It’s been a weird day today, it felt like I had just started being an au pair because my hostparents were with me almost the whole day. But I am so glad they were, it would have been hard finding the girl’s new school, know where to park and how it all worked. But now I do. Unfortunately I won’t be able to try it for myself tomorrow because she has 102F temperature (39C) so she has to stay home tomorrow.

My new working schedule looks like this. I start working at 6:30am. I empty the dishwasher and prepare the kids’ lunches if I didn’t do it the afternoon before. Breakfast for the kids at 6:45 and then I take both of them to the girl’s school which starts at 8:02am. Then back again to drop off the boy at his school, it’s nice that he still goes to the same school as before, so I know what where to park and everything, but now he is one of the big kids, a first grader! When he starts at 8:45 I get off work until 1:30pm when I have to drive to the girl’s school and pick her up. Then back again to the boy’s school which ends at 3:10pm. Home, eating snacks and doing homework and then play until the parents get home around 6:30pm. It’s gonna be a lot of driving this fall, and a lot of time waiting in the car.

On top of this they have activities after school some days too. The girl has soccer practice twice a week, the boy has it once, and they both are going to Swedish school once a week. Don’t know if it’s any more than that yet.

Anyway, the girl was super excited when we got to her new school this morning, she was running around like I don’t know, saying hello to friends, comparing schedules and so on. And she was still very excited when we picked her up. I think she is gonna enjoy middle school!

The boy didn’t say much about school as usual, but I got the feeling that he liked it too.

In my freetime today I got my B12 shot and bought something for my brother’s birthday last week. I haven’t had time to send it until now, so tomorrow it will finally be on its way. I also had lunch at IKEA since I was already down there for the shot. Meatballs with mashed potatoes, creamy sauce and lingonberries. Yummy! I also took a quick tour inside and looked at china, I have to buy a new set when I get back to Sweden. I also find a really nice and big picture of San Diego skyline. I hope they have it back in Sweden, it would have been so awesome to have that on my wall!

Oh right, my headache still won’t go away. Almost every day for 10 days now. It’s not fun anymore 😦

Now it’s dinner soon and after that I’m going to Starbucks to say a final goodbye to Giorgia. I’m gonna miss her!

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.

Not updating the blog for a while can mean two things, either I haven’t done anything or too much. Weekends are mostly the later. My plans on Friday night were sushi and the movies with Chad. We saw The Wolverine and it wasn’t at all like the first or the other X-men movies, but it was good and worth seeing.

No beach volleyball on Saturday, it was too hard to get out of bed, the movie on Friday did not end until like 12:45am. In the afternoon on Saturday I didn’t do anything special, just stayed in bed reading. On Friday I finished the last Narnia book and started reading the second Percy Jackson (which I finished today).

My neighbor asked me if I wanted to go to the baseball game on Saturday afternoon/evening. I wanted to go and asked Chad if he wanted to come along, even if I knew he wasn’t such a big baseball fan. He came along anyway and we ended up having a nice time, even though we missed the train and had to drive there instead. My hostdad and the boy went to the game too. My hostmom and the girl were supposed to go as well, but the girl just found out she had pneumonia. Poor girl! So we sat with them for a while. We didn’t stay the whole game, so we left after the 8^th inning. The Padres were in the lead with 5-2 and the game ended with 8-2.

Today I spent the day in bed reading as well. And at 5pm I was at Giorgia’s goodbye party. I can’t believe she is going home already! It was a really nice evening and her four kids were super excited to have 20 nannies in the house. When I arrived they showed me where I could park and screamed “Nanny party over here!” so we should know where it was. They also served us food during the evening and took away the dishes. I don’t remember the ages, but even the youngest (maybe 4-5) helped serve us. The oldest girl kept hugging everyone all the time too. So adorable!

I got home at nine and just now I got my schedule for next week. The girl starts school an hour earlier than in the spring which means I will also start earlier. But I think I will get used to it eventually!

Now it’s time for bed and Percy Jackson and the Titan’s Curse!

I just finished my last day of work for this summer. On Monday I will have a new schedule which will give me time to start working out again. Some days I might even have time to be at the beach for a few hours when the kids are in school.

This day was pretty slow too, the girl had 102F (39,5C) this morning and spent the whole day in bed watching Netflix. The boy had a playdate in the morning and during that time I finished the last Narnia book and started the second Percy Jackson. When he got home again we had some time to kill before lunch and we played Creationary, a Lego game, and it was really hard. Leftovers for lunch and then the boy had a lot of things to do in the afternoon, like a dentist appointment, meeting his new first grade teacher and a birthday party, so I was here with the girl and my day ended with me and my hostdad picking up my car from the service.

Now I’m reading while waiting for better times (=plans)…

Tonight I went to the movies with Sarah and two new au pairs, Jessica and Pavlina. We saw Grown Ups 2 and it was really funny. And very cheap. We didn’t go to Edwards where a movie ticket is $12, we went to Digiplex and the ticket only cost $6.

My day was pretty hard, my headache was back for some stupid reason. I drink as much water as I can and my lunch today was super healthy, leftovers from Tuesday, couscous and salmon, with a salad. I’ve really started to like my healthy lunches!

Now I will go to bed and finish The Last Battle, the seventh Narnia book.

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 haven’t thought about that before, food coloring in pancakes to make it funnier. Yesterday when me and the girl baked cupcakes and I made blue frosting I got the idea. They became more green than blue, but it was still cool. The girl requested pink pancakes next time, haha!

I’ve been feeling a lot better today, no headache at all! My stomach is still bothering me, but at least I know why and that it will go away in a few days.

