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.

What happened to July? And more importantly, what happened to more than half of the year?!

Today I did something I’ve never done before and should have done a long time ago. I went to Leo Carillo Ranch that’s just around the corner. It’s an “old” (probably even as old as a hundred years!) ranch with a lot of peacocks. I’ve seen the peacocks walking around on our street but today I saw them at their home. I’m kinda disappointed that I’ve only seen the males spread their feathers once (and that was at that peacock party at a house on the street), it’s so beautiful when they do that. We did see a baby peacock today though. It looked like a female but super tiny. I was there for a couple of hours with the kids playing hide and go seek.

Other than that it’s been a normal day with homework, reading and eating. My lunch today was a quinoa salad with chicken, aragula, spinach, feta cheese and salsa ranch dressing. It was so good that I will do something similar tomorrow but with the leftover vegetables from tonight’s tacos. Before lunch we made fortune cookies, they weren’t the prettiest cookies I’ve seen, but really tasty!

I don’t know what I will do now, read or watch another episode of True Blood… Tough decision!

In the shadow beside the house lies a baby peacock

Today I finished the fourth and last book in The Inheritance Cycle about Eragon. I hate when a good book has to end, and it is hard choosing the next one to read because I’m not sure it will be as good. Everyone keeps telling me that The Hunger Games are pretty awesome so I guess I will be fine. I was hoping to finish the Narnia series first though, but the last two books don’t work in my eReader… Guess I will have to read them when I’m back in Sweden again.

Other things that happened today was that we went to the movies in the morning again. Today we saw Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. And in the afternoon we went to Starbucks for the first time in ages.

I’ve also started with my exchange program application. I know I’m early, the deadline is December 1^st, but I feel like I need the time to get everything right. First of all I have to decide if I want to move to San Luis Obispo, CA or Chicago, IL (at the moment Chicago sounds more attractive), and I have to write a motivation letter to why I want to be an exchange student in the US, and then I have to find the classes I want to take and make sure I can be credited for them at Chalmers. Much work! So a little at a time until I get there is probably a very good idea. Otherwise I won’t be getting so much sleep in the end of November…

I don’t know if I’ve written this before but I’ve decided what my second and last class during my au pair year will be, German. The Sustainability course isn’t available this semester and there is nothing else I would like to take. And since I’ce decided I want to learn German, I might as well start right away!

Now I will watch the season premiere of True Blood. I totally forgot that that show started again in June! Hello blood, sex and violence!

The boy’s birthday was today and I’m glad I was feeling a lot better so I could do stuff with the kids today without feeling almost-dead afterward. This day started with breakfast in bed for the boy, he opened his presents and ate his big cupcake. He got some customized army lego stuff, a Star Wars lego set, some Skylanders figures (it’s a Wii game), hmm, don’t remember what else except a mini soccer ball from me. He got really excited about it, probably because he loved the one he lost the day after he got it.

After that we went to the movies and saw Yogi Bear for $1 each. Tomorrow we will see Journey 2: the Mysterious Island. These summer kids movies are awesome. Too bad we missed the best ones in the beginning of the summer when the kids were in Sweden.

The car needed cleaning again, so we spent half an hour washing it in the driveway, now it’s all shiny again. I even vacuumed inside the car!

In the late afternoon I let the kids play with their new characters in Skylanders and they seemed to really enjoy that.

For dinner we had breakfast according to the boy’s birthday wishes. The grownups had omelette and the kids had muffins. Weird, but yummy! Dessert was a delicious meringue cake!

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 feel a little bad that I’m not updating my blog so often anymore but I guess I don’t have that much to write about anymore. Every day look almost exactly the same and after a long day of work, all I really want to do is go to bed and read. That’s not like me, not even starting the computer after dinner.

Yesterday I went to Starbucks to meet a new au pair in the area. She was really nice, but unfortunately she is only working two more weeks before her travel month. Her hostfamily moved to California from DC a month ago.

The girl is pretty much free of her illness now, but I have on the other hand caught something. I started to feel it yesterday and it’s not worse today and it’s nothing serious, but my energy level is almost down to zero, I feel a little feverish and my head is pounding now and then. I hope I will feel better soon, it’s kinda boring going to bed way before the kids.

Since I wasn’t feeling so well we had another slow day. In the morning we watched some TV, then we had pancakes for lunch and for many hours after that we played with Play-Doh. If I ever did that when I was young, it was so long ago I can’t remember it. But it was fun and the girl was really creative and did a lot of cute stuff.

Then I drove her to soccer practice and the boy had a short playdate after that.

Now, as always, I will head to bed, hug my pillow and read Inheritance. I only have a little more than a hundred pages left. I get so sad everytime I finish a book, and especially when it’s the last book of the series!

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 is still sick and can’t do anything. So nothing much is happening right now. The boy was at a playdate in the afternoon which was probably good for her to have some real resting time. A peacock ran around in the backyard this morning and I made fish pudding for dinner. Both the kids love it and that makes me so happy :).

