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 fall is definitely here. Leaves on the trees are starting to turn red and it’s chilly in the mornings. But the summer warmth is still there in the afternoons. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the mornings though… It’s dark when my alarm goes off at 6am and that makes it super hard getting out of bed!

Since I didn’t get much sleep this weekend I decided to sleep the whole morning when Sarah told me she couldn’t go shopping with me. So I slept for 3.5 hours which was awesome. That meant that my day went by so fast. Monday’s are busy days after school with the kids’ soccer practices. I was supposed to go to bed early, like right after dinner to catch up on some sleep, but instead I got stuck looking into my Hawaii trip in January. I can’t say anything else than that it will be the most awesome vacation I’ve ever had! My guess is that the costs for flights and hostels will be around $1400 for 2.5 weeks on three different islands. It’s not too bad. I guess we might have to rent a car on Oahu and the Big Island, but that can’t be too expensive. The hostel on Maui is offering free tours every day. I can’t believe I’m sitting here, planning a vacation on Hawaii. It’s just too unreal for a Swed like me!

I will continue this planning another day, starting to get pretty tired now…

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.

Last night at the sport park in Rancho Santa Fe was really nice. I was there with Paulina, Lovisa and Moa and we had a nice, but chilly, evening together. The movie was good, but it wasn’t at all as I expected. It was about arcade game characters. There were a lot of people there and the screen was a big inflatable thing. Very nice! The movie was supposed to start at 7pm but I think it wasn’t dark enough so it started later. Which meant I couldn’t go to Chad’s until later and I totally forgot to tell him that, so he sent texts asking if everything was alright and that he was worried. He is like the sweetest ever. And he really proved that later in the evening. My shoulder started to hurt really bad during the movie. It felt like it sometimes does when I sleep on it, but then it hurts right away in the morning. I can’t remember sitting weird or anything yesterday afternoon. But anyway, it got worse and worse and worse and later my whole left arm was hurting. I ended up eating aspirins, having ice on my shoulder the whole night, getting massages and I even bought an IcyHot cream. Nothing helped and I was lying in his bed, trying to understand the new Tom Cruise movie Oblivion, and cried the whole night. I think I finally fell asleep at 4am… I feel so bad that I kept him awake almost all night but he was so sweet, always asking me if I needed anything. Fortunately the pain that made me want to chop of my arm was gone when I woke up at 8am today. So there was no cancellation to my plans.

First I drove to Sarah’s place to pick her up, then I picked Paulina up and then Lovisa. Aquatica was all the way down in Chula Vista, by the border to Mexico and when we got there I saw that the Sleep Train Amphitheatre was right next door, that’s nice, so I won’t have troubles finding it in two weeks time when I will go there to see Maroon 5 :).

Aquatica was really fun, it was a nice day but not many people, I mean, it is the end of September. They had a lot of slides and we tried three different ones. The first we tried was called Tassie’s Twister and we could all four ride in one raft. The end of the slide was like a big funnel. We rode on that one like three times. Then we tried the other big one, Walhalla Wave which we also could go all four in. That one was scary, it felt like we almost reached the edges of the slide. The last slide we tried was the Kiwi Curl where you went alone on a inflatable ring. I really liked that one. Then we tried the lazy river a couple of laps. We had our own inflatable rings and then we had our feet on a fifth ring in the middle of us. We were talking while gliding around there. With a drink in our hands and no waterfalls soaking us it would have been perfect.

When we returned the locker keys we got a $5 voucher and I happened to see a really cute bracelet in the gift store, so I bought it and only paid $2.49.

We had lunch after that and then we were so exhausted that we drove home. I will take a shower now and then maybe fall asleep.

As all Saturday mornings I played beachvolley at Ponto. It didn’t start so well but I played better and better through the morning and me and Chad won a few games. Then the wind came out and everyone played crappy. Winning was more because of luck than skills. It was a really nice morning though, cloudy and pretty warm. The sun came out with the wind and I totally forgot about sunscreen so my face is like a strawberry. Nothing else is burned.

