Swedish Citizen

Emily has been registered in Sweden! Yaaaay!! We received the letter from the Swedish tax office last week so now she officially has dual citizenship. Also, we had the appointment at the post office the other day and we applied for her passport. I had to pinch myself so I wouldn´t laugh when we had to raise our right hand and promise that all the information we had given was correct. Just like in the movies. What happened to signing your name? But then again, these little details make us laugh once in a while and brightened my Saturday morning for sure!

And the little lady is now sleeping in her huge crib. I thought she would feel "lonely" but now, she really seems to like it.

She`s growing fast, we even had our first play date last week Thursday, with four other babies! We are going to try and make a regular thing out of it. The parks here are really, really nice and spacious - and clean!

Found this pine cone when I was out power walking the other day, holy guacemole, you wouldn`t want this one to fall on your head!

Hurrah

Our shipment arrived on Friday. FINALLY. Now the flat looks like we have out growned it. Already. My goodness did we ship a lot. All of a sudden it feels like we have a home. Homy.

A couple of things broke. Some plates, my Copenhagen Starbucks mug. A few wine glasses. We can (and will) claim that on the insurance.

Another update on our parcel we sent from Germany on 14 October. It has been found in Wuppertal. Yes, WUPPERTAL. It could not be delivered, apparently. And in order to get it, DHL wants us to pay for it to be delivered to Cologne again, and then to the US. What a joke. I emailed them back asking to whom it couldnt be delivered to, addressee or the sender?? Funny since the US post office could not track the parcel at all which makes me wonder, did it leave Germany at all? Folks, stay away from DHL. To deal with Germans only one thing helps, bark back!

Beach Weather

Drove down to Crystal Cove this morning for some breakfast which turned out to be lunch instead. We had to wait 1,5 hour for a table! I had the crab cakes which were absolutely delicious.

Lovely little place by the beach, just a shame it is so popular! Not the beach, but the restaurant.

This is also a great spot for seal or dolphon watching. Today we saw one seal and a couple of pelicans.

Headed to IKEA afterwards to buy another chest of drawers. Managed to fit in the car despite having the pram in there. Shame about the food corner in there now, no "proper" Swedish food to buy anymore, only IKEAs own label. Once we got home I was going to have a swim but both pools were full of crap from the trees so no exercise today. Well, apart from the walk from the car park to the beach and back.


Tomorrow we are most likely heading north, to El Lay, for some sightseeing! My mother-in law is here and since Emily quite enjoys to be out and about these days (plus it wears her out, haha) we`ll have a day out.

New Gadget

Hubby got a new gadget, a Dyson cordless hoover

This picture is taken from the internet. It is a cordless handheld hoover. I did not win this battle - I wanted a European style - but I am willing to give it a go. Dyson seems to be revolutionary here so let's see what it can do. I do like the cordless feature though

Sunday Walk in Pictures

Despite it looking rather chilly outside we decided to take a walk. Chilly by Californian standards, not European. Standards we seem to be adjusting to very fast :)

Emily wasn't too impressed at first but she fell asleep after a while.

 Tried to take a picture of the mountains, obviously the zoom on the camera is not doing its job

 Lots of cactus

And interesting looking trees...

 Big junctions to cross and me trying to keep up with hubby

 Lots of lemon trees, in fact, I don't think I have ever seen so many lemons at once! I was sooo tempted to pick one but too many cars driving by

 More funny looking trees

Mountains...I need a better zoom!

Once back home, we quickly fed Emily and rove to Alan's where we went for tea at counter burger..build your own burger kind of place. Nice naked burger with some delicious salad for me:)

Managed to keep Emily awake until 8.30 last night and she slept through until 4 am this morning. Yippie!

Super Sunday

Super Sunday starts with football, just like nearly every Sunday and Saturday. Football as in soccer. Super Sunday because Arsenal and Man Utd played. And what do we see after the game? Piers Morgan with his red tie commenting on the football. Just because you are a famous Brit in the US and an Arsenal fan it doesn't mean we want to see you every weekend. It is enough you are on CNN every day. VERY tired of him. And why do I watch CNN every day? I like watching the news and that is the only channel with decent news IMHO.

