I never have headaches normally but this whole weekend it’s been bothering me. I have no idea and I’ve been taking it easy most of the times.

Yesterday morning I picked up Sarah, the new Swedish girl, and we played some beachvolley together at Ponto. She has been playing a lot of indoor volleyball and we didn’t do too bad!

At 11am Hanna and Lukas finally found the beach and we hanged out for an hour before I had to drive Sarah home. But first the two of us had brunch at the Broken Yolk. I had sweet potato pancakes with cinnamon, really delicious!

I drove back to Ponto where Hanna and Lukas had spent a couple of hours. We had half an hour before they had to go. I stayed and read for a while before I went home and showered before going to Chad’s place. We had homemade sushi (really good!), his brother had caught the fish, and then we watched Jack the Giant Slayer. I have to admit that Nicholas Hoult was sexier in Warm Bodies.

Today I spent the whole afternoon by myself at the pool reading and sleeping. I got a little burned actually, but nothing serious, it will probably be gone tomorrow. I finished Mockinjay and started reading Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief because the girl loves those books and really wanted me to read them. I’ve seen the movie so I recognize everything I’m reading.

Mockinjay was good, but I liked Catching Fire the best. There were so much going on in the end and I didn’t really understand everything. But it was a really good series and I can’t wait for the next movie in November. And now I will warm up with the first movie in my 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.

Once again I have this weird feeling. It was so nice seeing Hanna again, but at the same time it felt odd having something from my old life interfering with my new life here in California. We had a very nice evening at the Cheesecake Factory and Coronado though. Me and Chad met Hanna and Lukas outside of the restaurant a little after 7pm, we got the table almost right away.

I tried a burger for the first time, smokehouse BBQ burger with onion rings, bacon and bbq ranch sauce. Yummy! My cheesecake today was Snickers Bar and Chunk Cheesecake. Not one of the best I’ve had, but really good anyway.

Since this was Hanna and Lukas’ last evening in San Diego I told them they had to go to Coronado to look at San Diego’s skyline. Chad have never been there either and I never get tired of seeing it.

I drove Chad home and now it’s time for me to go to bed. Tomorrow I’m meeting the new Swedish au pair who got here just a week ago, exciting!

I’m not sure how much I will read from now on. My mom (thank you for sending everything I ask for, I’m so glad for DropBox!) sent me the .iso for the new Sims expansion and I am just about to start it. Paradise Island sounds definitely like something for me!

Mockinjay is really awesome aswell, but it’s so short so it will probably be over soon enough anyway. I have already read more than 80 pages out of 280. Some mornings, when the kids doesn’t come down until like 8:45, I have at least 45 minutes to read which is a pretty nice start of the day.

This day was spent at the library and the pool. Both the kids lent many books at the library.

In the afternoon the girl had a friend over and we went to the pool. There the boy found the boy from next door and soon thereafter another one of his friends came. It was pleasantly warm today and the water was cool. A very nice afternoon!

I don’t want to write anything more now, I want to play, so goodbye 🙂

I’m as surprised this month as all the other ones that another one has passed without big notice. Seven months? It’s really hard to believe. I know I have six more months (five working months), but it will be over so soon. In two months I have to request my flight home to Sweden, which means I probably should start looking for something to do in my travel month.

It’s been a long day today, but it was okay, I got some rest when the boy had a playdate at our house and the girl was at the pool with some friends. While the boys were playing nicely in the backyard I was enjoying the beautiful weather (the summer has finally arrived here!) and my book. I was too tired to read yesterday so I’m not done yet. But tonight I will, just nine more pages! I really love these books.

I made dinner tonight, homemade pizza on scone bread. Nothing special, just tomato sauce, ham and cheese, but really really good! When I get back home I’m gonna continue making my own pizza (I’ve never done it before for some stupid reason).

Oh, I’ve totally forgot about this, but this last weekend I finally saw the last registration plate, North Dakota! The second last plate, I saw four months ago…

I just got home from a really nice dinner with Sarah at TGI Friday, it’s nice to make a weekday a little luxurious. We didn’t eat much since we weren’t so hungry. We had a broccoli and cheese soup each and shared a plate of garlic bread sticks. It was simple but sooo good! We talked a lot about everything and I had a really nice night.

My day wasn’t so bad either. The girl was at a playdate the whole morning and the boy had a playdate half the morning so I had finally some time to Skype with mom. Haven’t talked to her (except messages on Facebook) since she was here a month ago!

