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 second time playing beach volley here in California and it wasn’t as good as last weekend when it was no wind at all. Today it was too much for me. I played horribly most of the games. Some games were really good though and I actually won like half or even more. One of the organizers said that he could already see the improvement in my playing since last weekend. I think he said that just to be nice though, but eventually I will be master at playing in the wind.

A new girl arrived in San Elijo three days ago and I picked her up for the beach volley. We didn’t play together but she was a really sweet, young girl and she is gonna continue coming.

The sun came out early today, around 9am so I had to wear sunglasses all day. And it gave me a super pretty sunburn in my face. Luckily I don’t have any white circles, I just have a white strip on my nose, happy for that.

I forgot sunscreen because of all the wind, you can’t feel the sun burning when it’s windy. I am red like everywhere, but not as bad as it could have been. I’ve gotten a little used to the sun after four months here. But it still makes me tired and I probably wont make it through the whole Star Wars 1 movie I’m gonna start watching 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.

Yesterday morning and this morning was the same. When I got to the kitchen to take the dishes out of the dishing machine the girl was already there doing it for me. And she had already eaten breakfast and thought it was fun making her own breakfast. Sweet girl :). The only difference today from yesterday was that I saw a coyote right outside our garden fence. It’s the second coyote I see in San Diego and this was walking right outside our house!

The day otherwise was very calm. I didn’t go to the gym, every other day my PT said. So I lie in my bed reading and then I fell asleep for a while.

In the afternoon I baked some cupcakes with the girl. Vanilla cupcakes with frosting and fondant shaped like flower petals. They are really pretty. Don’t know how they taste yet, but I guess pretty good!

They boy was invited to a birthday party today so my hostmom took him and the girl there at 5:15 which meant that I got off work at that time. It was really nice, but I didn’t have anything to do because I didn’t have plans until 8:15. So I watched some series and took a shower.

My plans for the evening was a goodbye dinner for Maj in downtown. She is extending her year and is moving to New York on Sunday evening. We went to the Yard House, a restaurant on 4th Ave. I fell in love with that restaurant. The hawaiian hamburger was awesome and they had like a million different beers. Not that I like beer, but I think my mom would like that place so I’m taking her there when she gets here.

After me and Karin didn’t come along to a bar so we went to Extraordinary Desserts, a ”fika” place in downtown. I didn’t really want anything because I was so full, but I couldn’t resist. So I bought a carrot cake to go and I’m eating it now. It’s really good! But I feel bad because this intermittent fasting thing is going so well. I’ve lost 2,5lbs the last two days and I am okay with not eating breakfast. But it’s the weekend, so I think it’s okay to make it a little more luxurious.

I can’t really do this fasting thing on weekends since I usually have a late dinner. So tomorrow I wont eat breakfast again but I’m gonna pack a snack/food to eat when I get hungry. I’ve planned to stay at the beach the whole day tomorrow with the new girl who just got here. Maybe Vasoula will join us later too!

Now I really have to go to bed, my alarm will go off at 6:45…

Only two more classes and I’m starting to feel a little stressed about what my next class should be. I will post what I’m thinking about soon, now I’m too tired.

In tonights class I was paired up with a Japanese guy and the days theme was Emphasis. I actually had a hard time on that, but only because I didn’t understand it. When we did the exercises my teacher said my reading was perfect, but I had no idea what words I emphasized on. So I told him I didn’t think, just said what I thought sounded right and he kinda gave my a look that said: ”What are you doing here?”. Haha! My partner also said perfect after every time I read something. He couldn’t give me any criticism.

We talked a lot about travels and that he and his wife had been in southern Europe once and wanted to go to the northern part like Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I said that I wanted to go to Asia some day, Japan and Malaysia preferably. He said definitely Malaysia, Indonesia and even Thailand. And in Japan he suggested Kyoto because it was typical Japanese. Tokyo is just big! But I want to go there anyway, it’s been a dream since I was a tiny kid.

The intermittent fasting worked very well today. I wasn’t more hungry than usually at lunchtime but tomorrow is gonna be a little harder since I didn’t have a proper dinner tonight and I’m already hungry. But I will try not to fall to the temptation of eating before lunch and drink a lot of water instead.

I’m so exhausted and pumped out of energy right now it’s ridiculous. I talked with my PT at the gym and he said that I should do these two workouts for two weeks and then make a new appointment. I think I need more time than that, I’m so out of shape! After the warmup on the stairmaster I was super tired. And after an hour of weight lifting with little time in between exercises to catch breath, I was dead afterward. I’m still dead and it hurts so much in all of my body! Especially the chest and thighs. I hope I will get into it soon enough.

My mom gave me a link today with an article about intermittent fasting which was really interesting. Since nothing seems to work when it comes to losing weight I’m gonna try this. So I’m gonna try the least hard version of this called 16/8, you fast for 16 hours and eat during the days last 8 hours. It means that I will skip breakfast if I’m eating dinner at 7pm and lunch the next day at 11am. I’m gonna try tomorrow and see how it works. It’s okay to drink if it doesn’t contains calories so I will start my day tomorrow with a cup of tea.

