This day started with a fire alarm at the boy’s school. We were in the computer lab doing some reading excercises on the computer before school started and in the middle of it all the fire alarm went off and almost killed my ears. Weird to have a fire drill 30 minutes before school starts and since it was over after 10 minutes I guess someone just accidently turned it on.

In my freetime I went to the gym for the first time in a very long time. I went to a spinning class and I think I did pretty good even though I tried taking it easy. I got a headache in the middle of it but I survived one hour.

After the gym I rewarded myself with leftovers from Famous Dave’s. A lot of protein, that’s good after a workout!

For dinner I made Knorr’s lasagnette, the last package my mom brought. Delicious! But soon I can eat it as much as I want.

And now, everything for Hawaii (except car rental) is booked, all the flights and all the hostels/hotels. The total for that ended up at $1500 which is cheap. I mean I’m gonna spend 2.5 weeks on three Hawaii islands!! On Oahu we are staying at Hostelling International Waikiki (I’ve stayed at HI before and they are nice hostels), very close to the world famous Waikiki beach. I’ve heard that that beach is overrated though, but we will see in 71 days! At Maui we are gonna stay at Banana Bungalow Hostel which offers free tours. The location is pretty bad, but with the daily free tours, like beautiful hikes, turtle tour and whale watching. I seriously can’t wait!! And last but not least, the Big Island, where we wanted to make it a little bit more luxurious. We are gonna stay at a hotel resort called Royal Kona Resort. According to the pictures it looks very nice. And for only $135 a night. And we also got one night free because of one of Caroline’s brothers. Awesome!!

I’ve done some googling to see what we can do on the three different islands and I have a long list now. Unfortunately most of the beautiful places on Hawaii are a bit away from everything else so it does seem like we are gonna need a car, at least on Oahu and Big Island. I want to go to Hawaii and see all these beautiful sceneries and if that means we have to get a car, than a car I will get. I love hanging at the beach, but this is probably the only time in my life (hopefully not though) I will go to Hawaii, so I might as well see as much as possible. I can sleep and rest back in Sweden.

I am so thrilled about this trip it’s ridiculous! I’ve said it so many times, but I seriously can’t believe I’m gonna spend 2.5 weeks on Hawaii in such a short time. Two months and ten days!

Daylight saving time made me in a really good mood this morning. For the first time in a very long time the sun was up before me! And my good mood kept going during the whole day for unknown reasons. When I got back home after dropping off the kids me and Caroline booked hostels on Oahu and Maui so after the hotel on Big Island is booked everything is done with that trip. I still have a hard time understanding I’m going to Hawaii!

Today was the first day of my new diet, this 5:2 thing that’s so popular right now. It means that five days a week I eat normally and two days a week I eat less than 500 calories. Today was one of those two days and it worked perfectly fine. My new healthy lifestyle continues tomorrow when I will go to the gym for the first time in ages.

I wasn’t too excited about class, I’ve been tired, but it went by fast. It was a little bit hard today actually and my homework from last week had a lot of red marks on it. Oops.

One bad thing about daylight saving time is that now it gets dark so early in the evening. No, not even evening. Today at 5:30pm it was pitch dark outside… Winter is coming to San Diego aswell….

I have now spent 300 days away from home. Up until this point I haven’t really missed Sweden, but now I do and all of a sudden time stopped moving so fast. But that’s good because I know that I have a very limited time left (10 weekends in San Diego!!). I realized this weekend that I still have a few things I want to do before going home, like the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and Disneyland. I hope I will be able to squeeze that in somewhere.

I did a lot of stuff today and I started the day by having my LCC meeting at the beach in Carlsbad. It was an international potluck and my contribution was Swedish mudpie. It was very nice but I was so full after! I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to eat at Famous Dave’s later… But that wasn’t any problem. Me and Lovisa shared a feast for two and both of us got boxes with us home. So much food!

In between my two feasts today me and Lovisa were shopping with Christin in Escondido. I wanted to buy a pair of boots but couldn’t find any so I ended up buying a t-shirt and a thin hoodie instead, oops. From now on I’m not gonna buy anything else, I really have to save for Hawaii, it’s just 73 days away!

The summer just goes on and on. It doesn’t seem to have an end here in SoCal! This morning at beachvolleyball was so nice, it was like a really warm summerday in Sweden. Clearblue sky, no wind and a lot of dolphins. I played really bad except for when I played with Chad. For the first time since I started playing at Ponto I was bothered by the sun. It was right in my eyes and super annoying.

It was a beautiful morning but after noon something weird happened. One minute it was like I described and the next it was super foggy, cold and windy. So strange! When the fog came everyone left including me.

