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.

My bracelet I bought at Aquatica was getting bad, so I decided to change the stretched elastic string to a non-elastic string and a clasp. So I went to the girl’s favorite store, Michaels. It’s a ridiculously big arts and crafts store. It took some time to find what I needed, and after that I was looking for something to buy for the girl’s birthday that’s coming up in three weeks. She said she wanted frosting things, but I think I have to go through the stuff she has first so I don’t buy what she already has. My mom bought two books at a book seminar or something the other day for my hostkids and she will send them here so I can give them those at Christmas. And I wanted to buy the Golden Compass triology for the girl, either birthday or Christmas, but I thought it would be boring for her to just get books on Christmas, so I bought them now instead, for her birthday. I hope she will love them as much as I do! It feels great to already have bought the gift so I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Speaking of gifts, I am gonna send a gift home to Sweden for moi. Why waste baggage weight when I’m going home for candy? I might as well send it home in a box. So today I bought some bags of M&M White Chocolate Candy Corn and different flavors of Skittles. Now I just have to wait for the package from Amazon with Mentos Green Apple and then hope my mom doesn’t open that package before I come home in about a hundred days ;).

I also bought a bag of Swedish Fish. I’ve been here more than nine months and I haven’t tried the fish that are supposed to be from Sweden. They didn’t taste like the real ones at all, but I liked them! It’s not something I will continue to buy when I feel like a sweet tooth, but they were alright.

This week at the kids’ schools is red ribbon week. Drug awareness or something like that. So they had different clothing themes each day. The girl had “closet explosion” today, and the boy had “future career day”. He is always talking about that he wants to work where his dad is working, at a normal but big company. So today he wore one of his dad’s piké shirts with the company logo and a tiny tie. The shirt was so big it went down to his knees and covered all of his shorts. He looked so adorable!!

I did my extra big German homework today at Swedish School. And until the accident I read The Lost Files. Those novellas are only 100 pages, so I finish at least one every day. Wonder what I will read next?

Anyway, the accident is the boy throwing up pink. One of the moms came and patted my shoulder and told me that the boy was throwing up. I made him drink water and then I rushed home. I really really hate puke and as soon as someone in my presence puke I feel like I have to do it too. He did it one more time in the car, but fortunately I didn’t hear or smell anything but I still felt uneasy. At home he said he was fine but he just threw up again.

This probably means that I have to be home with a puking kid the whole day tomorrow…. That’s like my worst nightmare 😦

Arts and craft :D. I forgot to take a picture of how it looks now, and I don’t wanna remove it from my wrist (it was hard putting it there xD), but it turned out really good.

A very normal day with Starbucks in the afternoon. I’m such a sucker when it comes to pumpkin things. Chai Latte with a pump of pumpkin spice is my new favorite Starbuck drink, and that together with pumpkin bread made my afternoon.

Last night after I said goodnight to the kids the boy came down like three times. First he said that he realized that it was a long time ago he had pancakes for lunch and that he wanted it (so this afternoon I made some pink pancakes for  the kids’ lunchboxes). And then he told me about all his favorite foods but couldn’t remember one of them. He walked upstairs and came down five minutes later to tell me that he remembered what it was, mac and cheese. So adorable. The third time he came down was because he was coughing a lot and that he had coughed 40 times since he last came down. I gave him some water and told him that if it didn’t help he should come down again. He never did, but fell asleep. The girl came down once too, and asked me if the little guest boy had made any noises and if he did I would wake her up so he could calm him down. I have the cutest hostkids!

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 girl (with a little help from me) baked something amazing today. A few weeks ago I found a website, http://www.ktmadeit.com, which is a baking/cooking site. All the stuff there looked incredible and there are a lot of things I want to try some time. The first thing was gooey butter cookies. It’s pretty much just yellow cake mix, cream cheese and egg, the balls rolled in powdered sugar. I think ours were in the oven a little too long, because they weren’t particularly gooey, but super delicious anyway! I’m definitely saving this recipe for another time.

