Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from the Clarkes, we are celebrating with plenty of Swedish Christmas food and snow!

Christmas Markets

When we were in Cologne last week we of course visited the Christmas markets, I think there are seven in total (I have two favourites, the one at the cathedral and the old town, best food and atmosphere). When we lived there we spent many many evenings every week at one of them, either meeting up with work colleagues, friends or just hubby and me. There are plenty of food, Christmas music, Gluehwine and beer. It is nearly impossible to get a table in any of the (good) restaurants around the city centre so we normally opted to have food at the market. Yummy yum yum!

This year we were a little unlucky, it rained every day (and night!) so it wasn't quite as nice but we still managed to pop down a few times, with the pram day time was definitely the better time to visit and during the weekend there were too many tourists.

                          The cathedral in the background of the market, magnificant!

One of my favorites, very old style, serving German schnaps and Swiss fondue.

We were actually quite disappointed when landed in Sweden and arrived to Gävle. Cologne has so much Christmas to offer, people love socializing over some Gluehwine and there is so much Christmas everywhere. 

Christmas

Christmas came sooner than expected - it has been a super stressful week but now we are off: Germany, Sweden, England.

Talk to you on the other side of the Atlantic!

SWEA Christmas Lunch

This morning it was time for SWEA´s yearly Swedish Julbord. Oh my, did I eat too much. I never learn when it comes to buffet. Never learn to go only once. The second round always ruins it. And so it it this time too. I managed to squeeze down some afters - soft ginger bread with lingonberry whipped cream. and then I fell into the food coma and had to go home.

 Still stuffed, 6 hours later and it is nearly bead time. I guess you could say this is what you´d call good value for your money. Kind of breakfast, lunch and dinner all in one?

               It had all the goodies, the eggs, ham, meat balls, salmon, ahhh. Yummie yum yum.

Disneyland

It has been some busy weeks, as you might have noticed. The blog is really suffering, I am so sorry.

We have had some sort of an adventure nearly every day, if it hasn´t been birthday parties

Emily 1!

On Tuesday our little girl turned one, unreal how time flies! We had a little party in the park on the Sunday, unfortunately the weather wasn´t too nice. If you are 20 or more people having a gathering you have to make a reservation (which of course comes with the nice fee of 150 dollars and a long list of do´s and dont´s), the nice thing about this is that you don´t have to fight about the space with anyone else, it is all yours:)

We have hardly seen any rain or bad weather in the past 12 months but during the week and a half we had visitors, Cali showed its worst side, including on the day of the party. Nevertheless, we were really happy that everyone showed up despite of the crappy weather. Emily was spolit with ay too many presents, I don´t know where to put them all!

                                      Our baby girl does not have a sweet tooth, yaay!

Princess cake from the the bakery The Great Dane in Huntington Beach,. Big minues for not using real cream, eventhough I phoned up and asked for it, they even confirmed!

Something I noticed during all this party planning and visits to "Party world" is all the party stuff you can get, wowowow. Everything rom pink table clothes and different party themes such as princess, lakers etc, but also the different balloons. We could have spent a fortune and really had to control ourselves, haha.

Las Vegas

The drive to Vegas went quite smoothly apart from the fact we had to drive to LAX to pick up some missing suitcase. Just a short detour. The in-laws arrived safe and sound minus their suitcases and a big boo for British Airways for having no customer service hotline. After googling for any number to BA I phoned the executive club which then forwarded us to a "real person" who told us the suitcases had arrived and would be delivered. The cut a long story short, we decided it was quicker to drive up and get the luggage ourselves than wait for it.

Took us a little over five hours before we arrived at Bellagio, we stopped at a real 50´s diner on the way for lunch. Once arrived in Vegas, this time we liked it a little better. No culture shock, LOL. There were no expectations this time nor stress to wander around and see everything. Plus, when we were there in 2005, it was over 40 degrees C so we were sweating our pants off, literally.

I remember how disappointed I was when I walked into one of the casinos back then and realized it was nothing like in Europe. No suits, ties or dresses. Instead, lots of overweight middle class in flip flops and shorts. This time I knew what to expect but got a wake up call when someone blew smoke in my face at the roulette table. I am in Nevada and people still smoke here! A big minus for Vegas!! Not used to cigarette smoke anymore.