I switched the beach for the pool where I spent 3 hours reading. I actually got a little burned in my face. In November!!

Tonight I was supposed to have dinner with Lovisa at Famous Dave’s but out of nowhere she started feeling sick so we had to cancel :(. I had really been looking forward to it and now I’m lost and I have no idea what to do… Maybe I should watch a movie or something.

The mornings are really cold now, today it was as low as 52F (=11C)! The sun is still shining though so at noon and in the afternoon when the sun has had some time to warm up it is really nice. Today it was 85F. So it doesn’t really feel like November.

Even if I didn’t go to bed later than usually I was really tired today, so I spent my whole morning sleeping which was awesome. In the afternoon the boy was with his mom at an All Star soccer tryout. That means that a scout was looking at his team playing and the boy was the best in his team so he have the opportunity to join an all-star team with all the best players from different teams around here.  I think me and his mom are more excited about it than he is.

So while they were there me and the girl had some alone time at home. She organized her candy from last night, ate some and while I was baking a Swedish mudpie for my international potluck au pair meeting on Sunday, she was reading. When I was done we both read for a while.

I’m getting used to the complicated language in Under the Dome, but if I’m not focused I don’t understand what I’m reading. I’m one fourth in the book now, just 600 more pages!

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.

Now I’ve experienced the real Halloween and I liked it. I’m gonna try to introduce it to Sweden. My mom told me today that my grandpa have had kids trick or treating this whole week. And if my memory doesn’t fail me I remember that kids used to go trick or treating during two whole weeks, last of October and first of November. It’s supposed to be a big thing on October 31^st!

So first there was a block party across the street with a lot of food. The kids were playing around and the parents were talking, but I, right inbetween a grown up and a kid, was a little left out, so it wasn’t that fun for me, but it was a nice event. When the sun started setting it was time for trick or treating. I was expecting to go with the whole family from house to house, saying “trick or treat” and then get some candy. But not at all. Parents were pretty much running after the running kids who just ran from house to house taking candy. And when it got really dark it was hard seeing the kids up ahead. My kids got glowsticks around their next though, so they were easy to see.

After walking around for a bit we stopped at a house who had a party with more food and drinks. They had real chili so I tried that for the very first time, it was good. They also had my favorite, corn bread!! Maybe I should buy a mix and take home to Sweden.

I had my own pumpkin bucket for candy. The kids had pillow cases and got a lot of candy. I got a reasonable amount. I just went up to a few houses and one lady in one of them told me that I had the most beautiful costume she saw that night. I got a lot of compliments tonight. I was wearing a flapper dress with a feather in my hair, long black gloves, fishnet stockings with rhinestones on the backside and a long pearl necklace. I was from the 20’s tonight. It was cold walking around like that and I will probably sleep with an extra blanket tight around me tonight.

I had a very nice evening with my hostfamily and I’m glad I got to experience Halloween the real way!

I got myself a real big surprise this morning when I saw this, hahaha! xD We finally did these evil eyes but we didn’t have time to put them up. At least I got some arts and craft time with the kids. It’s so hard getting them to do anything like this normally. We were supposed to put a glow stick in them and put them in a tree. My 20’s outfit for the evening. High heels would have killed me and no one saw my sandals in the pitch dark later. I got a lot of compliments during the evening though :).

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 am gonna make this a tradition, no matter where I am. It was so much fun! I must say I’m quite satisfied with the result too. I think my biggest problem was that I drew on the pumpkin by hand copying a tiny tiny picture on a paper on the side.

When I found out that we were gonna carve pumpkins today I immediately started googling for inspiration. I don’t know if I’ve told people this, but I love wolves (and polar bears, but they aren’t exactly Halloween-y), so I found a really cool one. It looked complicated but I am ambitious and accepted the challenge. It turned out it was very easy and I was done first.

I had a few ideas and after consulting with the kids they thought the wolf would be the coolest. The boy took one of my designs and I helped him draw on the pumpkin. I liked his finished pumpkin the best, it was soo cool! The girl wanted to take one of my ideas at first as well, but changed her mind and made a Minnie Mouse instead. It turned out really cute!

My tooth has been pretty okay today, the painkillers take away most of the pain, but I’m still sore and it’s strenuous to eat. I can’t tell if it’s going in the right direction yet because of the antibiotics, but I hope it will be better soon.

I spent my morning down in Del Mar at a brunch place with Lovisa and Emma and it was very nice! It was the first time meeting Emma and it was about time, she’s been here for a month now. I had carrot cake pancake, deeelicious! We talked for one and a half hour and then I had to pick up the kids from school.

