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.

In exactly seven days my mom will be here. I can’t belive it! It was more than five months ago we said goodbye to each other at the airport in Gothenburg. And when she is back in Sweden again in four weeks, half my time here in the United States is over. And everyone keeps telling me that the last six months goes so fast. And I thought the first six went fast… I’m very excited anyway and I’m really looking forward to spending three weeks with her!

This evening was spent in Del Mar with au pair friends. We had dinner at Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza and Grill. Me and Moa shared a pizza. My half was a hawaiian pizza and hers was the same without the pineapple and with some extra fries on it. The waitress thought that was super funny, she had never heard of that before. I bet she told everyone in the kitchen about it. When it was ready to be served and it was on the counter everyone walking past it was staring and laughing, haha!

After, all the Swedish girls (me, Moa, Karin and Kristel) except Victoria went to Starbucks to hang out a little. Really nice!

The working hours of today was pretty rough. Well, not too bad actually, the girl wasn’t feeling so well so we were at the house the whole day. She was watching TV most of the time while I was outside with the boy in the afternoon. He was really absent minded today and didn’t listen to anything I said and that’s what made my day tough. Normally he is the sweetest kid ever, but when I said something today, he answered and then didn’t react at all to it because he didn’t listen… I’m really glad that was a one time thing, I can only imagine how hard this job would be if I had to deal with that every day. I’m so blessed to have these two kids. So sweet, helpful, adorable and well behaved! But they are humans and have days that are worse than others, like all of us.

Super healthy lunch and my not so healthy dinner (with Moa’s weird half)…

I totally didn’t have time to write anything last Friday when I had my fifth monthiversary. But I have it today too, five months in the family. Crazy crazy!

The girl had ear pains this morning so I had to take her to the doctors office but that was no problem at all. It was red so she got a prescription for medicine. Since she didn’t feel so well we didn’t really do anything today except rest.

I made an early dinner today, at 4:30 pm already because the girl had a dance recital at 6:30. It was a very long show but it was fun. First the tiny kids danced ballet. I think they might have been three or four. So adorable! Then the older kids came and they were so good! The girl was second last and I was really impressed by her. She was really good. She has been dancing Jazz this semester and their song was Trouble with Taylor Swift.

Now I’m back home and I will head straight to bed, I am so tired still. Pictures will be up another day. Good night!

So much going on, too little time to write. Yesterday I came home around midnight after a very nice coffee with Moa and the day before I got home at 3am after a really nice weekend in Phoenix, Arizona.

My weekend started on Friday afternoon when I left the house to pick up Jessica, Karin and Victoria down in Del Mar. Me and Jessica were going to Phoenix and Karin and Victoria were going to San Francisco. Awesome that our flights left approximately the same time both Friday and Sunday. So we were environmental friendly and carpooled.

The flight to Phoenix was only for an hour but I slept almost the whole way. When we got there we called the hotel and asked how we were gonna get there. Use the light rail they said. Very easy, we just bought a ticket and sat on that nice train for 20 minutes in to downtown. I love the public transportation system in Phoenix, you can go on the light rail and buses how much you like for a day for only $4.

The first time we were out in the ”real” air we couldn’t stop laughing. Oh my god, it was perfect! 99F in the middle of the night, a warm breeze and it really felt we were in a tropical climate. Because of the low humidity it doesn’t feel as warm as it was. If it were 99F here in San Diego I think I would die. But in the desert it was perfect!

The hotel was located in the center of downtown and was awesome! $250 for that hotel and flight was pretty nice. The next day we got up pretty early, I took a shower and then we walked to Matt’s Big Breakfast a few blocks away. Bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast. Yummy!

After that we took the light rail to Tempe and from there a bus to Scottsdale Fashion Square. It took about an hour to get there but it was worth it. The mall was really nice and even though I didn’t buy more than a knitted cardigan and a t-shirt from Hollister on sale and a perfume it was nice walking around inside. Outside it was about 106F.

After that we walked around a little in Tempe. Also a very nice place with a lot of bars. Unfortunately Jessica is under 21 but that was probably for the best anyway :).

Back to Phoenix downtown and the hotel for a while and then going to Hard Rock Cafe. It was almost empty because of the Diamondbacks baseball game across the street. I had the local burger and that was the best burger I ever had, too bad it wasn’t the Californian local burger. It was teriyaki sauce and pineapple on it. I bought a shot glass and now I have 6 glass in total.