Right now I’m actually working. Our guests, that didn’t just stay for the weekend, but for the whole week are out for dinner. Well, not the kids, but all the grownups went out for sushi. Can’t really say it’s hard working late nights. The guests kids went to sleep before the parents left because they are so young and all I had to do with my kids was entertain them for 45 minutes and then read for the boy until the lights had to go out at 9pm. So now I’m just listening extra carefully for sounds on the baby monitor and doing what I usually do, reading and/or watching Two and a Half Men.

I really enjoy this German class. Maybe it’s because I’m doing so well, but I look forward to every class on Monday evenings. Even today when I had a test waiting for me. I was done with the four questions in five minutes, looked it through twice in three minutes and the rest of the half hour I just rolled my thumbs. I think I might get 100%, that would be a first!

After the test we talked about body parts and family. Super easy. I didn’t really understand what the teacher said in the end about the paragraph about our family that we should write, if it was due next Monday or in two weeks or if it even was part of the homework. I’m ambitious so I will do it anyway. I’m aiming high this time, not just for a pass.

This morning I skyped with mom for two hours. She helped me a lot with my application letter to CalPoly. And we were talking about everything and nothing after that as usual. She told me that my brother has applied for a recruiting job at Liseberg. I really hope he gets it so he can give me a job there next spring/summer, that would be so awesome!

I had leftovers from Cheesecake Factory for lunch and then it was time to pick up the kids from school. Stressful as normal right after, but we made it on time to the boy’s soccer practice today as well. Poor guy got a ball right in his face and he started crying like crazy, but after some comforting words from me he was ready to play again. I’ve been in that situation a few times at beach volleyball practice, it’s more shock than pain.

I finished my book, The Fall of Five, the fourth book in the Lorien Legacies. The next one isn’t coming until like August next year… I hate when you have to wait for the next book in a series!

My next reading project is the Lost Files, a spin off series from Lorien Legacies.

Oh yeah, I forgot to write something about the surfing yesterday. When I walked out in the water for the first time I stepped on something very slimy and as a Swedish person my first thought was jellyfish! Super gross. But then I realized there aren’t any jellyfish here, I haven’t seen any at least. Chad told me it might have been some kind of ray. Didn’t hear what he said but I’ve heard there are stingrays here and if it was one of those I’m really glad I just stepped on its back and not its tail. That would have hurt….

What a weekend! And now, there are only 12 more before Hawaii. It’s so crazy!

Yesterday morning I played beachvolley for the first time in four weeks. I was afraid that I was gonna be horrible but it’s like riding a bike, you never really forget it. I played a lot and it was seriously the perfect day to be at the beach. Blue sky, hardly any wind and a comfortable temperature. And it’s October! The weather now, except in the mornings and evening, are like the Swedish summer, it’s so weird but I’m not complaining, not at all!

After several hours of playing I got hungry so Chad took me to lunch and then we did some shopping at the Carlsbad outlet mall. I was a good girl and didn’t buy anything.

In the evening we had a double date with his brother and sister in law. Escape Plan at Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas. I’ve been there for so I knew what to expect and it was as nice this time with the leather seats and seats you could recline. The movie was really good too! I didn’t have any expectations, but I can’t really say I’m a big fan of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Escape Plan was well worth seeing! It was about a guy, Stallone, who broke out of jails for a living.

The evening wasn’t done after the movie. Our next stop was a bar in Encinitas where we met up with two other couples for a while. I was really tired, but it was still nice.

A little sleep in this morning, breakfast burrito in San Marcos and the rest of the day I spent in Chad’s bed reading/sleeping. I don’t know why I was so tired today… At 4pm we packed the car with two wetsuits and two surfing boards. I could borrow one of his brothers long boards, very nice of him! The waves were small, perfect for me but too tiny for Chad so I’m not sure he had as much fun as I had. We didn’t have time for so many waves since I had my LCC meeting at 7pm. But I stood up once for about 2-3 seconds. Unfortunately Chad didn’t see, but it still happened :).

