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 birthday was really nice. Though I have to admit it didn’t quite feel like a  birthday (like normal I guess when you’re getting older). Anyways, I got breakfast in bed today, a big cupcake! And the girl had made me a ”drawing” to put in my room (I asked for one). It was a lot of post it notes  where it said: ”Alexandra is the best!! Alexandra is amazingly talented and…. AWESOME! Alexandra Bemm is a shooting …” and then a star ”Love you”. Cutest thing ever! I love my host children :). The kids sat with me in bed while I ate (and of course shared a little of) my cupcake. Super cozy! I didn’t have to empty the dishwasher or do the girls’ lunch so I had an easy morning. Directly after I left the girl at school the boy had a playdate which gave me some time to skype with my mom. I really miss her! And I’m really looking forward to when she is coming to visit in the summer. We have never done this kind of vacation together before so I’m really excited!

I made lunch for me and the boy, drove him to school and then off to the gym for my PT #2. He showed me a lot of new exercises that I think will be one day out of my three work out days from now on. This new schedule seems very complicated but I guess I will learn eventually. My muscles still hurt since Monday and I think it will be worse tomorrow, especially my hamstrings and shoulders. He taught me how to do the deadlift today, it is really hard!

We made a new appointment for next Thursday and until then I have homework, do both days at the gym, preferably Saturday and Monday or Tuesday. I have good notes so I hope it won’t be any problems.

After school we went to Cold Stone Creamery (an ice cream store). I figured since it’s my birthday I might as well spoil myself a bit.

At six we had a table reservation at a resutarant called Shogun in San Marcos. It was a Japanese restaurant where they cooked your food right at the table. It was super nice! The food was really good too. The cook built a volcano out of onion rings and then poured something in it and then lit it. The flame was huuuge!

When they found out that we were there celebrating my birthday they brought me a dessert, green tea ice cream with fried bananas, which I shared with the rest of the family. The ice crem was surprisingly good.

That was a really nice experience!

When we got home it was time for some homemade meringue cake. It wasn’t crispy as it should have been but oh my god it was good! I love when pastries are tough!

I got two presents by mail. The one from my cousin yesterday and one from Hanna. From Ella I got three awesome drawings, a bag of Polly (my favorite) and a cute card where she wished me a happy birthday. Inside were also a pretty picture of her. My heart melted! ❤ She also sent me an email today which was so cutely written by her.

From Hanna I got a package of three body products, body lotion, shampoo/shower gel/bubble bath (a fun combination) and body polishing scrub. They smell of passion fruit daiquiri, awesome! 🙂 I also got some perfume samples. Very sweet of her! Thank you so much, if you are reading :).

From my host family I got a gift card I can use wherever I want, that is really awesome! 🙂 Why don’t they have those kinds of cards in Sweden?

To sum it up, this day was really nice! To be able to walk around in a summer dress on my birthday was definitely a first.

When I was skyping with my mom Stuff came up to the computer, stared into the camera and mjaued a few times. When I realized I should take a printscreen she turned her head around…

I took out the camera too late, I missed the flame…

Just got home from my second class and I am kinda insecure about my English now. We talked about consonants today and unvoiced and voiced sounds and that really confused me. I don’t think I had so much of a trouble with it before, but now when I think about it. Oh my god English is difficult…

My biggest problem though is till the z. I can pronounce it but I don’t know when and in which words!! Super annoying…

My day was nice, I spent some time in the backyard reading. The boy had a playdate on the street with some other kids so I sat outside for a while there too. It’s been a really peaceful day. And I love my book. I’m always halfthrough all the 1100 pages. And that kinda sucks…

This year, my birthday is gonna be the longest ever. In Sweden it’s been my birthday since 3pm this afternoon and it won’t stop until 33 hours later, awesome.

I’ve already gotten a present from my sweet cousin Ella! Haven’t opened it yet, but I’m super curious about what it is!

I think tomorrow is gonna be the best birthday in at least three years :).

Yesterday was cold and windy. Today was sunny and warm. It’s crazy how fast the weather can change here. So my freetime was spent in the backyard reading. All of my body hurts like hell after the work out last night so it felt good doing nothing. But I actually went for a walk. Instead of driving 1,5 miles I walked a shorter way to school when I was picking up the kids from school. We took a longer way home and in total I walked 3.5km which is pretty nice!

The dinner tonight was good too. I made a fish/shrimp stew with pasta and the girl loved it!! I thought it was really good too, tasted like fish pudding but more liquidy.

The MyFitnessPal app is awesome btw. You can even scan the barcodes and it recognizes the calories in that product. That app is gonna make my life easier from now on. Another thing that made me happy today is that I’ve lost 4 lbs since last week. I think that’s a “lagom” pace. But I really miss sweets… But on Thursday there will be cake, yay! 😀 And that will be okay!

