This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Yesterday when I woke up my cold was more or less gone! Awesome! So it was no problem with the plans for the day. I drove down to Del Mar, parked at Albertsons and got picked up by Victoria and Laura. Both of them are au pairs in the same family. Two kids. Crazy.

We drove to Pacific Beach where Laura had left her big car the night before. Me and Victoria continued to Fashion Valley and Laura back home to meet us after dinner. At Fashion Valley we met Michaela and we did some shopping. I just bought a hand lotion from Hollister that smelled so good!

Dinnertime was at 5:30pm. The Cheesecake Factory! I wanted the lemon-roasted herb chicken, but they didn’t have it so I got a Hawaiian pizza instead. It didn’t taste like the normal American pizza, but it was still really good! For dessert I had Dulce De Leche Caramel Cheesecake. Just ate half as usual. It was super delicous!

After dinner we drove to Albertsons and I followed Victoria to the gated community where she lives. Their house was seriously crazy! It was HUUUGE! With pool and jacuzzi and everything! Victoria had her own bathroom and walk-in-closet.

Anyway, we got dressed and Laura was the dedicated driver for the evening. We picked up three more girls and went to Fluxx, San Diego’s best nightclub accordning to them. We were on the guest list and got in about 10pm. Not so many people yet but it got crowded pretty fast. Good music was playing but a little bit expensive. Everything was $12. Didn’t matter if it was just a beer, a cooler, a shot or a drink.

I had my new heels on and was dancing in them the whole evening. Three hours in 8cm (12 if you count the plateau) hurts! So bad! But they are pretty and I’m sure it’s good for my butt and thighs to dance.

I slept at Victoria’s place and at 11:30am I remembered that I had a skypedate with my cousins at noon. I got dressed really quickly and drove home.

We talked for almost an hour and right after I skyped with my mum and brother. Mum has already started to look at flights for the summer. I can’t wait for her to get here :).

After those two calls I changed into Bikini, put on sunscreen, packed a towel and my book, and drove to Carlsbad Beach. I was afraid that it would be foggy and cloudy, but it wasn’t. I had two really awesome hours in the sun reading A Dance with Dragons while listening to the waves hitting the beach. Didn’t see any dolphins today but I did see a lot of kids playing in the ocean, wonder how cold it is. There were also a lot of surfers.

Two weeks ago a new girl arrived here and she lives in the same neighborhood as me! So I picked her up and we went to Panda Express where I had dinner. She was really nice, Vasoula’s her name and she is from Germany.

Time to go to bed now, good night!

My third cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, Dulce de Leche Caramel Cheesecake. Caramel cheesecake topped with caramel mousse on a vanilla crust.

Summer feeling! 🙂

I’m still surprised over how fast time goes by in USA. It has to be at least three times faster than in Sweden. I’ve already been in this family for nine weeks! It isn’t so much though, compared to what it will be, in no time at all.

I really enjoy my stay here, my family is great and I am so thankful for them letting me be part of their family. But it is hard to start a new life in a family you’ve never met before. Especially when I’m sick and don’t have the energy to keep up a smile all day. Or during those days I miss home or something not-so-good happens here. I’m still very new to California and everything and I know that it takes time to make adjustments this big. But I’m trying and if I just could keep away from these darn colds it would be so much easier… But I guess life would be kind of boring if everything was easy. But,I am having a great time here! Both with the kids and everything that happens outside the house in my freetime.

Since I didn’t have my car for the first half of the day, my H-mum drove the kids to school. We picked up my car in my freetime and when I didn’t do that I was in my bed half asleep, half watching movies. I still feel really crappy but I hope it will be better tomorrow, I’m invited to celebrate another au pairs 21st birthday in San Diego. So I hink I will go and make myself a cup of tea now and then get a good night of sleep and hope it will be better when I wake up!

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

The sun changed overnight from nice to mean. Yesterday I was outside in the backyard with sunscreen on. The same today, the same amount of time and sunscreen. The difference was that I got sunburned today and yesterday not. It’s not as bad as May last year when my thigh turned purple and bubbly. This time my face and lower arms are just a normal shade of red. But I think I have to find something else to do tomorrow in my freetime… And I can’t go anywhere because my car is at the car service. One of the bulbs went black today and the oil needs to be changed. I guess three hours in bed watching a movie won’t be so bad.

My cold is worse today. Don’t feel anything in my throat though and that’s a good thing. It’s just my nose that’s kinda like a slowrunning waterfall. I feel feverish, and I think I would have done that even if I didn’t get a burn today. Felt really crappy this morning.