I made lunch for me and the boy and today I tried a different type of couscous salad. I had some avocado in there, red bell pepper and pear and lemon juice on top. Really good!

In the afternoon we went to the pool. I knew one of the boy’s friends were there and they played with the girl for a long while until the friend had to go home. And when he did both of the kids got water balloons from another kid and they had so much fun together for another hour playing catch in the pool.

Last night I stayed up pretty late reading Catching Fire.  I’m not quite done with it yet, 60 pages left so if I don’t finish it tonight, then tomorrow! That must be some kind of record!!

I’m already done with the book I started reading just a few days ago. The girl is so proud of me for finishing a book in less than a week. She read it in two hours though… But I’m still impressed by myself. The book was really good and everything was as in the movie, so even though it was a while ago I saw the movie I recognized everything. I’ve started on the second one now, Catching Fire. We’ll see how fast I can finish that one.

Don’t have much else to write about tonight, so I will just go to bed and continue 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.

A lot of stuff has been going on this weekend. Two bonfires, firedancers, beachvolley, a lot of dolphins, stand up paddling and surfing.

FRIDAY

As soon as I got off work at 6:30pm I drove to Ponto Beach to participate in the bonfire and BBQ. I was too late for the BBQ and I was way too tired to play any beachvolleyball so I just sat down in the sand, watching the last few games and talked to people. At sunset they set up the small bonfire and soon thereafter two firedancers entertained our big company on the beach. They weren’t particularly good but it was still a fun thing the organizers put together for us. After that we just sat at the beach listening to a guy playing guitar and singing, it was very nice!

SATURDAY

My day started extremely early, 7am at Moonlight Beach to drop off the firewood. Unfortunately all the firepits where taken again… So I drove to Ponto and was there super early for once. Not many people showed up, probably because they played on Friday and went home pretty late (didn’t stop me though, and I left the beach at 11:30pm). But that was perfect, not many players, the weather was awesome, cloudy in the beginning, not so much wind and then the sun showed up.  And, during the whole morning there were tons of dolphins just outside of the shore. There were like four groups just swimming by, but there were also two or more groups playing/eating in the same spot for a very long time. So I could see dolphins almost all the time. So amazing!!

After beachvolley I drove down to Fashion Valley to have lunch with Moa and Christin. I had a flatbread pizza with roasted pear, blue cheese and pecans. It was really delicious! And since I wasn’t sure we were gonna have the bonfire at Moonlight that night I bought the new cheesecake, S’mores Gallore. Chocolate cheesecake with melted marshmallows and crackers on top.

After the late lunch I drove back home, took a shower, talked a little with the new Swedish au pair on facebook and then I drove to Moonlight. After a while we asked a group of people around a firepit if we could share and we could. So we could barbecue our S’mores eventually. A lot of new au pairs came, most of them Germans. Always fun to meet new people!

SUNDAY

Today was my 8^th LCC meeting and we did stand up paddling. I brought Sarah and Christin to the meeting and we all tried the paddling in Carlsbad Lagoon. For once, we were a lot of au pairs, like 8, three who just arrived on Friday. We only had two boards so I went up first with our LCC. I was afraid I was gonna fall, but it wasn’t so hard. It wouldn’t have mattered if I did fall, it was a pretty hot day today. But now instead I feel skilled that I managed to do it right away. It was really fun, but tough on my arms.

After the meeting Chad took me to a surf contest in Oceanside, Supergirl Pro. When we got there we met up with three from the beachvolley group and watched the finals between two very young girls. It would have been soo cool to be that good at surfing, and after today’s afternoon it feels like I’m very far away from even standing up, at least out from the beach, on a real wave, not just the white stuff closer to the beach…

We had lunch at a Mexican place in Oceanside and then me and Chad drove to Terramar Beach. I tried for a while, and with a push from Chad I actually caught a pretty big wave and I was surfing on the top of it for a few seconds. Just on my stomach, but it was still a pretty amazing feeling!

This weekend was awesome, I’m super tired right now, but I love doing stuff all the time! Next weekend Hanna will be here for a short while. It will be so nice seeing her again. Can’t believe it has already been seven months since I saw her.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos from today’s stand up paddling, but I will get tomorrow from Christin and I will post them then.

Goodnight!

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!