Georgia Renaissance Festival

Fairburn, GA, just South of Atlanta

Open Saturdays and Sundays and Memorial Day, April 14th through June 3rd, 2012.

Free kids weekend -  April 28th and 29th

Multi-acre kingdom is a re-creation of a 16th-Century European Country Faire where you can shop, eat and revel with a cast of nearly 1,000 colorfully costumed characters. Ten stages of music and comedy shows are set against a permanent backdrop of Tudor homes and enchanting cottages!

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Alive After Five

Thursday, May 17th

5pm to 9pm

Free

Every third Thursday on Canton Street in Historic Roswell from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm you will find merchants with specials, restaurants ready to serve your favorite meal, galleries with fabulous art and crafts, and nonprofit organizations to inform and educate you. Balloons decorate the streets and there is live music in three locations up and down Canton Street for your enjoyment. A free trolley is available to take you up and down the street all night.

Inman Park Festival

April 27th to 29th

Parade begins on April 30 at 2pm at Edgewood and Euclid (rain or shine) and runs to Austin Ave. at the foot of Little Five Points. Come see our Butterfly, Trash Monarch, Precision Attache Case Drill Team, and Seed & Feed Marching Abominables take to the street in the city’s funkiest and most eclectic spring parade.

Sweet Ps Art Festival

April 28^th to 29th

The Episcopal Church of St. Peter and St. Paul,

1795 Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta GA 30062

Free

The festival offers Juried Arts Exhibitors and Marketplace Crafters, live music and dance between two stages throughout the day, children’s activities food court and more.

Taste of East Cobb

At Merchants Walk

May 5^th, 11am to 5pm

Annual Taste of East Cobb offer the most delicious Saturday of the year. Come and taste foods offered by local restaurants and have fun with live entertainment and kids activities.

Marietta Greek Festival

Place: Holy Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church,

3431 Trickum Road
Marietta, Georgia 30066

May 18th to May 20th

Fee: $3

The 22nd annual Marietta Greek Festival  celebrates Greek traditions, culture and delicious Greek food.  A wide variety of Greek food will be available for purchase, The Hellenic Dance Program will be performing throughout the festival, and market will also be open.

Hi there!

I hope you all had a great Easter.

April showers bring spring flowers, as well as many allergies. I hope that you don’t have to deal with those.

Spring started early this year and besides the pollen it is nice, cool and green. But summer is around the corner, which means school will be over and pools will be open soon. Usually May is a busy month for everyone: planting gardens, opening pools, school kids finishing up the year, last tests, last games of the season, and of course lots of graduations. All these events bring some schedule changes for all the parents and also au pairs. Please keep in mind that changes in daily routines and schedules cannot affect 45-hour limit of au pair’s schedule for the week. And au pairs have to try being flexible with all new scheduling and different hours. Enjoy the nice spring before we get to the hot summer.

As you may have noticed, this is the seasons when many festivals and outdoor events show up in every city and town. See if you can find one for yourselves.

Unfortunately I have not heard from anyone about any interesting stories from you that I can use for the website. There still is time J Please write something about your country, your experience in America (good and bad), any suggestions to future au pairs and so on. Don’t worry about the spelling and grammar – I will help you with that. Also, I’m still waiting for a list of things you wished you had packed when arriving here and things that you packed but didn’t need here.

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April Au Pair meeting

Thank you Prusso family for hosting a wonderful event and thank you all of those who came and had fun. It was a beautiful and relaxing spring afternoon. Most of us enjoyed horseback riding and some delicious food from our au pairs. Check out some pictures on the photo page.

May Au Pair meeting

May meeting will be on Saturday, May 12^th, right before the mother’s day. As per your request I am trying to set up the laser tag event, but some details still need to be confirmed. It is expected to be in the afternoon. More information will follow as soon as I have it.

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Departures

We are saying good-bye to few au pairs for who April or May is the last month with our group: Doni from Germany, Angelica from Venezuela and Anne from Germany. They successfully completed their first au pair year. We wish them all luck with all the future endeavors.

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Just a reminder - Please save the following dates for the monthly au pair meetings:

June – please save the date: Saturday, June 16^th. Pool party at 4pm. We will join Wendy’s group for a fun day in the pool. More details will follow.

P.s. if any of you have a great idea for a monthly meeting please let me know. All ideas are considered. Dates could change if we agree to do something fun that is not available on the dates I picked. Friends are always welcome

I wish you all Happy Easter!

