au pair | Bemm

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.

Today was exactly like a day two summers ago, when I was an au pair in this amazing family. It was like the past two years never happened and I just continued doing the au pair thing. I left bed at 11am after falling asleep at 3 last night. I started the day with playing Super Mario Bros on the Wii with the kids. My hostmom left to do errands for their upcoming Hawaii trip so I had the kids all to myself all day. It was a great day! First we played some Wii, and then soon thereafter it was lunchtime. And of course, they wanted Swedish pancakes, and it was like I have been doing that once a week the past two years as well. Turned out perfect.

Right after that we went out with the dog, Maya. The girl was on her bike and the boy had a friend with him and they were collecting sticks on the way. We were out there for about 45 minutes, and that was the only time they wanted to be outside today. I wish they would have wanted to go to the pool or something since it was the most beautiful day of the week and my second to last day in California. But well well.

Then the boys were out in the yard playing, and we were just hanging out for a bit before the neighbor had to go home and the boy and I played chess while the girl baked muffins. She then left for soccer practice and the boy and I played Battleship until my hostmom came home. And that’s when I left to go meet up with Andy, a guy from the Mission Beach volleyball gang. We had a very American evening together with first gunshooting at an indoor range, then In N Out for dinner (one last time) and then to Dave and Buster (Chuck E Cheese for adults) where we played arcade games until midnight when I had to go home so I would get some sleep before my early scuba dive tomorrow.

Shooting a gun is something I have always wanted to try, even if I don’t like guns and don’t agree with the constitution that everyone here has a right to own a gun. But it was still something I wanted to try so I could see what the fuss was all about. He brought four guns, two handguns and two rifles. I had him write down the names of them because there is no way that I would have remembered. The first one was a rifle .45 carbine, second was called AR 15, third HK .45 compact, and the last one was a .357 magnum revolver. My favorite was the .45 carbine, not too powerful, easy to aim with. The revolver was pretty fun too. The small and “normal-looking” gun was so powerful that it was scary to shoot with, haha!

After shooting about 2 rounds with each gun my arms were spaghetti and I was pretty much done, haha!

AR 15.HK 45 compact, the very powerful but small gun.

We were planning on going to the County Fair, but we decided to go to In N Out and Dave and Buster instead. That was also fun! I’ve never really played arcade games like that before, and I have to say that I sucked at most of it, haha! I was pretty good at skeeball after a couple of tries, and of course I am pretty decent at Mario Kart.

It was a long and fun day, and tomorrow will be even longer. I am super stoked about the dive, and then I will babysit the kids for a bit, and pack. Last day in California tomorrow. It’s sad…

I am sorry readers, I will get better at updating this thing again. I promise I will try at least!

This weekend is a long weekend (President’s Day on Monday) and I decided it was long overdue to go down to Carlsbad and visit my former hostfamily. As soon as I got here I realized I needed this getaway very badly. I got so happy when I started to recognize everything, and when I came to the house, saw my old room looking exactly like it did when I lived there, my hostmom, and the day after the kids. I am happy here and I am so glad I came down this weekend!

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Yesterday I woke up at 8am to have breakfast with my hostmom and the kids (my host dad was on a business trip up until today) and then went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park. I never went when I was here in 2013 (which was stupid when I had a membership). But I got 50% off, so it was not big deal. And it was a very nice day with the family. The weather was amazing, probably 85F, it was still a little bit breezy and we saw a lot of animals. Seeing animals make me happy. We saw a baby rhino that was born on November 27^th last year, it weighed 159lbs then. It was super cute. We saw a lot of other “safari” animals like cute lemurs, all the savannah animals, one of the last five White Rhino’s in the world, tigers, and bats. And of course a lot of other animals too. It was a great day! Too bad the boy rolled in some kind of nettles and got rashes all over his body. Poor kid, but he was a champ and didn’t complain at all. He got a cream and it made it all go away very fast.

When we came home I took a nap for a couple of hours while they went to a beach party for one of the girl’s friends’ birthday. Then the plan was to study, but I just couldn’t find the motivation.