Yesterday after work I went to Ponto Beach to play beachvolley. I got there around 7pm but I played the whole time until the sun set. And then me and Chad went into the ocean, which was surprisingly warm. The day ended with dinner from Chipotle. It was a very nice evening after a long workday.

And now it’s time to continue reading Inheritance!

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 was a really fun day, long, but fun. It started with some beachvolleyball as usual on Saturday mornings. The weather was perfect and I played okay. Me, Moa and Sarah had brunch after that at the Broken Yolk where I had the super unhealthy, but oh so good, Nutella Banana Crepes.

I didn’t meet up with Moa and Jessica until like 5:30pm at Moa’s house, so I spent my afternoon in bed reading/sleeping. At Moa’s I met her hostfamily, her tiny host-baby and the well-spoken-of cats. Bentley, a Bengal, was so beautiful.

The original plan was to go to San Diego and hang outside of Comic Con to see all the fun people in costumes, but we ended up spending some time at Lisa’s place in downtown instead. We took a cab to 5^th Ave where we got into a tequila bar. I’ve been there before and even though it’s kinda small it’s really nice. Inside we met a group of four guys, three Brittish and one Brazilian. We hung with them the whole night and we all had a great time. The guys were working as soccer coaches and moved around every week and they do that for 8 months straight. I don’t understand how they can move that much and live in so many different hostfamilies. But they enjoyed it.

It was super hard finding a taxi to get back to Lisa’s and while we were trying we saw a famous guy right on 5^th Ave. No one less than Jason Segel, also known as Marshall Eriksen from How I Met Your Mother. That was so awesome!! Now I’ve seen three celebrities.

I drove Moa and Jessica home and got to my home at 4:30am. So today I slept until 1pm. At 5:30 my hostparents went to a dinner together so I had an alone night with the kids. Me and the boy played some Uno right before I made dinner and then we watched a movie together and after that it was time for bed for the kids.

I have a hard time being away from my book for too long nowadays so I will head to bed now and read some. Goodnight!

This day began with a visit to a movie theater. It was a little weird going to the movies at 10am but the kid in me loves this concept the Edwards theater has in the summers. Two kids movies a week for nine weeks, each movie costs $1, it’s awesome! Today we saw ParaNorman and it was a good movie, a little scary for young kids, but for me and the girl it was perfect!

After that the kids had pancakes for lunch and then we spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool. I don’t wanna think about how much of that disgusting pool water I accidently swallowed. But we had a lot of fun!

It just took one day to get back to my au pair life after a month of travelling and relaxation. It feels good, but I have the toughest time in an au pairs life ahead of me, the summer. Long working days which I’m not used to, not so many hours straight at least. I am a little afraid that I won’t have ideas of what to do to fill 9 hours a day. But after today I don’t think that will be a problem. We’ve had things to do all day, for example we played a lot of Uno, we played in the backyard with the water hose, we’ve done some baking and dancing.

I made dinner tonight and I used one of my two lasagnette boxes mom brought from Sweden. It tasted exactly the same as back home and I enjoyed every bite of it!

I said goodnight to the kids and that was the longest goodnight ever. It’s like they missed me so much when they were in Sweden, they don’t want to let me go, even for just twelve hours until tomorrow morning. They are so incredibly adorable! ❤

The sun never did show up, but it was perfect weather for some beach volleyball. No sun, but still pretty warm and almost no wind at all. That meant that I played for four hours at the beach. I played like I normally do, maybe a little worse, but it was still very fun and all the games are tight. What’s not so fun is that I hurt my finger kinda badly in my second last game. I kept playing and it wasn’t so bad, but now that I’ve been home for a while, resting it, it started hurting real bad… It’s not swollen, but I can’t move it. I hope it’s nothing serious…

I saw dolphins today again! And they were close to the beach this time and looked really big and you could really see them, not just their fins. They are so beautiful when they are just gliding past in the ocean!

We played until sunset and when I got home I took a nice long shower and then made some dinner; a fried egg, red bell peppers, homegrown cherry tomates, avocado, cottage cheese and a corn on cob. Healthy and yummy! Now I will move to the bed and read until I pass out (which should be in about 10 minutes, 4 hours of beach volleyball playing is pretty exhausting).

Three weeks disappeared faster than I could ever imagine possible. We’ve had a great time, but another week would have been nice.

It was pretty hard saying goodbye yesterday at the airport. It’s not even 7 months until I see her again, and I have the nice half of the year left here in San Diego, the summer, so I think I will do pretty okay without her.

The rest of the day was just weird. I was planning on lying at the pool or in the backyard reading/sleeping, but instead I did a million other things. First I got my fifth B12 shot (and they are doing wonders by the way, I’m feeling so much better!) and then I dropped off some mail to the grandpa’s retirement home. Outside sat four old ladies and when I walked towards the door one of them told me that I shouldn’t be allowed going in there because I was so young and beautiful. I don’t feel so old anymore, haha! Then I started reorganizing my purse and room. It’s much cleaner now, even in the drawers and my wardrobe (which doesn’t show, but still).

Today I will read a lot and spend time at the beachvolleyball court at Ponto Beach with Moa. The sun is coming out from hiding so I think it will be a pretty neat afternoon :).