My LCC meeting this month was at the Scream Zone at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, where the San Diego County Fair was in the summer. I wasn’t excited at all since I hate being scared. And what I hate more than that is to pay for getting scared shitless… But I had to so I paid the $15 and went on the Haunted Hayride with like half my group. I texted Lovisa this afternoon asking if she wanted to go with me and she wanted to. And when we met up outside she gave me some Marabou chocolate, so very sweet of her!! I was really glad she came, it would have been embarrassing screaming that much with people I didn’t really know. I don’t think I’ve seen half of the girls in my au pair group, we are so many now, like 15! Anyway, the haunted hayride was a bunch of people sitting on a loading platform full of hay being dragged by a four wheel thingy. I sat with my back against the edge and pretty close to it. A big mistake! The ride went on what felt like forever. A lot of people running up to us scaring the crap out of us. They didn’t touch us but were so close all the time. First we went through a zombie area, which was the scariest and longest part, then a clown/toy area that wasn’t too bad, and then I was too scared to pay any more attention to what was going on. The only thing I noticed was when people came up, breathing or screaming in my neck. I was laughing, and I guess it was kinda funny, but I screamed like a little girl all the time. The only one screaming as much as me was my LCC, haha! I wonder why she wanted to have the meeting there when she hates scary stuff.

Anyway, now I’m home, eating the rest of my pumpkin pecan cheesecake from Friday. I think I will be able to sleep without any nightmares.

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 long Friday lies behind me. I’m so tired but it’s been a really good day. I totally fell in love with the M&M Candy Corn White Chocolate in Las Vegas so I decided it was time to find a store that sold them here in San Diego but that was easier said than done. After some googling I realized that the only store selling them were Walmart so today I drove to three different stores just to look for them. Totally worth it though, it’s seriously the best candy I’ve ever had!!

A quick shower, a nap and lunch. I have time to do so many things in the mornings nowadays!

After school the kids had their last soccer clinic so I sat by while the boy were playing, talking to his friends mom. I drove us back home at five  and came back at 6:30pm to pick up the girl. At that time the really warm afternoon (25C) had turned cold and I was glad I changed clothes while I was home.

This weekend we are having guests at the house. It’s a Canadian/German family and the kids have been so excited about this for so long.

The evening I spent at The Cheesecake Factory with Sarah, Lovisa, Vivien and Becks. Mainly because we needed to decide how to do on Saturday November 9^th and the Avicii concert. We didn’t decide much more than to stay the night in LA and that we are going there in two groups, one early and one later in the afternoon. I’m so excited about that weekend, just three more weeks! :).

I had Farfalle Chicken with Roasted Garlic and I think I’ve had that one before. Words cannot describe it, it was heavenly!! For dessert I had the Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake, my number 12. It was really good. So far none of the cheesecakes I’ve tried have been not-so-tasty. And I guess that’s why the restaurant is called The Cheesecake Factory.

Best candy ever!!

Number 12, Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake.

Another normal day is over. After the kids went to school I called Hertz and asked when I would get my money back and  if everything was okay with the car I returned. I just dropped the keys in a box so I wanted to make sure everything was alright. It was, and I will probably get my money tomorrow.

After that I slept for 2.5 hours until I made lunch and then picked up the kids again. Thursday means Swedish School and today it was my time to help in the boy’s classroom. I didn’t do much until the end when I helped the kids with coloring different Swedish mushrooms: kantarell, murkla and flugsvamp. I also read a poem to them.

Back home, dinner and now I will finish The Rise of Nine, ten more pages. I love this series, The Lorien Legacies. Kinda reminds me of The Hunger Games. This is the third book, and I only have one more, then I’ll have to wait for the last three, hopefully not for too long.

No nap for me today even if I felt like I really needed one. But I think I came to an understanding today why I’ve been so tired lately. I’ve not been taking the B12-shots as often as I did in the beginning because I thought I only had 15 of them so I tried spreading them out during the rest of my year. But it turns out I can get as many as I want, so I will go and get one at least every two weeks from now on. It’s been really hard trying to function when all I can think about is sleeping.