I noticed that the pelicans are back. I haven’t seen them all summer now that I think about it. I didn’t get pooped on though :).

I drove home and asked the Swedish girl about the picnic we were supposed to have in Del Mar this afternoon but they were pretty much done so we decided to meet at the outdoor movie at 6:30pm instead. So right now I’m just waiting for time to go by so I can drive down there and watch Wreck-It-Ralph. That will be really nice and I will meet two new Swedish au pairs for the first time.

And tomorrow me, Sarah and Lovisa will go to Aquatica, that will be really nice too! So much stuff going on all the time it’s ridiculous. Next weekend Universal Studios, the weekend after that a bonfire party at Ponto Beach and the Maroon 5 concert. The weekend after that is Las Vegas and Grand Canyon. Soon thereafter there’s Halloween which I’m really looking forward to. A month later is Thanksgiving which I also really look forward to. And then there’s Christmas and my travel month… I guess I will fill out the rest of the few weekends in between and that’s it. The rest of my year, 16 weeks of work (excluding the last week of december)…

I don’t know if it’s Americans or if it’s kids in general who doesn’t know what personal space means. Every afternoon I wait at the gate outside of the girl’s school and every day all the kids walking past me almost walk into me. The sidewalk I’m standing on is like 2,5m wide and I’m standing as far to the edge of it as I can but still they insist on walking straight into me. And it’s not just walking, some almost ride into me with their scooters and skateboards too. What’s wrong with them?? Today I almost got my whole face scratched to bits and pieces because one girl was walking with cardboard on her head. If I didn’t lean backwards, like a lot, she would totally have hit me in the face. I was too surprised to say anything but that really made me mad. And it’s gonna be like this every afternoon…

My day other than that was nice. My hostdad drove the girl to school and took me with him so we could first leave his car at the car service and then drop me off where my car was. Now it’s fine and working again.

I drove to Starbucks in Vons close to our house because I wanted to try one of those Secret Menu things. It was good, but it was not worth so much extra money. It was stupid going to Vons, because I ended up buying a bag of Rolo’s. The girl and her friend baked chocolate cookies at the friend’s house this week and they had Rolo in them. The cookies were delicious and I didn’t realize what Rolo was, but it looks kinda like Center, but the caramel inside is more chewy. So delicious! I think I’ve found my new favorite candy. It’s hard being healthy here…

In my freetime I took a shower, had lunch, read and then took my daily nap for 30 minutes.

When we got home from school both the parents were home and the girl’s neon pink iPhone 5C had just arrived so she’s been upstairs (except for when she had a chocolate milkshake for snack) playing with it and the boy is over at the neighbors so I guess I’m off work at 4pm on a Friday, pretty awesome! Except that I don’t have anything special to do, haha. I guess I will read until Sarah gets home from San Francisco in about an hour and then maybe have dinner with her or something. Or maybe froyo 🙂

No, not really. No car means that I hardly can work at all since pretty much most of my workday is to drive the kids to and from school and activities. So this morning my hostdad drove the girl to school and I was supposed to walk the boy to his school. He got so sad when I told him that he sat down in the middle of the stairs and just cried… So his mom offered to drive him even if you can see the school from our house.

In my freetime I couldn’t really do anything except read and sleep. So that’s what I did. I read a lot last night before I fell asleep. Normally I can only read a few pages before I blackout. But it was so exciting last night so I almost finished the whole book. I thought it was kinda disturbing that the two main characters in the book fell in love when they met and then found out that they were siblings. That was the end of the first book but it was so sad, so I kept thinking and waiting for the better truth to be relieved, that they weren’t brother and sister after all. And last night that happened! I was so happy. I love when a book turns out just like you want it to. Right now I’m reading the epilogue so I guess it will be done any page now.

My hostmom picked up the girl from school, came back home to pick me up and then we picked up the boy. She drove us to Swedish School and left us there. My hostdad picked us up after. You really are nothing without a car here!

