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.

A lot of stuff has been going on this weekend. Two bonfires, firedancers, beachvolley, a lot of dolphins, stand up paddling and surfing.

FRIDAY

As soon as I got off work at 6:30pm I drove to Ponto Beach to participate in the bonfire and BBQ. I was too late for the BBQ and I was way too tired to play any beachvolleyball so I just sat down in the sand, watching the last few games and talked to people. At sunset they set up the small bonfire and soon thereafter two firedancers entertained our big company on the beach. They weren’t particularly good but it was still a fun thing the organizers put together for us. After that we just sat at the beach listening to a guy playing guitar and singing, it was very nice!

SATURDAY

My day started extremely early, 7am at Moonlight Beach to drop off the firewood. Unfortunately all the firepits where taken again… So I drove to Ponto and was there super early for once. Not many people showed up, probably because they played on Friday and went home pretty late (didn’t stop me though, and I left the beach at 11:30pm). But that was perfect, not many players, the weather was awesome, cloudy in the beginning, not so much wind and then the sun showed up.  And, during the whole morning there were tons of dolphins just outside of the shore. There were like four groups just swimming by, but there were also two or more groups playing/eating in the same spot for a very long time. So I could see dolphins almost all the time. So amazing!!

After beachvolley I drove down to Fashion Valley to have lunch with Moa and Christin. I had a flatbread pizza with roasted pear, blue cheese and pecans. It was really delicious! And since I wasn’t sure we were gonna have the bonfire at Moonlight that night I bought the new cheesecake, S’mores Gallore. Chocolate cheesecake with melted marshmallows and crackers on top.

After the late lunch I drove back home, took a shower, talked a little with the new Swedish au pair on facebook and then I drove to Moonlight. After a while we asked a group of people around a firepit if we could share and we could. So we could barbecue our S’mores eventually. A lot of new au pairs came, most of them Germans. Always fun to meet new people!

SUNDAY

Today was my 8^th LCC meeting and we did stand up paddling. I brought Sarah and Christin to the meeting and we all tried the paddling in Carlsbad Lagoon. For once, we were a lot of au pairs, like 8, three who just arrived on Friday. We only had two boards so I went up first with our LCC. I was afraid I was gonna fall, but it wasn’t so hard. It wouldn’t have mattered if I did fall, it was a pretty hot day today. But now instead I feel skilled that I managed to do it right away. It was really fun, but tough on my arms.

After the meeting Chad took me to a surf contest in Oceanside, Supergirl Pro. When we got there we met up with three from the beachvolley group and watched the finals between two very young girls. It would have been soo cool to be that good at surfing, and after today’s afternoon it feels like I’m very far away from even standing up, at least out from the beach, on a real wave, not just the white stuff closer to the beach…

We had lunch at a Mexican place in Oceanside and then me and Chad drove to Terramar Beach. I tried for a while, and with a push from Chad I actually caught a pretty big wave and I was surfing on the top of it for a few seconds. Just on my stomach, but it was still a pretty amazing feeling!

This weekend was awesome, I’m super tired right now, but I love doing stuff all the time! Next weekend Hanna will be here for a short while. It will be so nice seeing her again. Can’t believe it has already been seven months since I saw her.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos from today’s stand up paddling, but I will get tomorrow from Christin and I will post them then.

Goodnight!