So this morning with the boy was really slow but really nice. We painted with water colors and we managed to do a lot of drawings in one hour! Well, he did at least. I just did two, one of a sunset that the girl fell in love with and put up in her room and one of the solar system that the boy wanted in his room. Both of them wondered why I didn’t become an artist instead, haha. Sweet kids! 🙂

Apparently it is Pi-day today. The girl was sad because her class was the only one that didn’t get pie at school because her teacher didn’t send out an email until very late last night to remind the parents to bring pies to school today. So in the afternoon, while she was doing her homework I made a strawberry crumble pie. It was delicious!! Super crunchy and sweet. Both the kids loved it. The best pie they ever had!

Now I’m gonna go to bed and hope that I feel better tomorrow!

I told the girl that I made one of these to my mum when she got home from USA last summer. She hardly let me finish my sentence before she said that she wanted one when she gets home from Sweden this summer!

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I can’t believe I caught a cold again! And without the kids being sick… It sucks and I know how hard these next days are gonna be. I can only cross my fingers and wish for it to go away!

The spring is here (as I probably have written before – but I’m getting closer to my 22^nd birthday and my memory just isn’t what it used to be…) and it is so amazing! This weekend we turned the clocks one hour forward (which now means 8h of time difference from Sweden?) which means that once again, when I wake up at 6:30 the sun is not up yet. And it is sooo cold when I’m dropping off the girl at school at 9. This week I’ve changed clothes around noon just because the temperature changes so much! But I’m guessing in a few weeks it will be warm in the morning too.

When I dropped the girl off at school me and the boy drove to a community park my H-mum showed me yesterday. We went to the baseball field and played a type of “brännboll” (Burned Balls – In Sweden we have a game called “Burned balls. First you hit the balls and then you run like hell while the others try to burn you! Haha). We threw the ball to ourselves and hit the ball, ran as long as we could on the course before the other one got the ball (burned the other one). That we kept doing for several laps. One of us hitting the ball for one lap. When we were done and had to go home to make lunch a guy who was cutting the grass started to speak with us. “I’ve been working here for three years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a mum playing baseball with her son here!” Do I look that old?

In my short freetime today I wanted to be out in the sun reading. But after about 40 minutes I heard a brumming noise. The gardener wanted to cut the grass. So on this beautiful afternoon I was inside watching Terra Nova… Think I’m gonna skip the gym tomorrow (because I’m sick) and give it another shot in the backyard.

After the girls first competitive soccer practice I drove home and made dinner. I didn’t have much time so I did creamed macaronis and meatballs. Very appreciated :). Next week I’m thinking about doing homemade pizza!

Now I think I’m gonna grab the rest of my Ben & Jerry’s and go to bed. It’s hard trying to be healthy when you’re feeling bad…

This morning there was this crazy and super thick fog! It was scary and according to the kids it can get worse were you can’t even see 5 feet ahead of you…

Today I survived my very first earthquake. Without even noticing it… But it was a medium one and a lot of peeps here felt it. It was a 5.2 and happened about 10am. I think I am glad I didn’t notice it and I hope I never will feel one either! I like it better when the ground is solid underneath my feet.

The weather is pretty nice again and this week is gonna be really nice! So I will try to spend as much time as possible outside with the boy. My hostmum actually came to me because she had noticed that I had some troubles finding things to do with the boy and helped me with a lot of things he likes to do, but doesn’t tell me because all he wants to do is watch TV and play on the Wii. But that’s about to change! I love being outside, but it’s so hard when he is refusing to listen to me just because he doesn’t get his will through. But I got a really nice boost from my hostmum today and things will change around here. I wish myself good luck. I have a feeling he might be a little difficult when I tell him to do other things than playing video games. Challenge accepted!

After school the boy was on a playdate at the neighbors. So me and the girl played grass volleyball in the backyard. And when the boy got home I played with  him, throwing a mini football. That is hard!! Probably I will figure it out eventually but until then the boy just have to live with the fact that I throw like a girl and he has to throw himself at the ball every time!

This night no one’s home. H-mum and the kids are at a team meeting for the girls soccer. H-dad, I have no idea, maybe working late. So I drove to Encinitas (everything is in Encinitas) and Pizza Hut. Super unhealthy but oh so good!

I also booked flights to Houston on spring break! $460 (3000kr) for a roundtrip, that’s not bad at all! On Sunday March 24^th I will go to Houston with Hanna, four of our friends from Chalmers and some other girls. We will go to New Orleans and they have planned so many fun things. I can’t wait!

Now I’m sitting here watching Terra Nova and am really happy. This day was really nice and now, once again, I feel that this year will be really nice!

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

Today was a really nice day even though it was very short. I had to wake up at 9am to return the car. When I got home again my hostmum waws up and when I told her I was going back to bed she said it wasn’t a very good idea to drive home alone from LA in the middle of the night. She seemed mad actually and for the rest of the day, well tonight, she still seemed upset. I hope she isn’t because I had a really great time and nothing happened!