Bellagio was much nicer than New York New York where we stayed last time. Not as crowded and not as loud. However, if I go with kids again, perhaps a hotel without a casino would be better. Location was also spot on and you cannot get tired of watching the fountain at the front.

My favourites are roulette and slot machines (though nowadays you can call them card machines, no coins anymore( and lucky me one a total of $ 300 within an hour. Responsible parent as I am, I stopped gambling and went to bed.

                                                                           
                                                                          Team Clarke

                                                                             Venetian

                                                                          
                                                                                   Bellagio

                                                          Fountain outside the Bellagio


Unfortunately I have misplaced my battery charger for the camera so these were all taken with the iphone, unfortunately.

Off to Vegas, baby!

Thanksgiving - European Style

Thanksgiving turned out to be a day of cleaning and eventually falling into a pie coma.
The meal inself turned into a combination of what we like; chicken (smaller size), cranberry sauce, gravy, yorkies, mash and roasted potatoes. We completely forgot about the stuffing. Normally I would have made one but honestly I couldn´t be bothered - the pie was a peacan pie a la Costco. Very nice, I have to admit. Way too big for two people so we will be having pie for quite some time. Around 8 pm I fell into the pie coma and that was it. Early night!

Black Friday was just as quiet. A repeat of Thursday´s meal (I cannot smell chicken or potato for quite some time though, overdosed completely!) and a quick lunch at the District. Love family days! We stayed away from the shops, apart from some food shopping. Rented a film on apple TV at night, I think we are getting too old for movies. There is so much crap out there and it is hard to find a good one. I THINK last night´s film was called Freelancers, a thriller, and what a waste of time. No no, think we will continue to watch the super fantastic series we are following at the moment. MUCH better.

Now - bring on the weekend! House is tidy, waiting for in laws to arrive!!

Busy Bee

Short week but so much to do!

• Tomorrow after our weekly baby fika with the Swedish girls, Emily and I are heading to Olsons in LA to buy some goodies. Swedish kaviar, cheese and this & that. Also need to go to Costco and get some stuff for Thursday. Decided to skip the turkey and get a chicken instead. Size matters, hihi. We don´t want to eat turkey all weekend.

• Thanksgiving is also THE day where all the Christmas decorations will be unpacked. Cannot wait!!! Would like to start NOW. More is more so there will be lots to put up.

• Saturday family arrive; fist we will go to a birthday party around lunch, then head to LA to pick them up. And start planning our stay in Vegas next week.

• And oh, I need to bake. A lot. Before that yeast goes off. Bread, cinnamon rolls. What else?

• We have found a new series we are now hooked on. Arrow. A bit silly. A little soap operaish. But sweet, and worth watching.
• I have a sweet sweet tooth at the moment. Or can you say greasy? I could at not just sweets all the time, but burgers and pizza too. Yuck. So power walks - you are back on.

Short Week

I love short weeks! Thursday is Thanksgiving and Friday is the shopping crazy Black Friday so only two more days to go.

Autumn has finally arrived to OC and we have had some cool days. Even turned the heating on twice, and this I don´t get. What happened to normal radiators? Instead, we have the a/c blowing cold or hot air, in this case, hot air. Hello? You wake up in the middle of the night, thinking you left the hair dryer on by mistake. Do radiators exist at all or do you all just have hot air blowing as heating? Useless but better than being cold I guess.

Tomorrow is cleaner day. The minute after she has left, we are both waiting for her to come again. This is a luxury well worth paying for, even if it is bi monthly. We still have some miscommunication though, after a some minor disasters doing the laundry I have told her several times, not to bother with it, but in vain. Instead, we now hide the laundry but somehow she manages to find it. Not just that, sometimes, the already clean stuff get washed again (I know, if I started ironing everything it would look cleaner) and disaster disaster, everything ends up in the dryer, and whites and blacks get washed together. We have started to do some marathon launday before she comes but there are always some left overs.