The girl was feeling pretty bad today so she didn’t do much, she read a lot and watched some TV. Me and the boy played games in the morning and after our blue lunch he had a friend over.

It was my turn to cook dinner and I made honey/garlic glazed salmon in the oven with couscous, steamed broccoli and tartar sauce. I thought it was really good! And it was kinda funny because when my hostdad saw me cooking he asked me if my hostmom asked me to do salmon today, I said no, I was just in the mood for it. And then he said that he had called her today at work asking if she could cook salmon tonight. The same thing happened when I first got here and gave my hostparents two Ekelund kitchen towels from Sweden and my hostdad asked me if I had talked to one of the old au pairs about him collecting kitchen towels. Which she of course didn’t.

Tonight I’ve also signed up for my last 3 credits here in the US, German! I think it’s good that I take this class now. Because right now I really want to take German classes when I get back to Sweden but since I know myself I probably wouldn’t do it when it would come to it. But if I start now and end the class just two months before I get back to Sweden I will have more motivation to actually do it. So I guess I have to find out where and how to do those classes pretty soon.

Last thing about today is that I’ll probably finish another book tonight. I only have 20 pages left in the first Percy Jackson book, but I’m not gonna start the second one just yet. Since I have the best mom in the world, she sent me new versions of all the Narnia books, which works in my eReader. So my next project, The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

Okay, once last thing. Today’s my little brother’s 20th birthday (which is huge in Sweden because you can legally buy alcohol)! Happy Birthday to you if you’re reading this!

The headache continues and I have no idea why. I’m drinking enough water, I’m eating. So why is my head trying to kill me? Four days in a row is not particularly funny :(. And that’s not enough, my stomach is trying to twist me from the inside and out. Sometimes life just sucks, even here in California…

I think I’m gonna eat some chocolate,  go to bed and hope tomorrow will be a better day!

I never have headaches normally but this whole weekend it’s been bothering me. I have no idea and I’ve been taking it easy most of the times.

Yesterday morning I picked up Sarah, the new Swedish girl, and we played some beachvolley together at Ponto. She has been playing a lot of indoor volleyball and we didn’t do too bad!

At 11am Hanna and Lukas finally found the beach and we hanged out for an hour before I had to drive Sarah home. But first the two of us had brunch at the Broken Yolk. I had sweet potato pancakes with cinnamon, really delicious!

I drove back to Ponto where Hanna and Lukas had spent a couple of hours. We had half an hour before they had to go. I stayed and read for a while before I went home and showered before going to Chad’s place. We had homemade sushi (really good!), his brother had caught the fish, and then we watched Jack the Giant Slayer. I have to admit that Nicholas Hoult was sexier in Warm Bodies.

Today I spent the whole afternoon by myself at the pool reading and sleeping. I got a little burned actually, but nothing serious, it will probably be gone tomorrow. I finished Mockinjay and started reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief because the girl loves those books and really wanted me to read them. I’ve seen the movie so I recognize everything I’m reading.

Mockinjay was good, but I liked Catching Fire the best. There were so much going on in the end and I didn’t really understand everything. But it was a really good series and I can’t wait for the next movie in November. And now I will warm up with the first movie in my bed.

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.

Once again I have this weird feeling. It was so nice seeing Hanna again, but at the same time it felt odd having something from my old life interfering with my new life here in California. We had a very nice evening at the Cheesecake Factory and Coronado though. Me and Chad met Hanna and Lukas outside of the restaurant a little after 7pm, we got the table almost right away.

I tried a burger for the first time, smokehouse BBQ burger with onion rings, bacon and bbq ranch sauce. Yummy! My cheesecake today was Snickers Bar and Chunk Cheesecake. Not one of the best I’ve had, but really good anyway.

Since this was Hanna and Lukas’ last evening in San Diego I told them they had to go to Coronado to look at San Diego’s skyline. Chad have never been there either and I never get tired of seeing it.

I drove Chad home and now it’s time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow I’m meeting the new Swedish au pair who got here just a week ago, exciting!

I’m not sure how much I will read from now on. My mom (thank you for sending everything I ask for, I’m so glad for DropBox!) sent me the .iso for the new Sims expansion and I am just about to start it. Paradise Island sounds definitely like something for me!

Mockinjay is really awesome aswell, but it’s so short so it will probably be over soon enough anyway. I have already read more than 80 pages out of 280. Some mornings, when the kids doesn’t come down until like 8:45, I have at least 45 minutes to read which is a pretty nice start of the day.

This day was spent at the library and the pool. Both the kids lent many books at the library.

In the afternoon the girl had a friend over and we went to the pool. There the boy found the boy from next door and soon thereafter another one of his friends came. It was pleasantly warm today and the water was cool. A very nice afternoon!

I don’t want to write anything more now, I want to play, so goodbye 🙂

I’m as surprised this month as all the other ones that another one has passed without big notice. Seven months? It’s really hard to believe. I know I have six more months (five working months), but it will be over so soon. In two months I have to request my flight home to Sweden, which means I probably should start looking for something to do in my travel month.

It’s been a long day today, but it was okay, I got some rest when the boy had a playdate at our house and the girl was at the pool with some friends. While the boys were playing nicely in the backyard I was enjoying the beautiful weather (the summer has finally arrived here!) and my book. I was too tired to read yesterday so I’m not done yet. But tonight I will, just nine more pages! I really love these books.

I made dinner tonight, homemade pizza on scone bread. Nothing special, just tomato sauce, ham and cheese, but really really good! When I get back home I’m gonna continue making my own pizza (I’ve never done it before for some stupid reason).

Oh, I’ve totally forgot about this, but this last weekend I finally saw the last registration plate, North Dakota! The second last plate, I saw four months ago…