Now it is high time for the season premiere of Game of Thrones! I could borrow a friends’ login to HBOGO and that made my day again! Awesomeballs!

I think these four sessions with Chris is gonna be worth the money. He totally understood what I wanted and gave me some really good advice. So far we went through three good exercises that together trained the whole body. The exercises I’ve been doing are focusing on one muscle group while these focus on more. So these are the new kind of exercises I will do. After our session he told me to do all three. Three sets, first 21 reps, then 15 and last 9. It was really hard and now my whole body is shaking and feels like spaghetti! Pull-ups, push-ups and sitting squats.

Even though I have a genetic error with my calves he told me that that wouldn’t stop me from doing squats. He just told me to do them differently and that worked perfectly fine!

He also told me about an app called MyFitnessPal. I actually have it, but I’ve never used it but it seems pretty nice actually. So instead of writing by hand every day, I think I will use that instead, it has all the calories already so you don’t have to do the math by yourself.

My next session is as soon as on Thursday. Good way to spend my birthday!

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.

Three months away from home already. I can’t believe I only have three quarters of my time here left! I’m pretty sure the days here are shorter than in Sweden…

Today was actually a little shorter than normal days. I slept until 11am. I felt like I needed it since I got up so early yesterday. I skyped with my mom and then went to the outlet mall with Vasoula. Last time I was there, like a month ago, I saw a pretty jacket in Sun Diego and wanted to go back and try it on. I know that I don’t need a jacket here, but I’ve had mine since I was like 16, so it’s about time to buy a new one. It fit perfectly and Vasoula kind of hates me now. She loved it too and bought it in blue instead of my red. Haha! I love that store, they have super awesome clothes. I also bought a pretty blue/white striped beach dress. I didn’t bring mine from Sweden and thought it could be nice to have one here in a beach community.

After our shopping we went to Carlsbad downtown. The first time since I got here! It wasn’t much but it was pretty. We found a cute outdoor café where we both had a waffle. Our third and last stop of the day was Oceanside Pier. I wanted to see if that souvenir shop had gotten the towel I want to buy, but they hadn’t. They should have had it 1-2 weeks ago… Instead we went to the beach where we sat and watched all the surfers and kids swimming. It late afternoon but the sun was still warm (unlike in Carlsbad where it was cold…). After a while we went up on the pier and watched the surfers from a closer distance. I really want to learn how to surf so tomorrow I’m gonna send an email to a surf lesson company that I heard about last weekend. I can’t wait!

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 divided in two. Before lunch and after lunch. Before I had breakfast with the kids while my h-mom was at the gym. The girl went to a birthday party and I was alone for the rest of the day, the mom and the boy did something together after. So I played a little GW2 and Aion for the very first time since I got here. In Aion I hardly remembered anything and died at once… At 3.30pm Vasoula picked me up and we went to the community pool where we lay in the sun for about two hours. We also swam in the pool and sat in the hot jaccuzi. It was awesome! Home for a quick shower and then to San Diego downtown. A Polish girl who Vasoula met at the au pair training school was visiting San Diego with her host family (she lives in San Fransisco normally), so we three went to Hard Rock Cafe San Diego. I had the California Burger, but only half because of my diet. And now I have lunch tomorrow!

After that we went to Coronado where we met some Americans who started talking to us. They thought it was super cool with European girls being au pairs.

Back home and now I am super super tired. I am gonna sleep until late tomorrow and then go to the Premium Outlet Mall with Vasoula. Goodnight!

I just got home from the movies with my h-mom and the kids. We saw the Croods and it was really good! And I’m really looking forward to the summer when more fun movies are coming! (I love animated movies  ;)).

This was the first time I was at the movies here in the US. A small drink was like a large in Sweden and you didn’t get seats, you had to choose when you got inside. Weird.

At the gym I had made an appointment for a body scan and measurement. So that’s what I did instead of working out. I don’t remember the numbers, but I think my upperarms is about 4cm bigger since before I got here, and that is not fat. My arms are the only part of me where I really can see improvement. My thighs, hips and core have gained a lot of fat and that’s why I was curious about my new body fat percent. It was 23%, just 1,1% more than before I got here, but I can feel the difference. And according to the guy helping me, a girl at age 21 should have 9-15% body fat. That’s just crazy! So according to him I need to lose  around 12 pounds. Which is actually less than what I’ve gained since I got here… So, I bought an early birthday present for myself, a month with 4 PT sessions with one of the master trainers at my gym. First session on Monday. He will help me find a work out schedule with exercises that fits me, apparently google can’t help you with everything. I really hope that this works, because I don’t like myself right now… I miss the old, slim me! When I had a BMI less than 20.