I think we have figured it out. Emily's sleeping pattern!! We kept her up until 9 pm last night and it wasn't even that hard. At first I thought she might get over tired and get all cranky but we put her on the sofa between Gav and me and she was happy. She slept until 5 this morning! It did not mean that I slept in though because she is a noisy little sleeper. Think she might take after me in her sleeping pattern, I have never been a great evening person, and we never have trouble putting her to sleep at night, on the contrary, around 7 she normally nodds off. From now on we will try to keep her active a little longer. But now we are back where we were last weekend. 5 am. Hurrah! And hurrah for Emily, 7 weeks old today!

Today we intend to be a little more active than yesterday, which was a flop activity wise. Soon we'll head out for a walk and in the afternoon we'll drive over to Alan's for a change of scenery.  Need to get my 1 h power walk, since I skipped it yesterday. Weatherwise it is still not so sunny and warm outside but it is dry which will do me!

Grim Weather

Saturday was going to be such an eventful day. I was going to head down to the farmers market in Laguna Beach in the morning to get some vegetables and fruit and in the afternoon we were going for a walk. What happened? It rained. A lot. It never rains here but yesterday morning it certainly rained cats and dogs. So instead of the farmers market I drove to Trader Joe's and Albertson's to do the weekly shopping. Came home with some lovely Gerolsteiner sparkling water, boiled eggs (I am nearly embarrassed to admit to buying boiled eggs) and some lunch from Panera Bread. NOT healthy. Worst of all, I had a weak moment and bought this cobblestone

For some reason I thought it would be healthier than a cinnamon roll. Ha! So far I haven't eaten it, staying strong!


Since we had a bot of a sandwich galore in the afternoon we opted for a healthy snack in the evening

Homemade guacamole

and the latest trend here, raw food :)

Rented a movie on apple TV, The ides of March. Turned out to be pretty good!

6 Week Check Up

Had Emily's 6 week check up at the doctor's.  All good!
11 pounds and 8 oz, 58.5 cm! Not bad huh. I know, I keep mixing the metrics. 
She also had her second shot (first one - Hep B) was at the hospital. She cried for exactly 3 seconds so I think I was more anxious about it than her. She is growing fast though, our baby girl!

We have also been to the Swedish pre-school again, it went a lot better this time. She hardly cried at all, she slept through most the songs and games. New strategy of mine: give her a top up just before we leave and change the diaper and I will have a happy and sleepy baby whenever we are out!  I did notice at the pre-school that I really have to stick with speaking Swedish with her at all times. Some of the parents speak English to their babies and they are struggling with the their Swedish. Priority number one from now on is to speak Swedish with Emily at all times. Now, she may either be super confused or turn out to be a language genious one day, our cleaners who don't speak so much English speak Spanish to her. Time will tell.

In the meanwhile, we are doing our power walks on a daily basis. Longer, faster but the damn scales hasn't moved in 2 weeks. Can't walk faster, can't walk further. Sigh!

Power Walks

Keeping up with the walking...A year ago I could run 10 km without getting too much out of breath. Now I  power walk for 45 minutes and can hardly breathe afterwards. Help!!

We have a trail just behind the complex, it is usually empty and I only see one or two people out walking.

 Pics from the trail with the last one showing the entrance to our complex.

I also walk around the shopping complex which is LARGE. It consists of a couple of blocks, not the tiny European ones, proper American BIG blocks. Problem is when I have to cross the street. 8 lanes need to be crossed within 26 seconds. Yep. I am a fast walker and I just make it.

Noticed yesterday that half a burrito and half a quesedilla do not go well with a healthy diet. Cost me a kilo, or should I say, added a kilo. Trip to Costco yesterday with lots of healthy food will hopefully discourage any such temptations in the near future. Hopefully. Need not to be hungry or in a rush next time I go to Costco. The normal such polite and friendly people turn in to crazy maniacs when there is free food around. Queues everywhere. They all have their eyes set on one thing. Free food samples.

Pre-school

Just got back from the Swedish pre-school www.svenskaskolan.org. Yep, we're starting early. Emily has been enrolled! We will go once a week, and Emily is part of the youngest group, Nyckelpigorna. There are about ten children in her group, and all in all, around 30 children in the pre-school. Think I will enjoy going more than Emily:) She made sure that everyone knew who she was by screaming the first 30 minutes.
It was, however, really nice to meet the other parents, can't wait till next week.