Panda Express for dinner and now I will buy my ticket for Aquatica on Sunday.

It feels like it’s always something wrong with my car. I feel guilty, but how can I help that light bulbs break, or the dash board stops working, or the AC isn’t what it used to be 10 years ago? My mom cheered me up by telling me it’s an old car (I don’t think 13 years sound so old, but it made me feel better hearing her say that on Skype today). So this time the Check Engine sign is on and my hostparents thought it best not to use the car so much, so I didn’t have to drive the girl to her school, which is like 5 miles away. And that also meant that I couldn’t go to spinning class this morning which sucked a little. I’m feeling better and my cold from the weekend is completely gone by now.

So I spent my morning skyping with mom and then in bed reading until I fell asleep for half an hour before I had to eat lunch. I had a “fika” with the kids at Starbucks where I tried a new thing for once, and I was disappointed. I tried the Hazelnut Macchiato. I really like my chai latte. But next time I will try something that’s not even on the menu. There is something called Starbucks Secret Menu which is pretty much baristas trying new combinations and adds their recipes to a website. So I found one called Fall in a Cup, made from Pumpkin Spice Latte and with Caramel Syrup and Chai syrup in it. It sounds pretty good!

After that I helped the boy with his homework and had to drive to the car doctor whit the kids. My hostdad picked us up there and drove me and the boy home. He had a playdate next door and I was sitting outside keeping an eye on them while they were playing outside. It was cold even with my new knitted shirt and leggings. I read while I was sitting there and I really like this book series now. I was a little skeptic in the beginning but now, after almost three books, it’s really good!

After dinner me and the boy played with paper airplanes for a while and we decided to fold some really nice ones on Friday after school. Tomorrow there’s Swedish School so we don’t have time to do anything after school.

I really love tacos, and I don’t think it’s just a festive meal. I’m used to eating it on normal days (I remember when I was a kid and my dad made that for me and my brother like once every two weeks, that was awesome!) so I’ve made it three times for my hostfamily so far. The first time I made chicken tacos, the second time with minced meat and now the third time with fish and shrimp. In Sweden we have special spice mixes for all three of those but I couldn’t find fish seasoning today so I took the normal one and it ended up tasting and looking like chicken. But it was good, and it felt healthy with the fish. There were a lot of vegetable leftovers so I will have a nice salad for lunch tomorrow.

My day was really nice today as well. It started with a beachvolley ball lesson with Christin at oonlight Beach. All the courts were occupied so we just did some peppering closer to the water. She did really good and especially on the smash which she never tried before. Her sets were very improved today to. I think with the sets (sv: fingerpass) you just come to one point when you realize how to do it and after that you just know how to. I had that day one day at beachvolley camp in the summer of 2010.

After that I drove home, had lunch, did some laundry and put all my new clothes in my dresser. I’m gonna need a second checked-in suitcase when I go back to Sweden… Unless my mom comes to Hawaii and comes with an almost empty one!

In the afternoon it was just me and the boy. The girl was with a friend. So we did a little grocery shopping first. Then a big snack, he was super hungry for some reason. We mixed homework with games the rest of the time before I had to start with dinner.

It was very cold in the morning and in the afternoon very warm. It’s pretty annoying to have to change clothes in the middle of the day. But I guess I have to get used to it again, fall is here!

Time to finish Rise of the Guardians and then some reading.

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 completely healthy yet. Feeling better than yesterday though but my head has been a little weird. Can’t tell if it feels like it’s hollow or extremely heavy. It’s annoying and because of this I thought it was best to stay away from spinning this morning. So I spent the whole morning in bed sleeping. It was awesome!

So the day went by very fast. It felt like I was dropping off the kids and then right after picked them up again. Both of the kids had soccer practice so we had to hurry with snacks and then I had an hour waiting for the boy. So I sat in the sun reading my awesome book. After seeing the movie last Friday I realized what a good book series this is. More things made sense and I had real faces on the characters.

