY CROWDER - ccrowder@nwnewsgroup.com
| Karen Relstab of Libertyville is a local childcare coordinator for Cultural Care Au Pair, an organization that places au pairs in homes across the United States. |
At 60, most women are spending their days playing golf, hosting luncheons and generally taking it easy.
Not lifelong Lake County resident Karen Relstab.
Relstab spends her days organizing and keeping up with a group of 30 international au pairs that serve as childcare providers for different families in the area.
An au pair is basically a live-in nanny that works with his or her host family to ensure that everything in the household runs as smoothly as possible. Really though, au pairs are much more than that.
Loralee Van Vleet, a local mother of four girls, has used Cultural Care Au Pair to provide her family with childcare since 2004.
“I really like it; it is fun,” she said. “Not often do you get a young, foreign girl to help take care of your kids. The au pair adds an element to your house of Mexico or Europe or where ever they are from.”
The Cultural Care pamphlet lists the definition of the position from Ute Wetterauer’s standpoint, an au pair from Germany.
“An au pair is a person like me who wants to experience life with an American family and be a good role model. It’s exciting to know that I am helping my host kids grow up and that they will have a friend in Germany always,” states the pamphlet.
Relstab worked in sales at AT&T for 32 years. After her retirement, she heard about Cultural Care Au Pair, applied and was offered a position as a local childcare coordinator.
“I first became interested in being an LCC because I wanted to use my sales and support business experience and, also, learn more about the world and it’s different cultures,” Relstab said.
When she first started as an LCC, Relstab had a group of six families. She has since grown her business to helping an average 30 families each year.
“Over the last five years, I would say that I have worked with more than 100 au pairs,” Relstab said. “I am still in contact with most of them even though they are back in their home countries.”
An au pair has to go through an intensive application program, which includes interviews and a personality test; complete their countries form of secondary education; and be between 18 and 26 years old.
Contrary to popular belief, au pairs are both male and female.
“When people think of au pairs, they think of the stereotypical blonde female from Sweden, not a black-haired male from Costa Rica,” Relstab said.
Her group currently has four male au pairs: Alex from Brazil, Antonio from Mexico, Christian from Germany, and Christopher from Sweden. The other 26 au pairs are from countries such as Germany, Colombia, Mexico, Sweden, Thailand, Russia, Austria, Panama, Brazil, Chile and Poland.
A normal day for Relstab is very busy, she said, adding that she acts as the main support system for both the au pair and the host family.
“My days are filled with meetings, telephone calls and e-mails to the families and au pairs in my group,” Relstab described. “I also host monthly meetings for the au pairs assigned to me.”
The monthly meetings can involve anything from bowling, coffee, safety presentations or charity work. For the last two years, Relstab also has personally organized an event that included all the au pairs in the Chicago area.
“The last two years I have organized the Cultural Care Au Pair Chicago Area Scavenger Hunt in downtown Chicago,” she said. “The event included over 200 au pairs and 20 other LCC’s. The au pairs search for answers and items in the downtown area for three hours and that way they can learn about the their new city.”
Relstab really enjoys the company of all her au pairs and misses them tremendously when they finally go back to their home country.
As she spoke about her first male au pair, Rodolpho, she teared up. “You get close to these kids,” she said, “It’s a lot like being a school teacher.”
One very memorable au pair that she worked with was Sandra Bibiana Giraldo who was from Columbia.
“When Bibiana got here in July, she was placed with a family that had three kids and whose father was suffering from cancer,” she said. “It was a very stressful situation. Things didn’t work out with the pairing and Bibiana went into transition, which is when we look for another match for our au pairs, because we don’t often send them back.”
“Right around that time I got a call from a single mom in Lake Forest who was looking for childcare,” Relstab continued. “The mother loved Bibiana and chose her even though the first mom didn’t have a good thing to say about her. Bibiana ended up extending her stay for two years, and the family came to see her as a sister. After her second year, the Waukegan school district was looking to hire three native Spanish speakers and Bibiana was hired as a teacher. She has since met someone and will probably get married.”
This is not the only time in which the program has made a difference in an au pair’s life. Generally the program impacts the lives of both the au pair and the host family very positively.
“Au pairs often tell me that they are not the same person when they leave,” Relstab said. “They say that they have matured and grown up, which is another reason why I do this job.”
In this tough economic climate, one may think that an au pair is out of their price range.
In fact, Cultural Care Au pair service breaks down to only about $320 a week, which is a savings of more than $100 as compared to most daycare centers and almost $400 as compared to the national average of American nanny salaries.
Even though no one would blame her if she decided to slow down, Relstab loves her job and doesn’t see it coming to an end anytime soon.
“I am 60 years old, but I think I am going to be doing this for 10 or more years - at least, I hope I am,” she exclaimed.
Want to learn more?
To learn more about the possibility of hosting an au pair, contact Karen S. Relstab at 847-680-3794 or Karen.relstab@lcc.culturalcare.com. Or visit http://krelstab.auparinews.com.
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Life Lessons
No Comment |Posted by: krelstab on June 2, 2009
| Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio
“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written.” My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more: 1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good. 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step. 3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. 4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch. 5. Pay off your credit cards every month. 6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. 7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone. 8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it. 9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck. 10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. 11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present. 12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry. 13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. 14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it. 15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks. 16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind. 17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful. 18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger. 19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else. 20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer. 21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special. 22. Over prepare, then go with the flow. 23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple. 24. The most important sex organ is the brain. 26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’ 27. Always choose life. 28. Forgive everyone everything. 29. What other people think of you is none of your business. 30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time. 31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. 32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does. 33. Believe in miracles. 34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do. 35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now. 36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young. 37. Your children get only one childhood. 38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved. 39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. 40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s,we’d grab ours back. 41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. 42. The best is yet to come. 43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. 44. Yield. 45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”
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Friends are the family that we choose for ourselves.
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