Also joined SWEA, Swedish Women's Educational Association, and will go the the early meeting this month. Something else to look forward too!

We are also in the process of booking our flights to Germany, England and Sweden. Hurrah! We will most likely land on the 29 March in Cologne and spend the weekend there before continuing to England and then Sweden. I hope winter will be gone by then. We have no winter clothes, and Emily definitely has none.

Got some news about the parcel we sent from Germany in October. It is gone. It is kind of what I expected but still, I am so annoyed. Never again will I send things I actually care about by DHL.

Also had some other news. Our shipment will arrive to Long Beach harbour on 18 January. So soon, SOON, we will have 24 boxes which need to be unpacked. My goodness, where shall I find the space?? Oh dear me.

Passport

...for Emily. Easier said than done!

As usual, I used our friend google to look up where to get the baby passport photo, what is needed for the application and where to go. So, off we drove to Babies r us, who told us they don´t do the photos (despite their website claiming this)..They told us to go to Target. Who informed us, only the Post office is allowed to take infant passport photos..Soooo we drove to the post office. Where we were told, the passport application office is closed on Saturdays..but we could go to the main post office down the road since their passport office is open on Saturdays.

Once we found the office, (Tom Tom being unreliable again), we were told by the lady in the passport office, we needed an appointment. The customers she had in her office were the last ones for the day. I tried to mention, it said open till 3 pm on her door and it was only 1 pm. No point, she was closing for the day. Then I asked about the photos and I was told I could go to Cosco, I declined because I would rather have them taken at the passport office (and avoid having the photos dismissed later on, you never know), could I make an appointment? Well, in order to  make an appointment, I would have to get in the queue in the "normal" post office (20 people ahead of me) or phone the hotline, which is only open Monday to Friday. Geez, and people aske themselves how come so many Americans have no passport?

Anyway, I thought I looked up all information we needed online and it all turned out to be incorrect...I wonder how long the waiting list is to get an appointment? May be quicker to fly to DC and apply for a Swedish passport for Emily after all!

Cheques and Insurances

Something which have kept us busy lately are insurances and cheques. Both rather annoying. Some hospital bills are sent straight to the insurance company, and some are sent to us (dunno why). Now, most of the bills can only be paid by cheque and the hilarious thing is, that one bill came just before Christmas and it said it was due before year end. Right, that would have worked had  we been able to pay it online, but know, after phoning them up we were told, checks only. Arrggh. Off to the post office, which apparently shuts at 4.30. No wonder they are thinking about closing the post offices down, what fulltime employed person can make it to the post office during the week?

However, since the bills are dropping in at the moment, we are busy writing out cheques and buying stamps (bought some at the machine, now THAT was rocket science!!, makes German bureaucracy look easy).

Another insurance driving us up the walls is the car insurance. We swapped insurance companies back in October and not one statement as been correct so far. NOT ONE. Lucky for us and unlucky for them we have learnt every and anything here needs to be scrutinized here so we keep chasing them. Sigh.

All Alone Again

Now all the visitors are gone and the flat is scary quiet. What a busy week we have had! It has been nice to have family and in laws here, and to get some little help. We even swapped babies one night which let us sleep until 6.30, a real treat!

We went to Laguna Beach on Wednesday - I had a an appointment at a new hairdresser, well, new for me, it has been there quite some time. Met up with the family afterwards and had some lunch at the Cliff´s

Gavin is on the phone to work, as usual

Lovely Laguna Beach

Also drove up the canyon to see R. and J. Stopped at the playground so little T. could play a little.
Great view!

Went to a few nice restaurants this week as well,

 Lucille Smokehouse BBQ where the drinks are served in jars (I tried to take a picture of the neighbours plate, they had a rack of beef ribs, HUGE, but I failed)

and to Javiers, a super nice Mexican.
Emily is getting so good now, even if she does wake up, she is all sweet and quiet :)

Next week the Swedish pre-school starts, there is even another infant in the baby group so it looks like Emily might find a new friend straight away! They meet every Tuesday morning so that is something to look forward to.