The girl got driven home by her friend’s mom so I only had to stay and wait for the boy. When we got home we did some homework, he took a shower, I prepared the kids’ lunchboxes and then the boy played some math game on the iPad until his parents came home and started with dinner. We had a chicken pie of some sort and it was delicious! I remember having it once in the beginning of the year. We had leftovers which will be perfect as tomorrow’s lunch for me.

Now I think I will have some ice cream and watch a movie on HBOGO.

Once again, the mornings here in SoCal are foggy. This morning after I dropped off the girl at her school and was driving to the boy’s school I saw this floating house in the fog. (It’s in the middle of the picture, below the right light signal)

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 AN AWESOME WEEKEND!

Saturday : beachvolley, shopping and bonfire

It was chilly on Saturday, almost the whole time I was at the beach. It was cloudy, foggy and below 70F, just like a winter/spring morning. I thought the summer was already over… but it was the perfect weather for some beachvolley playing! Almost no wind at all and no sun to disturb until like 11am. I played three flawless and winning games with Chad and I was in an awesome mood the whole day after that. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Sarah came to the beach later this morning. We talked for a while while we were waiting for Christin. As soon as she got there we took my car to Westfield North County mall. I’ve never been there but it was an awesome mall, they had like all of my favorite stores and all of them had huuuuge sales! I don’t want to know how much money I spent this weekend… We were there for four hours and in four stores. First we went into a store called Windsor and I love that store. Never been there before, but I probably should have. It’s a store full of pretty dresses and party clothes. I asked Christin to show me something to wear at a nightclub since I’m not used to going to them (I thought it was better with almost-free-beer in the basement of my university). I tried it on and it looked really good, but I’m not used to using those kinds of clothes, so I tried on a dress also and that fit like a glove so there was no question about it. It was cheap also, $30.
The next stop was Charlotte Russe where I bought some extremely cheap (and probably very bad quality) accessories. After that we spent some time in Victoria’s Secret and lastly Hollister. We were in there for more than an hour I would guess. Their sale was awesome and all of us bought a lot of stuff. I bought mostly $6 tank tops, but also a pair of jeans, patterned leggings and a pair of sweat shorts.

Time flew by so we didn’t have time for more stores before we had to go to Ponto for our small bonfire at Ponto Beach. We got a little late so Chad had already had time to start up the fire, very nice of him. Soon after we three girls arrived Kristel came too and then the two lifeguards friends of Sarah and then the two German friends of Christin. They weren’t very social, they spoke only in German which was kinda rude and boring… The lifeguards got a call and had to run away to some emergency pretty early and Kristel had to work early the enxt day so she left pretty early too. Me and Chad stayed until eleven and all the Germans stayed until 1am. There were a lot of people at the beach last night and one of the groups were of older men and women and they had like a party. They were dancing to bad music and it was just so weird and kinda embarrassing. But it was a perfect evening. No clouds so you could see all the stars, it wasn’t cold and the s’mores (smurfs as Christin called them xD) were delicious.

Sunday : shopping and home cooked dinner

This morning I was feeling awful. I slept for two extra hours while Chad was studying. I watched a little of the Chargers game on TV after breakfast and was cuddling with the two dogs. Until I sneezed and they got scared and ran away.

I drove home, took a shower and some aspirin so I was feeling a little bit better when I was driving to Sarah’s. I’m so glad I decided to go with them today instead of resting alone at home. We had a great time at the same shopping mall and we bought a lot of stuff today as well. I think I bought most, but that’s because I haven’t been shopping in like three months. Today we started in Abercrombie where they also had a big sale. Instead of $6 tanks they had $15 tanks and t-shirts. Abercrombie is more expensive than Hollister, but it’s still cheaper than brand clothes in Sweden, so I bought some… I feel like I’m wearing the same tank tops all the time so I felt that I needed new ones!

