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 :).

Because of the boy’s frequently throw-ups last night the parents didn’t want him to go to school today. Totally understandable, but I wasn’t too thrilled to take care of a puking boy for a whole day… Luckily I was wrong and the boy was fine, not the least nauseous. It was a long day, but it was okay anyway, we have watched TV, played games and done some homework. I finished another Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files novella. The fifth in four days. The one I started reading today is the last one though so I have to figure out pretty soon what book/series I want to read now. I think it might be time for a Stephen King book again, was a while ago now.

This week has been surprisingly slow. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve started to long for Sweden a little or if it’s because I’ve slept really bad this week. Last night I woke up like fourtyeleven times and the night before that I woke up at 3am and couldn’t go back to sleep… It will be nice with a weekend again! My twelfth last weekend before Hawaii.

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.