My hostdad went to Asia this morning and he’s gonna be gone for two weeks. It will probably mean a little more work again, but to be honest I didn’t feel like I was working more the last time so this won’t be a problem at all. When he’s back the kids only have one more week of school, and that weekend I will go to Phoenix and a little more than a week later my mom will come. And when she is here half my year has already passed. Crazy thought that makes me a little sad. I love the kids and it’s gonna be so hard saying goodbye to them. This night when the boy said goodnight to me and gave me all those hugs he gives me every night, he told me he loved me more than googolplex and that I am the best nanny ever. The girl gives me a lot of hugs all the time as well and tell me how much she loves me. I don’t want to leave these two cuties! But two comforting thoughts are that I actually have eight months left and I will see them again in two years when they are visiting Sweden :). The boy is gonna hug my cats all the time when he’s there, haha!

Now I will go to bed and watch Game of Thrones episode 7. The third season is soon at an end…

My tattoo is healing well and I’m once again ready to start my workout. When I got to the gym I realized though that I forgot my exercisebook at home so I took it pretty easy today. First a few minutes on the stairmaster as warmup. Then three strenght exercises, pull-ups, push-ups and squats. 3 sets with 21, 15, and 9 reps. After that I spent 35 minutes on the Elliptical machine. When I got home and could relax for a bit it started hurting all over. But that’s not gonna keep me away from the gym tomorrow too.

When I got off work Vasoula picked me up and she drove us to Full Circle Tattoo again. She was super nervous that she would regret it, but her birthdate in Roman numbers on her arm turned out really pretty.

After that I had a small dinner at KFC and then she drove me home. A very nice evening!

This morning I thought I deserved a long sleep-in after my long day yesterday. I woke up by a text from Vasoula at 11am and one hour later I picked her up and we went to the pool. There weren’t so many people there, most of the families came at 3pm. We stayed in the water a lot because it was so warm today, around 24C. I didn’t get burned at all even if I was at the pool for almost six hours. I read a lot and I’m kinda dreading the day when I’m done. When will The Winds of Winter come out?!

Nothing more than that didn’t really happen. We had scones for dinner which was awesome. I love scones :).

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 wasn’t so hard to get up at 7am on a Saturday morning as I thought. But I was really dissapointed when I looked out. Cloudy and it almost looked as if it would start to rain. But I ate breakfast, and put on my exercise clothes. I got there a few minutes before 8 and there were already four players playing. They introduced themselves and when another guy came I warmed up with him. I was a little rusty but it came back to me so fast! My first game was a few minutes later with a guy called Richard. We won with almost 15-0. After that I played with a lot of different guys and girls. I played mostly at the advanced court but at the beginner court too. I played with a beginner called Kristen and after our game we talked a lot. She just moved here from North Carolina and I will probably see more of her. I’m definitely gonna start playing with these guys. It was so much fun and especially since the weather today was perfect! It was cloudy, so no sun in the eyes. No wind whatsoever and it wasn’t too warm to play for a couple of hours. I noticed that I started to get really tired after two hours and sat next to the courts watching. In the background was the ocean, the sun started to peek out and soon enough not a single cloud could be seen as far as you could see. There were hardly any waves today so no surfers but there were a lot of people standing on boards paddling in the water. I totally forgot what that’s called, but I know that I’m gonna try it on the LCC meeting in July. Dolphins were in the water too and I was so happy. I couldn’t understand that this is my life now. I’m practically living at the beach and from now on I will spend all my Saturday mornings at Ponto Beach playing what I love!

At noon I drove home, took a shower, had a little lunch and then Vasoula picked me up and we drove to San Diego. Our first stop was at UCSD Bookstore. It was huge and inside were so much stuff! I bought a hoodie and a tanktop. I paid with my giftcard I got from my family so I didn’t feel that I ”lost” money on my account. Vasoula didn’t want to buy anything but she got out of there with a tanktop in a bag too, haha. I’m a bad influence on her.

Next stop was Full Circle Tattoo were she made an appointment for Monday. She took a late time so I could follow her there after work because I get off much later than her. The guy in the reception recognized me and told me my tattoo was healing very well and that I could start with my workout again! Awesome! I have big plans for my workout from now on. I’m gonna do the schedule I got from my PT, weight lifting three times a week. At least twice I’m gonna swim at the gym (or in the community pool maybe, if there aren’t so many kids, which it usually isn’t between noon and 3pm) And I will try to play beach volleyball at least twice every week. They have meetings on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. They are playing from 3pm to sunset and since the sun is setting pretty late now I think I might be able to play a little after work.

Our third stop was Las Americas where we met Karin and Victoria, a big Premium outlet mall at the border to Mexico. It was bigger than the one here in Carlsbad. I liked it! I managed to not buy anything until the last hour of our stay there when we entered the Nike Factory Store… Since I’m working out so much I need more work out clothes so I bought another pair of shorts that match my neon yellow sports bra. They are grey on the outside and yellow inside. I also bought a tanktop and a new black sports bra. Exactly the same as the one I have but I need one to switch with. When I paid I was looking for Karin and Victoria at the shoes department. Bad idea… I found a really nice pair of shoes to wear at the gym. It’s the same there, always good to switch with something. They were on a big sale so it wasn’t so bad. But I did feel a little bad, I wasn’t supposed to buy anything today. But I needed it :).