Getting a shot was one of the things I did. I also went to the post office to pick up a packaged that was delivered on Friday, but I wasn’t here to sign. That was too bad, because that was an outfit I would have loved to have in Vegas. I also went to the library to print a lot of stuff, my flight itinerary to Hawaii, my application form for the exchange program and my picture of a German fashion model for homework this week. We were supposed to print a picture and then draw arrows and write what she/he was wearing.

After all that I only had time to make lunch and then it was time to pick up the kids. The boy had a playdate and the girl was at soccer practice so I had a little time for myself in the afternoon.

When I got off work I packed my German stuff to go to Chad’s, but the neighbor rang on the door telling us his exwife just got a puppy and he was taking care of it today or something like that. So I took the kids out to take a look at it and oh my god, it was so adorable! It was a mix of something and a chihuahua and it was fluffy and black. Three months old and the cutest thing ever. I got to hold it!

I spent the evening with Chad studying. I finished all my homework and started studying for the test on Monday. I don’t think that will be any big problem.

This morning was really hard and I had to bite my tongue and focus on patience. My hostdad drove the girl to school which meant that I had an hour at home with the boy before his school. He was allowed to be on the iPad for another ten minutes after he left and then I was gonna do some homework with him. But when I told the boy that the ten minutes were up he became so anti and angry and sad and everything. He definitely didn’t want to do any homework and just wanted to play on the iPad. I’m fine with him playing it, because I was totally like that when I was young too, I know how nice it was to spend some time in front of the TV or the super big computer (we didn’t have any iPads when I grew up…) after a lot of homework. But when he gets to play it and then gets super sad and angry because I tell him he has to do something else, that’s just too much. It’s impossible to reason with him and I don’t know how to handle it :(. Today I solved the problem by telling him that I was gonna call his dad. The boy claimed his dad told him he could do some reading after the iPad, when in fact he told me to do spelling with him. As soon as I mentioned the phone call, he came to his senses and came downstairs with me to do his spelling. Kids are so weird. One moment they are crying their eyes out, the next they are happy, like nothing happened. But they are still awesome and I wouldn’t change this year for anything in the world!!

The day was over really quickly, I can’t understand it’s Wednesday already…

I just finished a really simple but delicious dinner with my hostfamily. I felt like being extra Swedish today so I made mashed potatoes, meatballs, lingonberries and cream sauce. I did the same like I did a few weeks ago and everyone loved it! When the girl saw what I had made for dinner she thanked me so much for cooking that and gave me a really big hug. Simple but good!

This morning I had a headache but after my more than 2 hour nap it went away and I don’t feel as tired and exhausted as I did yesterday after the weekend.

The afternoon was mellow, the boy was at a playdate and the girl wanted to start reading Catching Fire so I read a little in The Rise of Nine. Halfway done already. Then I started with dinner and now it’s time for a shower. I have way too many errands that I have to do tomorrow.

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 weekend in Vegas flew by so fast! I had so much fun and I’m already longing to go back. This time I went there with Lovisa, Nicole, Laura and we met up with a Swedish girl from Boston. Five girls in Las Vegas for a weekend, what else do one need?

The weekend started with many hours behind the wheel. My hostdad dropped me off at the car rental place and from there I drove down south to pick up the other three girls. A detour of 1 hour wasn’t too much fun. We stopped at Subway where me and Lovisa bought dinner and I bought chips and cookies, it was gonna be a long drive. But even if it took a long time and we didn’t get to the hotel until like 1:30am it wasn’t so bad driving. The road was just straight all the way and with cruise control it was super easy.

Louise was already at the room since a few hours and we got to bed right when we got there. Five girls with two beds was no problem at all. There was a big arm chair and two footstools and we built a bed for Lovisa. I think she had it more comfortable than the rest of us. The beds were so hard…

Saturday morning started with a little walk to Starbucks where we had breakfast. And then back to the car and I drove us to Valley of Fire. Grand Canyon was closed so we went to another national park instead which was much closer, just a little more than an hour drive away. We weren’t there for so long, but we took photos and saw the extremely red mountains. It was really cool!