The next store was Sun Diego where I bought a tank top from Billabong with the text “Life is better in San Diego” on it. And then we headed for Macy’s where I finally bought more of those super awesome tanks I have when I work out. Clothes you workout in will be worn out sooner than normal clothes. The second last store was Hollister again because Sarah wanted to buy sweatshirts for her sister. I didn’t see those the last time, so I bought one today, $20. Then I also found a really cute knitted pullover with buttons. It’s perfect over a pair of leggings, which is a piece of clothes I’ve really started to like since I moved here.

The last store was American Eagle Outfitters. I’ve always been told that they have really good jeans. So I tried a pair, and they fit perfectly and were on sale. I also found a pair of cheap black leggings with a zipper by the ankle.

And that was it today. I don’t feel bad for spending money, I feel happy, I love buying new clothes!! 😀

After our shopping we went to Sarah’s house where we cooked a dinner together. Pasta with a ham stew with bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes and mushrooms. Really yummy!

Now in the evening Sarah came with me to my house. I’m transferring some movies to her external harddrive so she has something to watch (except her hostkids) in San Francisco next week. We played a little The Sims 3 and we will continue next weekend, when she is back. It’s such a bad timing with this San Francisco trip. She gave me some very sad news yesterday, she is leaving for Germany on October 1^st… So we only have a little more than two weeks left together. So we said that we are gonna hangout as much as possible when she gets back from SF. I’m really really sad that she is leaving, but it’s not gonna be a permanent goodbye. We are planning on going to Mallorca together next summer and she said she might be interested in coming back to go to Hawaii with me in January! That’s nice, but it’s not nice that she will go back to Germany so soon. She had to do like an internship before she started her studies which is starting next fall. So stupid…

Oh, yeah, right. I went to the movies all by myself on Friday and that wasn’t weird at all. I enjoyed it and might do it again something if there is a movie just I want to see. The movie was really good by the way, I hope they will continue and make the other books into movies too.

It was a really nice weekend even with Sarah’s sad news. So now I will head to bed and hope I will be able to go to spinning tomorrow. I probably shouldn’t because of my cold, but we’ll see how I’m feeling tomorrow.

No bad things happened to me so far today except that I woke up after a horrible nightmare. It was February 4^th 2014 and I was back in Sweden. It was cold and snowy and I wasn’t feeling particularly good just leaving California. No one cared that I was back home and the worst thing was that I realized that I forgot to go to Hawaii. Time had just flown by so fast so I didn’t have time to remember to book the vacation I had been waiting for so long. It doesn’t sound so bad now that I write about it, but it wasn’t nice at all!

But after that my day turned out to be pretty okay. I started my morning as usual with making breakfast for the kids. I had already prepared to lunchboxes last night so I could focus on the kids eating breakfast fast. They come down late nowadays and if I don’t remind them all the time that we are in a hurry they eat super slow. Today we almost got to the girl’s school late actually.

After I dropped off the boy at his school I drove to the gym for a spinning class. It was the same as I went to last Friday so it was tough. Tougher than the class on Wednesdays. In Sweden it’s easy to keep track of how hard you are working, but without the pulse watch it’s hard. But today the instructor told us almost all the time where our RPM’s should be and I was always in those ranges so I felt really good about myself!

When I got back home and wanted nothing more than to take a shower, the cleaning lady was cleaning my bathroom… So I had to had a little earlier lunch than I usually have and then I took a shower right before I left to pick up the kids. It turned out okay. But next time I know she will be cleaning the house I will probably take a shower at the gym, even if I don’t feel like I get clean there. I hate public showers…

In the afternoon I took the kids to Froyo. I just love it and it’s not as unhealthy as ice cream so I thought it was okay to have it two days in a row for me. Back home the boy went over to a friend’s house, the girl is upstairs reading so I don’t really have anything to do now. I will read I guess and when I get off work I will head to the movie theatre and see The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. By myself. No one wants to see that one and I want to try to go to the movies by myself here so I might as well try it on a night I don’t have any plans.

Oh right, in the morning, when I was still driving in the neighborhood to drop off the girl, there was a peacock running straight in front of my car!! I had to stomp on the break really hard to avoid running it over. Stupid suicidal peacock!