When we walked back to the hotel we saw a group of a lot of people waiting for something. We asked someone and they said they thought it was Selena Gomez. We waited for a while and then we heard someone say it was someone else that was in the Wicked musical. Never heard of her so we waed back to the hotel and got to bed.

Sunday was warmer than Saturday, more like 110F which is about 43C. But it wasn’t too bad. We had a small breakfast at Starbucks and then took the light rail out to Papago Park. We asked for directions to the Desert Botanical Garden and were told it was about a 10-15 minute walk. We got lost, asked at the Phoenix Zoo and eventually found it. But that was two hours after. We drank so much water and my feet (in stupid sandals) hurt like hell. I didn’t have so much trouble with the heat, the feet on the other hand, after that day they were killing me. We walked around in the park for a short while then got a lift halfway back which was awesome! Nice Americans.

Directly when we got back to downtown we walked to Coopers’town. A restaurant owned by Alice Cooper. Empty as HRC because of the baseball game but it was nice not wating for a table. The food was good, I had a club sandwhich. It was cheap too, $10! The cheapest dinner I’ve ever had I think.

When we were so full we almost rolled out of the restaurant we had like three hours to kill so we sat at a small plaza where there were pretty fountains where kids played around in. We had comfy chairs and spent the rest of our visit in Phoenix there. It was awesome!

The flight was delayed by 15 minutes but that was okay because Karin and Victorias flight was delayed by an hour. Kinda sucked to wait at the San Diego airport for an hour in the middle of the night when we already were so tired.

I got home at 3am and yesterday I had to work for more than 10 hours. It was a rough day. And my feet made it even worse! They were so swollen yesterday I could hardly walk. I guess it was because of all the water I drank yesterday. My knees were dead too.

Today it’s better, I slept with my feet held high, but it still feels stiff when I’m bending my knee or twisting my ankle. By tomorrow it should be gone completely!

This morning I was up at 7am just in case the kids would wake up early. My h-mom left extra early because she have to be home at 4pm to get the girl dressed and ready for her dance recital tonight. It’s 8:30am and the kids aren’t awake yet. I think I have to wake them up pretty soon, the boy has a swim lesson in 40min.

As usual I took a lot of photos but I don’t have time to upload them now, so they will come up tomorrow or later this evening! Phoenix is a very nice city and I loved the tropical warmth. It was a very clean city and with a lot of fun nightlife. Unfortunately, as we didn’t have a car, we couldn’t see Sedona and the ghost towns, but I will probably go back to see those some day :). I had a great weekend and I’m glad I went to Phoenix, a not so typical travel destination!

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 had my last PT session today but my trainer thought I had another one. And since he planned for two sessions he told me he could give me 15 minutes of free consultation next time I had time, which will be on June 19th. He told me a little about how to move on from now and the most important thing is to change movements every 4-6 weeks so you have time to see improvements. I got a new circuit to do for one and a half week and then I’m on my own. That will definitely be a challenge!

When we were done he wanted to see my body fat percentage and I was afraid of what it was gonna say. The scale said 141 lbs, not a happy number. But when the body fat percentage said 19.9% I was happy again. That is almost 4% less than in April! So even if I’ve gained weight I’ve technically lost 8lbs of fat. Muscles weigh more than fat! A happy day. Now I just need to continue this and hope I will start losing weight so I can get in my pants I brought here. I have until the fall!

He also told me that I have to start doing yoga like once a week. I’m not flexible enough in my hip for the squats, haha!

Before my PT session I showed Moa some excercises since she’s not used to using machines. It was fun and we are gonna start working out together once a week or so from now on. That will be fun.

I also got the cooking book he told me about. It’s a cookbook for the fit food lover with healthy recipes. I love it just by looking in it, everything looks so delicious and it’s less carbs than in ”normal” food. I think my mom will be the test subject to my new cooking before I dare trying it on the kids, haha!

The girl had her 5th grade graduation today and oh my god what a big deal that was. In Sweden it didn’t matter, but here it was almost as big as ”studenten”. They had a cermenoy outside where the teachers held speeches. Then there was a huge breakfast for everyone in the cafeteria. I actually wasn’t too bad, I had a lot of fruit and half a banana/chocolate muffin. It was very nice, but in my opinion too big for 10-year olds. The boy has his kindergarten graduation tomorrow, we’ll see what that will be like.