After that we went directly to Hard Rock Café for an earlier dinner at 5pm. I wanted to try something new, but the coward in me decided to have to normal California burger. I also had a Strawberry Mojito which I regretted. It wasn’t good, but on the other hand they donated like $1 to breast cancer research.

After dinner did the big tour of the Las Vegas Strip by foot. First we went to M&M’s World where a lady handed out samples of their Halloween flavor Candy Corn and White Chocolate. Me and Lovisa fell in love with that and bought a bag of it each. Then we saw MGM, Luxor, The Cosmopolitan, Caesar’s Palace and a tiny part of New York New York. It doesn’t sound like much but the strip is way bigger than it looks like and walking from Luxor back to Ceasar’s Palace is quite the walk!

At the hotelroom I took a shower, got dressed, drank a glass of wine and at 10:30pm we went to Hyde Nightclub at Bellagio across the street. I was told to be there at 11, and we were there at exactly 11. I asked for the guy who were gonna let us in. But the bouncer looked like he didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding him, so he just checked our ID’s and gave us free cover tickets. And we skipped the line. My self esteem rose like I don’t know what, I’ve never been able to skip the line and the cover like that, we must have looked pretty. The club was small but had an amazing view over the Bellagio fountain. At first they played good music but after a while they changed, just like they have done at the nightclubs in San Diego. So we only stayed for one drink, we talked with a bunch of guys on a bachelor party and when our feet hurt too much to stand the bad music we went out in the casino to try and gamble.

I’ve never gambled in my whole life and I have no idea how to do it. So I sat down at a roulette table with minimum betting $10. At first I didn’t think it looked complicated, but the more I sat there, the less I understood. Louise stood behind me and understood the rules pretty fast but I didn’t understand when she tried to explain. But I guess that didn’t matter because I walked away with $140. I started with $20. I was super lucky and got the right number twice in a row and after that I started to understand the rules and realized how bold I had been with my bettings and walked away while I still had some piles of chips. But it was so much fun! The adrenaline was pumping and I really want to do it again someday. $120 is not super much, but it’s still money and I got super happy. I can imagine how glad I would be if it was ten times as much ;). We’ll see if I have time to come back this year.

We got back to the hotel room at 3am and I fell asleep right away.

Sunday started with a breakfast buffet at the hotel for $12. It was good and I stopped myself before I got too full. Right after that we took a quick trip to the Las Vegas sign and then dropped off Louise at the hotel, she was gonna go on a helicopter tour over Grand Canyon, and the rest of us went home to San Diego. The traffic was horrible but we came home not too late. I was home pretty late since I dropped everyone off. Chad picked me up at the car rental place at 7pm and I spent the evening with him. He invited me to his family’s Thanksgiving dinner in a little more than a month. I didn’t really realize what he was asking because I was so tired and my shoulder hurt again, but it made me really happy that he asked. It feels like that is kind of a big deal :). My hostfamily is also having a Thanksgiving dinner, so I hope they are at different times so I can go to both and get fat twice!

I was too tired to write anything last night. And I have been super tired this whole day too. After a couple of naps and long nights of sleep I will probably be fine again!

Nicole, me, Louise, Laura and Lovisa The Strip in daylight… … kinda different from the Strip in the evening! The pretty view from the club!

My day today was nice and went away fast. I skyped with mom this morning, then I slept for a while. Picked up the kids, drove them to soccer practice, finished my book The Power of Six, started on the next one The Rise of Nine, and then spent the evening at UCSD Extension. The teacher talked a lot about grammar today. I didn’t think the grammar was too bad in 8^th grade, but that was probably because I was studying Swedish grammar at the same time. Now I don’t remember anything at all and it’s confusing. But I guess I will get a hang of it eventually!