Today in one week we will be in Vegas! In laws arrive on Saturday so we all know what we will be doing on Friday -  cleaning!

Skyfall

We went to a new cinema last week to watch the latest Bond movie. We usually go to the imax theatre at Spectrum but decided to give the Island Cinema at Fashion Island in Newport Beach a go. You have to be over 21 aince they sell alcohol, they also serve some food - you order at the tilt and they bring it to you - and it is not so over crowded as the other one. Best thing about it is of course the big leather seats and the leg space. I normally get a bit uncomfortable after an hour or so when my legs start aching but have to admit, this was pretty nice. Just the price is a little over the top -  18,50 per person. Ouch. We will go again, but not necessarily every time. As for the film? It was ok. It was entertaining but it had a few gaps in the story and lacked to major bond parts: there was no rescuing of the bond girl and no car chase. LOL.

A few weeks back I ordered somthing online, or, as I usually say "I cliked something home". I had seen a top at a BCBG store but they had no mediums left so I googled until I found the top at a website, BCBGretailstore to be exact. The problem is that what I received is not what I ordered. I neded up paying 102 bucks for this item, hand knitted and shipped from China:) What a lesson learnt.

SWEA Christmas Fair

Yesterday it was once again time to go to SWEA OC´s yearly Christmas fair, this time in Huntington Beach. It took place in a location called "Old Village", which has been built up just like a Bavarian village with little shops, a German supermarket, Ratskeller and a "party room", where the actual fair was. I go there a couple of times a ywear to get my German kick and it is kind of cozy, perfect place to have the Christmas fair. No palm trees to be seen!

 

                           I spent some hours selling lottery tickets, there were some very cute prices

 Some very nice Christmas ornaments could be found here, I really had to concentrate on not buying any.

I was there to help out both the Swedish School, and SWEA, and it turned out to be quite a long time. Made sure to buy some Swedish cinnamon buns, Swedish limpa and some "ice chocolate". Imagine the feast I had last night after also buying some sausage (falukorv) for my sandwiches at the German shop. Yum!


Also bought some fresh yeast, the woman in the bkaery gave me the biggest piece ever, for only 2 dollars, not sure I will manage to bake this much. If anyone needs some yeast and lives in the neighbourhood, feel ree to pick some up:)

Yum

After we went to Gymboree this morning, I decided to make a detour and drive to The Great Dane, a Danish bakery in Huntington Beach. I needed to order Emily´s birthday cake and I felt I was in great need of some decent bread. And boy did we get lucky. Limpa, frallor, Danish pastry. Perfect. Of course you need a decent cheese with such delicous bread so we popped by IKEA on the way home. Had some meatballs for lunch, got some Herrgård cheese and prinskorv.  Very successful Friday, the weeked can begin!

Tonight´s dinner snack, with sparkling water. Love love love sparkling water. One of the best things Germany has taught me! LOL 

 

                                        Had to bribe Emily at IKEA and get her the soft toy dog above.

Finally Over

Not even 9 pm and we have the result. What a relief. Both the result and that the election is over. We can all like each other again and things will return back to normal.

I haven´t checked all the results of the propositions yet. I have heard taxes will be raised, death penalty remains.

Not sure how well this is reflected in the European news but this country is really divided into two parts and  so much hate exists, it is quite hard for someone from the "outside" to understand. US elections seem to be all aout lies, propaganda and advertisement in a very unpleasant form. As I said, finally over.

Blogs

I read several blogs every day, travel blogsd, financial blogs, fun blogs. A few months ago I also read Katrin Zytomierska´s blog. I stoppped when she clamied bullying among kids is a good thing. How fucked up can you get right? The other day Twitter exploded because she attacked SATS campaign in Sweden, they have a woman on thei poster who´s not super skinny.

Right, it must be terrible being Katrin Zytomierska and having to write such a shitty blog to get more readers and make money.

Big boo for people like this.

Election Day!

We will be watching CNN most of the night and hope for the best:) There are also lots of propositions to vote for today, in the past months there have been lots of advertising on TV and signs have been put up a bit  here and there along the roads, "vote yes on prp 38" etc.