Last night I realized that I’m leaving for Phoenix tomorrow evening and I haven’t even started packing yet. So unlike me! But I will do it right now before I go to Starbucks to hang out with the girls :).

Me and the girl baked brownies after school today. They were delicous and very pretty! But it took me some time to cut out all those petals from fondant…

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.

It’s crazy how much I have going on all the time, even though I want to update my blog every day I don’t have time anymore. It’s fun though, I’ve really gotten myself a new life here :).

Yesterday morning was my first tournament in a very long time. I wasn’t nervous at all, but I actually felt confident. I’ve developed so much just in these four weeks and I don’t mind the wind and the sun so much anymore. I’ve also improved my hustling skills but my big weakest link is still the short ones right at the net.

I played with Chad and we played really well together again! The first two games we won. The third we lost by 15-13 (every game was only one set to 15), the fourth we lost as well, 18-16. And that was the poolplay. After that the elimination started. And we lost right away with 15-5 or something. Embarrassing but nice, because that meant we could eat. Grilled burritos for lunch at the beach after hours of playing was pretty nice!

Today was an awesome day too! I had a really nice sleep-in until 11am, I skyped with my mom. I can’t believe it’s just a little more than two weeks until she gets here. I can’t wait!! Then I went to the gym. I was hoping to do my routine, 20 minutes of intervals and spend some time in the jacuzzi/sauna. But I only had time for the routine before I hade to drive to Fashion Valley to met up with Moa. Jessica and Pernille were supposed to come too, but they had to work. But me and Moa had a really great time anyway. We got our table earlier since we only needed a table for two. I hadn’t been at the Cheesecake Factory since April. For dinner I had Chicken Pasta from the Skinnylicious menu and the cheesecake today was Dutch Apple Caramel Streusel Cheesecake.  I love that restaurant, everything is amazing there!

Since the time was only 6pm when we were done we decided to walk around in Fashion Valley for a while. We found a really nice loose knitted shirt we both bought, but in different colors. When all the shops closed we sat in her car for like three hours, maybe it was even four, just talking. I’m really glad I’ve found her :).

This upcoming week is the last week of school for the kids. I will have a new schedule the week after, and that is gonna be nice. I’ve been doing the exact same thing for five months, it’s time for a little change. And I will have another change when school starts again in September. It’s very nice with three different schedule during this year. I can imagine it would be a little monotonous otherwise.

Now it’s time for a little sleep, goodnight!

The original cheesecake, baked apples, caramel and brown sugar cinnamon walnut streusel.

I came home very late yesterday so I will write about this super important thing that happened yesterday, I ate sushi for the first time ever. And I loved it! I went out with Moa, Jessica, Larissa and Pernille and we had such a great night! First we met up at a suchi restaurant in Mira Mesa where we all ordered different sushis and then shared. After that we went to Starbucks and Cold Stone. I wanted ice cream but I was too cold for it so I had a coffee too, haha! We were there until very late but after me and Moa got stuck outside talking for an hour while watching three policecars with a lot of policemen surrounding a car with young people in it. I wonder what happened!

I’m really happy that I found Moa at Starbucks that random Sunday evening some weeks ago. She is so sweet and we clicked right away. It’s awesome since we’re both gonna be here for many more months :).

I got home around 1am and today I had to get up at 7. It wasn’t too bad though, I was really excited about the beach volleyball tournament!

To be continued…

I had a really nice evening at Starbucks today with Moa, Jessica and Larissa. We talked about everything between heaven and earth and preliminary decided some things, like a weekend in Santa Monica in July, Hawaii in January. Both Moa and Jessica are coming to the tournament on Saturday which is gonna be super fun! I’m really looking forward to that. For the first time ever I actually feel that I might have a chance of getting far. But I’m not gonna say too much.

Swedish school today was nice, they had ”graduation” with Swedish summer songs and a lot of fika afterward. The kids were super cute in their fine clothes. One of the moms also came up to me and jessica and told us that there were a Swedish family that wanted to join the Swedish school and they had an au pair who was looking for friends. She is gonna give her our numbers, always fun to expand friend circles :).