After school we just had time for snacks and then I had to drive the girl to soccer practice and when me and the boy got home we did homework and then he had a playdate and pretty much right after that I had to go and pick up the girl again. A lot of driving…

Tomorrow’s halloween and I feel like a little kid, I’m really excited!!

The girl baked cupcakes two days ago and I forgot to post this before. Hallloween decorations outside our house.
A lot of goo! All three pumpkins!

After today I don’t feel like moving back here. The American system doesn’t care about poor people, they are supposed to live their life in pain. I haven’t really understood how good of a country Sweden is and now that I need the free healthcare I miss home more than ever!

I haven’t slept in two days because of the pain in one of my stupid wisdom teeth. I have asked my dentist in Sweden several times if he could remove them but always said no and now I’m so angry with him for not doing what I asked. And now I’m stuck here, supposed to having the time of my life, but instead have a tooth that hurts like hell all the time.

I’m also very angry with Cultural Care for suggesting such a bad insurance to all au pairs. I paid so much for it and it only covers $200 in dental expenses, which is pretty much just the exam… How am I, as a very poor au pair, supposed to afford to remove a wisdom tooth with that?? The only two things that that insurance cover is cavities and wisdom teeth. STUPID!!

At least I got antibiotics and strong painkillers. Apparently my tooth is infected, which makes sense because it is pretty swollen. So now I have to eat penicillin for the next ten days. But it’s cool that I got those orange gallipots. And the medicine was cheap compared.

I hope the swelling goes away with the antibiotic so I can return to my normal tooth ache after that. Hopefully I will be able to get an appointment to remove them as soon as I get back to Sweden in February. I just found out that dental care is free until Dec 31^st the year you turn 23, so I’m not in as much hurry as I first thought (except that I want them gone asap). I just have to find out if that includes pulling out teeth. It will be way cheaper for sure though, so I just have to hold it together for three more months…

I’m so glad this horrible day is over. I just wish my tooth ache could go with it… My morning started with me almost passing out in the kitchen like five times. I sat down for a while, and as soon as I slowly stood up I felt like I was gonna faint, and that was pretty much the whole morning… And that wasn’t all, one of my wisdom teeth have been hurting like crazy today.  It started last night and it made me sleep really bad. Today it’s been the worst tooth ache I’ve ever had. Fortunately Advil is working pretty okay for a few hours. First thing I will do tomorrow is call Aetna and ask if dentistry is included in my insurance and try to make an appointment somewhere as soon as possible. Everyone here is so surprised that the dentists in Sweden didn’t pull mine out. I asked the same question last time I went in Sweden, but he just said that since they were growing straight there was no point in pulling them. Yeah, so I’m supposed to have tooth aches from hell every two months?

When the kids were at school I went to the postal office to send my cousin’s birthday present, I hope she will get it on time. And then I went to Party City. The dress I wanted wasn’t available in my size so I had to buy another 20s dress. Medium was the only size and it was a little too big. But with some safety pins I’m sure it will be alright.

Right back home for a long nap the rest of the morning. Felt a lot better after. I also finished the last Lost Files novella and then started reading something completely different, Under the Dome by Stephen King. The language is way harder than in the young adult books I’ve been reading lately, but I think I will get into it eventually. It’s more than 800 pages so this will probably take some time to finish.

I got my test results from the German test last week and I totally aced it! Not a single tiny error. Class today was about weather and family relations. Pretty easy, but I was tired, and my tooth hurt so I had a hard time focusing… I hope the Advil will start working soon so I can head to 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.

Sunday again and this weekend was so much fun. I attended my first real party here in America. One of the guys from beachvolleyball decorated his super big and awesome house with Halloween stuff. I think he was a contractor so his whole house was like an experiment. Eleven bedrooms with circular walls and stuff. Really cool!

Chad was driving so I could drink. I have been drinking a few times this year but those times were just  like one drink per occasion. Last night was the first time since last fall that I was actually drunk. Lagom, not too much, and I was talking with a lot of people I only just had seen at beachvolley before.  I had a really great evening!

Someone at beachvolleyball that morning said that it was a masquerade party so I bought a mask with Lovisa at Party City and then just had my red dress with it. But some people had Halloween costumes too.
Beachvolleyball was fun, I played pretty okay but it was really cold so as soon as I didn’t play I was freezing.

After volleyball I had brunch with Lovisa at the Broken Yolk and then we went to Party City. I didn’t have time to look for a costume for myself for trick or treating on Thursday, but Lovisa bought a bumblebee dress for her Halloween party that evening. I now know what I want to wear so I will go back tomorrow and buy my costume.

It feels like this post was kinda disorganized but I don’t care, I’m tired and I know that I have an awesome weekend behind me :).