Beach and surf and sun

Today was all about the beach and an old au pair friend from my year here in Carlsbad. We met up at La Jolla Shores Beach, so many people, so it was hard to find parking. My old car (my silver Volvo V70) was here and for me to use this weekend. Very nice of my hostparents to let me use it. SD is bigger than SLO, and without a car here you can’t do anything. I met three of Johanna’s Swedish friends and they were all very nice and we had a nice day together at the beach. We went in the water pretty early on, it couldn’t have been much more than 60F, but with the 90F (or something) in the air it was not hard at all going all the way in. It was refreshing. I love the ocean! And it is February! I love California! I love the sun! In the afternoon four of us put on wetsuits and went out to surf for a while with one of the guys in charge of the tent renting out wetsuits and surfboards for free and giving free lessons. It was the best surf session I have ever had. I caught almost every wave I try to catch and even if I didn’t stand up every time I still feel very satisfied and proud of myself. A few times I actually managed to stand up all the way in to the shore, which has never happened before! I don’t think I have ever stood up for more than 3 seconds before and today I did so much better than that almost every time I stood up. I am pretty sure I stood up more today in the hour I was out than in my whole life up until this point. So exhilarating! The last wave of the day was the best one and I drove home smiling like never before. In my old car, good music on the radio, singing, smiling, with the sunset in the west. It was a good, normal day (I don’t like Valentine’s Day, and it has nothing to do with relationship status, it is just a stupid commercial holiday when companies want to earn money, I learned today that Bulgarians celebrate wine on this particular day, I will start doing that too, wine is good).

Au-pairing again

My hostparents went out on a date tonight while I stayed in with the kids. Just like old times and I really enjoyed it! We started the evening with watching a movie called Step Dogs, the girl braided my hair in a very cool way, she also baked chocolate chip cookies (some kind of dessert on this “special” day felt needed), the boy played with the 7 month old Portugese Waterdog puppy they have. Then the three of us played the game I got them for Christmas, Totally Gross. It was a fun game where kids learn fun and interesting science facts. And when you earned points you stretched your slime clump from your characters nose, haha! The kids loved the booger/slime.

It is after 1am and I still haven’t started studying. I suck so bad! I am embarrassed by myself for being this bad at studying. But it is hard to find motivation when you are not sure what it is you have to do. Tomorrow evening! I will turn off all my social media devices and just study when the kids have gone to bed!!

If I will be able to wake up at 8 tomorrow I should probably go to bed now. I am not catching up on sleep at all this weekend, haha! Goodnight! And I promise to start this spiderweb of a blog up again!

After my infection/cold or whatever it was, my left wrist got filled with liquid and started hurting like never before in the beginning of this week. When it was at its worse I couldn’t move it the tiniest bit. The doctor told me to rest it and that it could take up to 2 months for it to go away. But luckily it is almost 100% restored today, four-five days later. It still hurts when I flex it to the max, but I could surf today without any problems. I have to go back in two weeks for a check up though. Hope it is all good then! On Wednesday I went out to the restaurant on Avila Pier with Jason and after dinner we watched the big fat sea lions under the pier. They are way bigger than they appear to be. This one was withing touching limit and probably as big as a three seat couch. A little bit scary. There were also normal grey seals and an otter swimming in the water. A starry night at the ocean was very nice. Baby rhino! Bats are actually kinda cute. Lemurs are adorably cute! One of the five last White Rhino’s in the world. One was at another zoo somewhere and the last three in a reserve in Africa and have armed guards 24/7. So sad! And all except one are too old to reproduce. This one was 40 years old. Baby rhino again! (rhinosaurus) We timed the feeding of one of the tigers perfectly. These animals are so beautiful and majestic A cool waterfall on the Tiger Trail. Pretty good camera my phone has, which can capture the drips in a waterfall. I did get my share of Valentine Day chocolate. From one of my roommates and my wonderful hostfamily. My not-eating-candy rule this year has a few exception days :). I haven’t had any candy in more than two months and this was divine today! I have missed southern California’s beaches so much!! This is La Jolla Shores where I actually only went one time last year, and that was to take a surf class. It was a packed beach on this wonderful summer day in February, but I loved every second of it. This is where I belong, on a sunny beach! I definitely got color today, yay! Nothing burned, just a pretty tan :). This is what the girl did to my hair. I hope it will survive the night so I can showoff on the beach tomorrow!My room looks exactly the same. I was so happy when I saw this on Thursday late night. I really needed this weekend to get away from everything up in SLO for a bit to get perspective on life again!