After our shopping (I wasn’t the only one buying a lot of stuff from the Nike store) we drove to Fashion Valley were we met Jessica, Maj and Pernille. We ate at a restaurant called Stacked. I never knew it was there but it was an awesome restaurant. First of all, you ordered on iPads on the table, and second, you could order whatever you wanted. You could pick ingredients for your salad, burger or pizza. I took a salad, but one that was already on the menu. Chicken, pecans, cranberries and more things I really don’t remember. It was really good. I felt so good about myself after two hours in the sand and a salad for dinner so I ordered a ice cream sundae too. One that I picked the ingredients for myself. Yummy, but cold.

Back home and I am so tired now. But I had a really great day :). But tomorrow me and Vasoula are going to the beach, far away from stores, just to relax the whole day. Lets hope it’s nice weather tomorrow too!

  The Mexican border.

Just got home from an evening in Mira Mesa with 5 other au pairs. I’ve been meeting so many new au pairs lately it’s crazy. At 8pm we met up at Applebee’s for dinner. I had sirloin with shrimp and it was really good. We had to hurry after so we wouldn’t miss the movie across the street at 9:15pm. Fortunately it was commercials and trailers until 9:40 so we didn’t miss anything. But since it was premiere night and you don’t have seat numbers here in the Sates we got the worst seats ever, first row… We’ll se tomorrow if I will have any neck pains.

The movie was okay. I didn’t understand any of it so I think I have to read the book! But it was well done and pretty with the 20’s theme.

Before that I spent most of my afternoon outside watching the boy playing with his two different playdates. And later in the evening the girl and her playdate too. When I was sitting there on the curb and my hostdad was home he told me a really funny thing. Today at his work there had been a tiny mouse. It dissappeared after a while but some people went home because there was a mouse in the building. That’s so ridicolous, haha! Mouses aren’t that dangerous.

In my freetime I was at the pool reading. Well, reading for 20 minutes before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more and slept the last hour. I’m glad my sunscreen is working :).

It’s super late now and tomorrow I have to be at Ponto Beach at 8am to play some beach volleyball for the first time since I left Sweden. It’s gonna be so much fun and I hope I haven’t forgotten too much. I’m not sure what to wear, in the mornings it is really cold and I don’t have any warm exercise clothes here… I guess I have to run a round a lot!

Good night/morning!

This class has been very easy. I think I am to good at speaking American English, but I learn a lot of stuff I had no idea about before. But it is a bit confusing though when you are thinking about your speech. Tonight was about how to shorten words and how to intonate sentences. I think I did pretty good on all the excersises. But it’s going better if I’m not thinking about what he’s saying.

Before that me and both the kids were doing Mothers Day’s cards. The boy wasn’t so happy about it, but when I told him he could do something card-like on a toilet paper roll he shone up and started painting the roll and writing and drawing hearts on it. Pretty and special!

After school, and before our arts and crafting, we had a little visit to Starbucks and their Frappucino Happy Hour, half price on all the frappucinos. I tried Chai Frappucino and it was really good. Almost as good as the warm one.

The day didn’t start very good. I overslept, my second time since I got here. I woke up at 7:30 am when the girl knocked on my door. At first I thought I accidently turned off my alarm like I did two months ago. But when I got up I realized that my phone was dead. My first thought was that it broke down like a month ago. But when I plugged it in the computer it started charging. Puh!

I can proudly say that today was the first day in a very long time that I ate my daily calorie goal of 1400. Now I just need to get every day to be like that! Easier said than done unfortunately…

My day started with an animal I haven’t seen here yet, a racoon! It was walking right outside the fence when I had breakfast, cool!

Before lunch I spent my time at a swim center close by because the boy started his swimming lessons today. Here in America the kids learn how to crawl before they learn how to swim ”normally”. It’s awesome and I’m super jealous. I want to learn how to crawl so I can start swimming at my gym as conditioning.

In my freetime I didn’t so much, watched an episode of Two and a Half Men and then slept a little. After school the boy had a playdate and me and the girl were inside making cards for mothers day on Sunday. It’s nice sitting down doing arts and craft with them. I’m hoping maybe me and the boy can do something tomorrow afternoon when the girl is at soccer practice.

For dinner tonight I made tacos. It was good but kinda spicy, don’t know why, I did exactly as I usually do. But everyone ate and were happy anyway! It was a very nice dinner tonight, a lot of laughter and conversation :).

I can’t believe one third of my year is already done. It’s still eight months left wich is quite much, but four months passed so fast! I am glad I’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff already so I won’t feel stressed out when I only have one third left.

Time goes by too fast… But at the same time I want it to go faster. I can’t wait till I go to San Luis Obispo (I have to book those flight tickets soon!), Phoenix and when mom comes. June is gonna be a packed month!