Frohe Ostern!
Feliz Páscoa!
Glad Påsk!
Felices Pascuas!

Have a happy, peaceful, and fun Easter filled with marshmallows,chocolate, and jelly beans - American Style!

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

March 17^th at 12:00 Noon

Free

Parade starts at the corner of Ralph McGill Boulevard and Peachtree Street and ends at Fabulous Underground Atlanta with Vendors, Food and FREE Entertainment, Music & Dancing. There will be other events throughout the city.

The 2012 Atlanta St. Patrick’s Parade will have clowns, floats, bands of every kind, bagpipes, Irish dancers, and more.

SHAMROCK THE STATION

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 12:00 PM- 10:00 PM

CENTRAL PARK, Atlantic Station

Atlantic Station and Meehan’s Public House are teaming up on March 17, to throw Atlanta’s best St. Patrick’s Day bash — ShamRock the Station. The first-ever event is bound to become an Atlanta tradition and make Midtown “the place to be” for St. Patrick’s Day.
Starting at noon, families can enjoy Irish dancing, games, face painting, balloon art, bagpipers and live music. For the 21 and up crowd enjoy premium and craft beer stations with popular drinking games. Live music will be played all day headlining with Better than Ezra and the night will be capped off with a fireworks display.
CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES –Noon-5PM          9:45PM — FIREWORKS

Ticket Information:
$10 pre-sale, $15 day of event, Kids 12 and under are free!

Phoenix Flies Events

March 10-25, 2012

Free

Various locations

The Atlanta Preservation Center and all of our Preservation Partners welcome you to this City-wide celebration of Atlanta’s vibrant living landmarks. You can join various tours and learn about various city landmarks for free. Check out their full list for the all events.

Atlanta International Auto Show

At Georgia World Congress Center C Building

MARCH 14 - 18, 2012

The 30st Annual Atlanta International Auto Show will return to the Georgia World Congress Center for five big days. For those who are interested in cars this is a great opportunity to see them all at one place.

Atlanta Fair

Turner Field Gray Lot

March 8^th – April 8^rd

Good Old Fashioned Family Fun at Turner Field just before Braves start their season. Whether you are looking for a thrill or a wonderful view of downtown on our sky wheel, the Atlanta Fair has something for everyone! The Fair can be enjoyed by all ages ready to enjoy the spring sunshine!

Opens March 8 thru April 8, 2012 at Turner Field Gray Parking Lot. Gates open Mon-Fri @ 5:00 pm, Sat @ Noon,& Sun @ 1:00 pm

Atlanta Film Festival
March 23 - April 1, 2012 - Midtown Atlanta Georgia

The 36th Annual Atlanta Film Festival promises to be an exciting Viewing Event. Experience 9 Days of intense film viewing, where you can indulge in every type of cinema from the US & around the World. From famous Directors to Independent Filmmakers, more than 150 Works will showcase this ever-popular event. Some films are free and some are for a fee, please check out their website for more details.

Stone Mountain Village BlueGrassRoots Music & Arts Festival

March 31st

Cost: Free

The Atlanta Foundation for Public Spaces and Main Street Stone Mountain will co-host a bluegrass music and arts festival in historic Stone Mountain Village on Saturday, March 31, 2012.

Salsa Fest Atlanta

April 1st, all day

Atlantic Station

It’s salsa time!! Get ready for April 1st, 2012 at Atlantic Station!  The biggest Salsa Festival in Atlanta comes with double the fun, with authentic Latin food, salsa music by popular artists, product samples, dance contests and the best salseros!

6th Annual Italian Film Festival

April 5th-7th, 2012

Free and open to public

The Italian Studies section in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at Georgia State University, in collaboration with the Department of Communications - Film Studies Program and the Italian Film Festival of Miami, will conduct a film festival presenting new Italian films (not released in the U.S.) in 35mm at the Rialto Center for the Arts.

Welcome to our group Sabrina from Germany and Andreia from Brazil. They both arrived last Friday to their host families. We wish you both very successful au pair year!

As you may have noticed from the all things around that Valentines Day is a pretty popular in America. No matter which way you celebrate it – be it with your significant other, with the children, or just with friends, or don’t celebrate at all - I wish you all

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

February is the month of some big events and television broadcasts. As you might have noticed that beginning of February is almost like a holiday because of the Super Bowl Sunday. Besides the fact that it has become the second largest day for food consumption after Thanksgiving, it also has become the most watched American television broadcast of the year. Even those people who are not typically football fans will join the fans and watch the game. And of course don’t forget the half time show in this case with Madonna, and the famous Super Bowl commercials. If you didn’t get to see commercials you can take a look at them here. Some of them were pretty good. I hope that you all got to experience the big American tradition one-way or other and enjoyed the football fun.