Anyway, it was really nice weather today and at first that annoyed me when I woke up at 1:30pm. I felt hungover and that is super weird because I didn’t drink anything last night. I still feel very weird and kinda sick… I had my leftovers from Famous Dave’s for breakfast (lunch) and then I sat in the backyard for about an hour reading. After that I took my car to the outlet mall here in Carlsbad to buy a pair of flip flops. The mall was really nice, I walked around for a few minutes but I had plans to go to the beach before it got too cold. So I just bought flip flops at Sun Diego. A guy working there came up to me and asked me if I saw Swedish House Mafia. I bought a tank top yesterday, “We came, we raved, we loved”. He was super jealous!

I also bought a ice tea at Starbucks because it was warm today. Not too warm, but about 70F. This week is gonna be really warm, up to 80F!

So, I switched shoes and drove to the beach here in Carlsbad. I went into the water and it wasn’t that cold. Too cold to swim in, but as it is March it was nice! And when I stood there while the sun was setting I saw something out in the waves. I didn’t think about it because I thought it was a surfer. But then it started to jump in the waves and I realized that it was dolphins playing in the waves! Don’t know how many, but at least two.

I sat on the beach and took a lot of photos. Haven’t looked at them yet but I hope I got some good photos of them!
It was amazing. I mean, I was sitting on the beach, listening to the ocean and watching the sunset and dolphins playing. It was so beautiful!!

It was kinda sad though, when I got home and was super happy and the family didn’t even care…

Carlsbad beach

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I don’t know where to begin. Last night was incredible!! It started very early because I had to pick up my rental car at 10am. I got really sad when I noticed what kind of car it was, a Toyota Yaris. I had one at the skidding course during my driving practice in Sweden and that car ruined everything that day. But I gave it a shot and it was pretty okay. The break tried to kill me though every time I stepped on it way too good compared to my Volvo’s…

I bought a chai latte at Starbucks and typed in Cecilia’s address in Santa Monica. Two hours later I was there and another five minutes later I had Sara, Cecilia’s friend, (who also happens to know Malin, the old au pair, they arrived in the US together Jan 2012 and now she extended her year with 12 months)  in my car too. We drove to 3^rd street where we walked along a really nice shopping street in Santa Monica. We had lunch and then drove to LA State Historic Park.

We found a parking very close to the concert area. On our way to the area we were really surprised to see all the girls half naked. They seriously looked like whores! I even saw girls with tiny tiny bottom pieces and star stickers on their nipples…
It was a lot of security things we had to go through but at the last one, where they scanned the tickets I was the only one who got in. Cecilia and Sara paid $160 each for their tickets. Don’t know which site they bought from, but they were fake. I didn’t want to miss it so I went inside without them and found one of Cecilia’s friends from here LCC group, Alexandra, and two of her Swedish friends. I was waiting for Elin, who I met at the au pair training school but when she got there, about 9:30pm she was really wasted and all that time I tried to find here was kinda wasted when she went directly to the beer tents instead.

But it was nice being with the three others. But when Swedish House Mafia started playing I wanted to get closer so I followed a guy I had been talking with and watched SHM with him. He was nice and followed me to my car afterwards. LA downtown in the middle of the night isn’t so nice I’ve heard.

I had Cecilia’s and Sara’s things in my car and had to drive to Santa Monica again to give them their bags. It was very late and I had to refuel the car and I had so much trouble with that, I couldn’t figure out how to open the lid to the tank!! At last I did, and I went to 7-eleven, bought a coffee and some candy to keep myself awake on the way home.

It was really nice driving home at 2am. There were cars on the road, but not so many and I was home about 5am. Last night apparently the clock was put forward one hour to summer time. Horrible going to bed at 5:30am…

I almost forgot!! Just when I got in I saw a celebrity! He had a hoodie and a cap but it definitely was him. Ryan Kwanten! Maybe more famous as Jason Stackhouse from True Blood!!

Oh, I didn’t write anything about the concert, haha! It was outside and it really felt like a festival. 10 bands/guys were performing and surprisingly many were Swedish. There were to stages, the Ballroom and the main stage. The whole night felt like a big nightclub outside and it was impossible to stand still. It was really cold though!

SHM were playing for two hours and the first wasn’t so special. They started with Greyhound and that was awesome! But the other songs I didn’t recognize. In the last 45minutes they played all their famous songs. I didn’t see so much because I’m not that tall, but I can imagine what it looked like when 105000 people were jumping and dancing while SHM  were playing Don’t You Worry Child!

The light show was so amazing! And with the smoke it sometimes looked like it was a roof over our heads. In the end of the show it was snowing too.