These are some of them in California:

Prop 38: Molly Munger's Tax Proposal
Prop 38 would raise the income tax rate on most Californians to help pay for schools and pay down the state's hefty education bond debt.

Prop 37: Genetically Modified Foods
Supporters want to label food that contains genetically engineered material to give consumers more knowledge and choices about what they eat.

Prop 36: Three Strikes Law
Prop 36 would amend California's Three Strikes Law to shorten the sentencing for some nonviolent offenders.

Prop 35: Human Trafficking/Sex Offender
Prop 35 would introduce much stiffer penalties for convicted sex and labor traffickers, in addition to expanding the definition of human trafficking.

Prop 34: Death Penalty Repeal
Say goodbye to the Death Penalty in California if this proposition gets a majority yes-vote from voters. 

Prop 30: Jerry Brown's Tax Proposal
Gov. Jerry Brown's tax measure would temporarily increase taxes for the richest Californians to help close the budget gap, with money for schools and local public safety programs.

I wonder how many take their time to vote on these?

Exciting exciting, it looks like it will turn out to be very very even.

The Grove

One of my favourite spots in LA is the Grove. It is strange, as a tourist in LA you get bombarded with information about Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Hollywood..but not the real gems. It´s only lately I feel I have discovered the LA I really like, e.g Venice - in particular Abbot Kinney -, Malibu, the Grove etc. There is so much to see and do beyind those tourist traps, even though Santa Monica is still worth visiting. Next on my agenda are Glendale and Brentwood.

We drove up to LA yesterday to meet up with some friends who live just around the corner from the Grove. Just around the corner European style, a 15 minute walk. And ihow we enjoyed that walk!! Especially walking back to the car, at a slightly chilly night, with lots of traffic, pedestrians and buzz going on. Miss that so so so much. Restaurants and convenient stores at every street corner. People. All kinds of people.

Anyways. We walked up to the farmer´s market and the Grove, enjoyed a cool drink at one of the cafe´s, did some people watching (this is a real hot spot for some fun people watching). We saw one "celerity" next to us at the café but none of us remember his name so we will have to google a while to find a picture of him. It is quite funny. people who dress like they are famous are rarely "someone". This guy was rollerblading and looked like he needed a shower:)

I always wanted to try an  Umami burger and so we did. Umami burger is a Californian chain and well known for the great burgers. Very tasty and what I really liked it the size, not to big and you don´t feel stuffed afterwards. Just right!

No wasting of any time here, Christmas decorations are up! Once it was dark and got chilly I nearly sensed a little vibe of Christmas atmosphere, just a wee one but still, what an improvement.

 

This is where Santa  resides until Christmas:) Once December, there will be a loooong queue to have your picture taken.

 

             I wonder what poor person had to decorate that Christmas tree. Soooo many balls.

Weekend!

The much wanted weekend is here, yaay! And finally, finally, it has cooled down a little (even if I know, it is not for long).

• Not sure what annoys me more. When women ask me if I am Emily´s nanny at the playground or when I get the question if I really have to work, (always with pity in their voice). I say women, because no man would ever say this. I have realized it is a bit of a status symbol here to stay at home. I must got it all wrong since I thought having a career was cooler.

• I was a little worried last night when I ordered a large pizza to share. We were super hungry and I was worried if it would be enough? Silly me. We are in AMERICA, the pizza was enough for a family of four. We got stuffed, and slept very badly. No more pizzas.

• This week AMERICA and I are not really friends. Nothing particulary has happened but I am tired of all the blah blah. I have changed my strategy. I do not get upset, instead I feel sorry for those annoying idiots for not knowing better. I pick my battles carefully:) As always, I am full of opinions.

• Tomorrow we are off to LA for the day. I love LA. The vibe, the food, the people...people walking. We are meeting some friends at the farmer´s market at the Grove. Might even stop off at Olssons and buy some cheese.  Real Cheese. Swedish cheese.

• Yesterday I saw a police motorcycle chasing a car at Target´s carpark. Probably the hightlight of the week.

One visit!