Today I got a really nice message from my mom. She got my letter that says how much I’m gonna get in tax refunds this year, and it was 7753 kr which is awesome!!

A funny thing that happened was that I really felt American today. I went grocery shopping and when I got home and was taking out the bags from the trunk of the car, one of the bags broke and I had to hold onto the bag with all my upper body. We don’t have paper bags as in the movies, but very thin plastic bags are worthless too and they break very easily. A funny feeling!

I worked late today, not as late as I thought, the meeting my h-mom went to ended an hour earlier but it was still around 7:30pm. So I had the whole day by myself with the kids. For dinner I made homemade pizza again, but they choose what they wanted on their pieces and it was a hit! I didn’t want to make such a big pizza as last time, so one third of the dough became real scones. I’m making pizza with scones bottom. Very appreciated by the kids who love scones!

Tomorrow’s Friday again and this weekend I don’t have any plans except taking it easy. Maybe going to the gym with Vasoula and hang out in the relax area after. Try out the community pool or maybe the beach. It’s gonna  be nice!

I’ve also started to look into what I want to do with all my vacation weeks and travel month at the end of my au pair year. I love to make plans for the future and I like having something to look forward to, doesn’t matter what it is really, I just need something. So far I’ve found a lot of stuff I want to see before I go home to Sweden and I hope it’s possible if I save a lot of money. Then there’s the tax refund I will get in the summer.

I think the parents said that I have vacation around Thanksgiving and Christmas. It would have been really cool to see the Niagara Falls (again, but I can’t really remember anything from the spring of ’92) and maybe stay in Toronto, Canada for a few days. New York would be nice too, but the waterfalls sounds more interesting I think. I’ve been thinking about the invitation I got from Lizzie about going to Mexico and Cancun and staying there with her. That would also be very nice!

For my travel month I really want to go to Hawaii and Florida. All the flights that month would be appr. $900 which is about 6000 SEK, not too bad! Then there’s hotels/hostels and food, but I think it could be managable.

If anyone is interested in seeing these places too, let me know :).

We’ll see. But I feel that when I’m on this side of the Atlantic Ocean I might as well try to see as much as possible. It’s a great opportunity since I love traveling and seeing new things (and besides, flights are cheap here)!

I think I will learn some things from this class. The teacher was really good and he already knew what kind of troubles a Swedish speaking person has. For example I didn’t know that I couldn’t pronounce the words with the z-sound. I keep saying s instead, easy or realise. Maybe a little, but I think that’s one of my major problems. I’ll probably find some more as I go to more classes.

I won’t get rid of my accent though, but I will be better at speaking naturally and more effective after this course and that’s good enough!

In my freetime today I was lying in the backyard painting rocks. I did two tiny shoes for the kids and some more for my window. I found eight triangles earlier today so I made a pizza. I think I burnt myself though, it hurt on my butt and upper back when I was in class. Haven’t looked at it yet, but I don’t think it’s that bad, otherwise I would have seen it when I took a shower.

Anyway, it’s very late and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Good night!

The happiness from yesterday was gone when I got to bed last night. My phone refused to charge. I tried switching the cord, I tried charging it in the wall and the computer. I tried both cords with my eReader and it worked. Super frustrated and confused. But when I thought about it I realized that the boy had hit my phone with the soccer ball earlier that day. Something must have happened then, because I’ve never had any problems with it before. The 10% of the battery lasted until this morning so I at least had my alarm. I was prepared for being without a phone for a while but in the afternoon I found a laptop repair shop. But apperantly they fix phones too. So I left it there for a little more than an hour and they fixed it! They saw my despair when I got there and put all their guys on it directly. It costed $89 but it’s worth it, I have my life on that stupid phone.

I skipped the gym today because of this. I lay in the sun in the backyard instead for 30 minutes. My tan is getting better and better for every day! And my book is so good. What am I supposed to do the next years while George R.R. Martin writes the next one?

We’ve changed my dinner-day to Tuesday for the next nine weeks since my class at UCSD starts tomorrow. The mom didn’t get home until very late today so I had dinner with the kids alone. I made creamy chicken crêpes which I thought was really good! The kids were as usual with my cooking. Didn’t say much, but probably out of politneness. I have to make dinner on Thursday too and I was thinking about making pizza again but this time they get to choose what they want on their pieces.

Since I thought my phone was lost forever and ever I started looking at new phones. HTC has come out with a new one that is supposed to be released April 19th, HTC One. But on the other hand, Samsungs’ Galaxy S4 is coming almost at the same time. Maybe it’s time to leave HTC and try something new? They are very similiar… We’ll see, but I think I have to buy one before I get home to Sweden at least, way cheaper here ;).