I really can’t put it in words, it was an amazing night! And I am so glad I went. It was really expensive, about $300. But if it’s true what they are saying, that this was their last tour, it was totally worth it!

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I totally forgot to write yesterday, I guess I was to tired and full of ribs when I got home from Famous Dave’s last night.

So I’m gonna do a quick post today before I drive off to LA. Yesterday was a big day for my driver license, I took the written test at DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles). It took about two hours before I was done but the test itself was only like 20 minutes and very easy. I only got one error out of 36. But it was a stupid error and if I just focused and thought about what they were asking I would have gotten 100%… Well well, at least I don’t have to study for that anymore.

When I got off work I went to pick up Anna in Encinitas and we drove to Vista where we met Laura, the new girl. Finally ! We three started to eat because we were starving and like 40min later Monica and Nasly showed up. We had a really nice evening eating ribs and stuff like that. I love Famous Dave’s! Especially the muffins they have, I think it’s food muffins, but I can’t tell what flavor they are. Haha!

Monica asked us if we wanted to come with her to Palm Springs on Sunday and since I have to be home to return my rental car at 10am I said yes. So she’s gonna pick me up around that time and then we are going to Palm Springs for the day! That will be nice :).

But now I have to focus on today. I have to get myself ready because in an hour I have to be on the freeway to Santa Monica to pick up Cecilia and her friend and then to LA State Historic Park to see Swedish House Mafia!! It’s gonna be legen… wait for it…

…DARY!!

The test and my temporary driver license! Weird I got that before I passed the behind-the-wheel test.

I’ve already been here for two months. It’s crazy! How can time just fly by so fast? I don’t feel that I’ve done anything special since I got here but when I think about it… I’ve been in New York, seen In Flames, been to LA twice, met a celebrity, been to San Diego many times, watched beautiful sunsets in southern California, worn a bikini in February, seen a lot of exotic animals, tried a lot of American things, shopped and more is coming! This time in two days I will see Swedish House Mafia in LA! On spring break I’m going to Texas for a week and on April 22^nd I will go to IKEA and eat easter food. This year will be over in no time at all.

Today I did the usual things with breakfast, homework with the boy, New Super Mario Bros Wii, lunch, work out and a nice long shower. It went a little chaos though when the girl asked me if she could go home with a friend on a hang-out-date. So I took the boy home, we played for a little while until he was supposed to go to a birthday party with his mom. She couldn’t make it so I had to take him to a place in San Marcos. It was a place with inflatable bouncy castles. I had to stay with the girl because I picked her up right before.

When the mum came and took over we went home and watched a little of How To Train Your Dragon and then we had enchiladas for dinner with the dad. It went okay actually. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal for him…

After dinner I continued studying for my test tomorrow. I’ve probably studied too much, but rather safe than sorry! Wish me luck!

This post used to contain pictures, but due to new storage limitations from WordPress, I had to fix the problem and decided to create a new blog that works as an archive for all the posts from my two years in California. This full post can be found here.

I spent two hours in the kitchen cooking dinner today. I set the table very pretty with napkins folded like stars. Yes, I tried to be extra nice today because two days ago everything around here changed. My host dad came up to me and gave me a very long lecture about how I am as a person. I was so surprised I wasn’t able to say anything in my defense to all the horrible things he said about me. I don’t want to write about specifics here, but I got really reallys ad and now the whole situation is super uncomfortable. I love the kids so I really don’t want to go in to a rematch or go home to Sweden, but I wish I could have some time off and go back to my normal life in Sweden for a short amount of time.

Anyway, two hours in the kitchen, making fish pudding, my favourite dish back home! I didn’t want to tell the kids what I was cooking because I thought I would get the same reaction I gave my mum many years ago when she told me we had fish pudding for dinner, disgust. I told them anyway and, yeah, it was not a positiv reaction. The girl was a little bit curious though. Sometimes she acts so much more mature and I love that. Unlike the boy that faked a gag when I told him…

After dinner they both said it was really good! Awesome! The parents liked it too.

Today I didn’t go to the gym and it was kinda nice. Instead I went to European Wax Center again. I really love to spoil myself, especially when I’m not feeling so well. And afterward I went to Extreme Frozen Yoghurt and bought 10oz of delicousness! The girl was on a hang-out-date (she doesn’t like it when I say playdate, obviously, she is ten ;)) so no Starbucks this week either.

In the afternoon me and the boy watched documentaries about dinosaurs and then I had to start with dinner.

Now I’m gonna continue to study for my driver license test and then try to sleep…

 I walked the boy to a friend for a playdate before lunch and one of the houses were overrun by peacocks! I think we counted them to 22. Peacock party!!