Would you believe that we only have had one visit tonight?? So now we are sitting here with one giant bag of sweets..booooooooo

Halloween

Happy halloween everyone! Finally got around to carve the pumpkins last night, phew. The stomach flu came inbetween on Sunday. Wasn´t as bad as I thought, they are kind of hollow and it did not turn out to be the slaughter I expected;) I had to go to Target last night to get a battery for the pumpkin light and  the sale had already started. Folks, you can get anything here. Halloween socks, spatches, outfits for dogs, ANYTHING. Spend till you drop, LOL.

                                                                        The tools...

                                                                 
                                                                        My pumpkin

                                                                      Gavin´s pumpkin, not bad huh

                                                                                 Mine..

Still think pre carved ones would be nice, it wasn´t THAT much fun. Took a walk around the neighbour hood the other day to look at the decorations. Since we live in a predominantly Asian City, you can imagine that we don´t live in Halloween city, haha. Kind of had to search for these houses....

 

         
                       And our own little lady bird:)

Most of our neighbours are Asian so we are not sure if we will get any visitors tonight, but we have bought ONE big bag of sweets just in case. No left overs I hope. Last year we had no one so we ended up throwing it alla way, but that was at the old house.

Stomach flu

Just recovered from a very nasty stomach flu. It popped out of nowhere last week Friday, then slowly wiped the whole family Clarke out. At least we are up today, not quite up and about butup and standing. These things suckwhen you have no family around. And what a stomach flu. I usuallu say the US is a country of extremes, well this was certainly a very extreme stomachflu. Never seen anything like it before. Phew!

Talking about illness. I think it is quite interesting when you think about each countrie´s national diseases. Let´s take Sweden e.g., during the winter the stomach flu (vinterkräksjukan) is something you read in the paper about a lot, everyone seems to be expecting it. Many young people are diagnosed with ADHD. And burn-outs and feeling stressed are very common among adults. Kind of ironic, Sweden is not known for long hours and short holidays.

In Germany, every second person seems to have diarrhoea (durchfall), no one is shy to talk about it. Most other people would probably say they have a bad stomach. Many adults seem to have ligament injuries. I had never heard of this before. When I had a cold in Germany people used to tell me all the time to go to the doctor. Why, is he going to make me feel better? Not sure if this is because I was brought up in Sweden where you can´t even go to the ER without phoning up the nearest health centre first but I don´t see the point in going to the doctor just because of a cold. But in Germany they do. And you´ll get a sick note. Always thought that was funny when people said they were written off sick for a week. How do you know you´re going to sick for that long?

So what is the national disease in the US? Not sure. I do know flu shots are big business here. Many shops (most grocery stores have a chemist) offer a discount if you get your shot there, something like "10% off your next shopping". Crazy!! In general I also think people are crazy about vitamins and remedies.

To a complete different subject. I stumbled upon this article the other week. It is in Swedish, and aout the conservatives in Orange County. Felt absolutely disgusted reading it. Do we actually live among these people?

http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/har-ar-man-overtygad-om-att-obama-vill-krossa-amerikanska-drommen/

Dinner, Swedish School

Friday night it was time for a fundraising dinner for the Swedish school, ladies only:). There were five chefs and I had volunteered to sort out the potatoes. You know, the Swedish potatisgratäng. Folks, don´t ever volunteer to peel potatoes for 18 people. That turned out to be my Friday. Since our potato peeler is kind of aggressive, it turned out to be a painful experience too. Menu of the evening was; Champagne; salami and mozzarella, starters; crostinis main: prime rib, oven baked potatoes, salad, horse radish, gravy, afters; white chocolate mousse with marinated strawberries. If I dare say so, it was very nice.

And what a house - THE perfect party house. The dinners are always hosted by someone at the school, this time it was at Anna´s in Newport Beach. People pay $ 40 for the dinner (last night we were 18) and some guests volunteer to cook. It is a really good opportunity to meet people and these dinners are alwyas very nice. Had a mini panic at the beginning, I left all the spuds at home so hubby had to come to rescue and bring them. Phew. Also, Anna´s rat had escaped so we had to keep an eye out for it. Just imagine it would have ran across someone´s foot during dinner. Oh oh oh.

Saw some raccoons outside

                                   A real party house! Lots of space and open planned.