Now that Super Bowl Sunday is over another big Sunday is coming up – the Oscars. Those of you who love to watch movies already know that Academy Awards will be giving out Oscars to the best movies and actors on February 26th. Similarly to the football fans, many movie fans organize Oscar parties (although it is not on the same scale). You too can organize one if your host family is Ok with it. Enjoy!

February monthly meeting

This time we will meet at Land of Thousand Hills Coffee House in Roswell. Some of you already have been there but for others it will be a new place to meet. We are meeting on February 25^th at 2pm. The address of the coffee house is: 352 South Atlanta Street. Roswell, GA 30075.

We will be discussing Household Poisoning Prevention as part of Cultural Care’s Continuing Safety Education Program. Before arriving to the meeting please fill out the quiz via the link I will email to you and print out the answers. We will go over that at the meeting.

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Just a reminder - Please save the following dates for the monthly au pair meetings:

· March – please save the date: Saturday - March 17th. We will be going to a tour of The Fabulous Fox Theater and will visit the Westin hotel to see Atlanta from the above (weather permitting). More details will follow, but most likely tour will start at 11am, so be prepared to leave house early.

Want to save some money? Need a childcare? You found a right place!

We are here to help. Cultural Care Au Pair provides affordable and flexible live-in childcare for average cost of $350 per family (not per child). Our candidates are qualified and carefully screened with legal U.S. visas for up to two years.  We offer personalized au pair matching service, local support throughout the year, and cultural exchange experience for the whole family. We are established and reputable program for more than 20 years with more than 85,000 participants and accredited by Better Business Bureau.

New families who apply from January 19, 2012 through January 24, 2012 can apply for free ($75 application fee waiver) AND  $750 program fee discount. To qualify, families must welcome an au pair by July 31, 2012.

Please contact me directly for any questions about the program or how to apply, as well as for promotion code.

Inese Stravelli | Local Childcare Coordinator

(ph) 770-262-3800

inese.stravelli@lcc.culturalcare.com

Hello everyone in 2012!

So, here we are – in year 2012. New year means new adventures! I wish you lots of them, as well as good health and wealth!

I hope that you all had great holidays. No snow this year. Some of you might have missed it and other might be happy without it. But there is still time, you just never know J

Holidays are over and kids are back to school. That means everyone is going back to regular schedule and routines. We suggest providing au pairs with a detailed schedule each week to avoid miscommunication about expectations. It is also a good idea to keep in mind au pair’s class schedule and meeting schedule so this way it will allow both sides to plan work and free time accordingly.

For your information I also wanted to share with you some program updates, which took effect on January 9^th, 2012.

For the first month that an au pair and host family are together, Cultural Care Au Pair will not process any non-emergency transitions. While there are times when au pairs and host families cannot work through their differences, the first month is always a time of adjustment for both parties and once initial problems are resolved, host families and au pairs have a much better chance of enjoying a successful relationship. In addition, host families will be responsible for a $500 transition fee in the event of a third au pair replacement within the first 30 program weeks with some case-by-case exceptions.

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Referrals

As always we encourage our current host families to refer families you know who may benefit from our au pair childcare program. For each family you refer to our program, who welcomes an au pair by October 5, 2012, you will receive a $250 referral reward! Referred host families must not have already been referred to Cultural Care Au Pair. The referral reward will be issued when the referred host family welcomes an au pair into their home. Terms and conditions apply. Please refer to host family account for more details.

To start referring your friends and family to Cultural Care Au Pair, simply log in to your Host Family Account to submit their contact information.

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January monthly meeting

We are going to enjoy some good Japanese food hibachi style. This meeting will be together with Wendy’s au pair group. The January meeting will be held on Sunday, January 29^th in the later afternoon. More specific details about the place and time will follow via email soon.

We are saying good-bye to Lauren who successfully completed her first au pair year this month and will continue her au pair adventures in New Jersey.  We wish her luck with all the future endeavors.

January arrivals:

Welcome to our group Samantha from Australia and Kethryn from Brazil who will be arriving to their families by  this Friday. We wish you both very successful au pair year!

Happy New Year!

May all your wishes come true this year!

Wishing you the happy, healthy and wealthy new year!

Inese