At the gym today I talked a lot with my PT. I am working out a lot, I’m eating enough calories but I’m still not losing weight. So he told me that I really have to cut down with the carbs. It’s gonna be hard bu the told me about a cookbook with nice recipes with more protein and less carbs. I just ordered it and I hope it’s gonna help me. It’s hard finding things to replace the pasta with, but I’m gonna try.  I’m not gonna cut all carbs, but gradually try to replace it with something else, like quinoa and vegetables.

Now it’s time to sleep.
Friday tomorrow again! 🙂

Nine weeks has gone by so fast. I’m not sure if I’ve improved my speaking skills so mich but I’m definitely aware of my flaws, even though they are tiny and few. Tonight everyone who wanted could read a text out loud. I was the last to read and he didn’t have anything else to say except that it was a perfect ending. Happy!

So now I have 3/6 credits. And I still don’t know what to take as my next class. I think I’ve narrowed it down to the Drawing class, Physiology of Excercise and Sustainability. I have before June 12th to decide.

Something really weird happened this afternoon. When I left the house to pick up the kids from school two of our trash cans were on the curb. They were empty and I was gonna take them in when we got back. But when we got back the trash cans weren’t there, they were in the backyard, full of green waste and they stood back and the wrong way round. Super weird!! The only thing I can imagine happen (except for a ghost hobo) is that the gardeners came, cut the palm trees, and took them in from the curb. Still weird and they put them the right way round usually.

Americans have a lot of weird holidays. They aren’t off from work on Easter or Christmas Eve, but they have holidays called Presidents Holiday and Memorial Day where they are off. Weird, but I’m not complaining. I had the day off too and since it was Monday I decided to spend the day at the beach reading and then play beachvolleyball in the afternoon.

I got to the beach around 11am and it was so hard to find a parking spot! I had to park far away from the beach. The weather today wasn’t  very good. It was very windy and a little cloudy. It wasn’t cold though and I did get in the water a little after the second time I got pooped on. Pelicans are circling above the beach all day long and today they pooped on me, not once, not twice, but three times!! I don’t count the trip to the water as my first time in the ocean since I only washed away the poop. I will do the real thing when it’s not so windy.

We weren’t so many people playing today so I got to play a lot. When we started playing the sky was covered in clouds and the wind decreased a lot. So it was really nice to play! And I played really well today as well. That really makes me happy! Next time I will play, will be at the tournament on Saturday! Excited! 🙂

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.

This day was really weird, nothing went as planned. It started really good though with a couple of hours of beach volleyball. There is a list by the courts, when your name is up you can win three games in a row and then you have to get off the court. I played with a guy named Chad this morning and I’ve never played as well as today with him. Our two first game we won and then suddenly the wind came and totally messed with my head and we lost big time. Our fourth game was the same and after that I didn’t want to play anymore. So I sat down for a while watchin other people play and a flying pelican pooped on me, gross!
I did play more anyway and I’m glad I did. I didn’t play as well as before and it was with another guy, but we won two games before I had to go to San Diego and a weight loss clinic.

It’s not as is sounds. I went there with Sarah because they used vitamin B12 injections. I told them about my medical condition and they said it was no problem at all for me to get the shots. I got my first out of 15 today actually. We are gonna kickstart it and do it pretty often the first month and then less often. It’s gonna be around $200 in total for the rest of the year, but I think I don’t have a choice.

After that we went to IKEA to buy tickets to the Swedish Midsummer Smörgåsbord in June. On the website it said that the tickets were on sale now, but when we got there they told us they were gonna start selling them on Tuesday. I’m not sure that I have enough time in the afternoon. According to google maps I have plenty of time, but I don’t know about the traffic and how long it’s gonna take while I’m there. We are around 6 people (not just Swedish) going, so that’s nice!

Lunch at IHOP and then we drove up to Del Mar to pick up another au pair. We were going to Coronado for our sunset kayaking tour. Unfortunately there had been a misunderstanding, we thought it was gonna start at 6pm, but it was 5pm so Karin and Victoria didn’t make it. They had mine and Sarah’s voucher so we couldn’t go either. But we did reschedule to June 16th.

Later they invited me and Sarah to Victorias house for dinner and a movie. We made pesto chicken which was really good, and then we also baked swedish mudpie served with whipped cream and strawberries. The movie we watched was What to Expect When Expecting. It’s a fun movie.

Now I am home and am gonna fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow in two minutes…