Chill+ relax= chillax!

And that was the motto of this Saturday!
After a good run and some internet surfing I met my friends Julia and Emma at Starbucks to hang out, drink a cup of coffee and munch some strawberries, till finally the sun came out and heated up whole Glen Mills and surroundings ;)
We were supposed to meet some friends a little while later, but as we were already at the meeting point we didn't know what to do- till something caught our eyes! A huge sign: "Nails" (no, Claudia,...not hairS and nails, just nails... :P ) - and that was our rescue!  Without further ado we went in there and got our nails done- my first manicure ever! ;)
I am pretty happy with the result, but since the nailpolish took forever (felt 10 hours) to dry, I already messed them up a lil bit :D
but whatever, still looks pretty...

tadaaaa

After the nice treat we were about to head to our friend's home, where we grilled sausages, made hot dogs, smore's, ate strawberries, m&m's, chips and all the other yummy stuff... :)
It was a fantastic fun-evening with girls-talk, getting- to- know- each- other- better, delicious food and a new rule: every spoken swedish word needs to be followed by a push up! (since I was the only non-speaking aupair that seemed pretty fair to me :P )
We also warmed our feet at the bonfire after it got colder, and sophisticated music accompanied us...
what a great day! :)



Emma and me...



Wurstiiiii



cooorn- actually something healthy ;)



in contrast to that... ^^ yuummyyyy



warming feet at the cosy fire

Hope your day was as fun as mine too! :)

Goodbye, my dear friends

The last two days were pretty hard when it came to letting two good friends of mine go...- Andrea, who already had travelled and got back for a few days, had her farewell party on Monday, and Miriam went on her vacation a day after that.
I am so glad that I was able to share time with both of them, they mean a lot to me!
Having friends here helps getting over rougher times and makes everything more fun- you mosly just connect with people here and then some pop out and you become better friends with them.
I am frankly sorry for me that they left, but I am happy for them that they can start a new chapter of their lives- I am glad and lucky that I got to know them!
See you either in Austria, Sweden or Germany, then ;)

Bye, Andrea! I'll miss you

Frohe Ostern meine Lieben :)

Yay- Happy Easter everyone! ;)
Finally, the big day of Easter-Egg Hunting and looking for bunny trails had arrived- what a fun day!

The kids woke up early to go look for their hidden easter eggs in the house, and they found a lot! They also found  huge easter egg baskets and one from the Austrian easter bunny ;)
And-- oh my gosh!- Look what else they found!


Bunny Trails on the patio!!!! :D

 After some breakfast and church we were invited to my family's relatives and spent a whole day full of delicious and decoratively-prepared food, fun and talk! Traditions like egg cracking and having easter baskets also take place in America :)


Yuuuum- and that was just the apetizers :P

In the afternoon, during a break of rain, an exciting easter-egg-hunt took place-
man, the kids had a great time!


Kyle's bucket says "Chick magnet"- he truly is one ;)

On the day after Easter I also got a huuuuuuge surprise from Austria! After I already had gotten my Easter package from beloved Dani with deeelllicious chocolates, I also got one from my moooommmyy!!!
And it is awesome!- The box was full of Kinder-chocolate and other delicious stuff! I will have enough till I go home, never have to buy some chocolate here :P

And the kids had fun playing in the box, too ;)

Hope you had a great Easter, too!
Wish you all the best,
Ida :)

Easter!!!



Egg-Dyeing Aupair- Meeting :)

Yay- since Easter was right around the corner, we had our monthly LCC meeting in one of my Aupair-friend's house and did some Easter-relating activities!

First of all, Aupairs had to bring some dishes from their countries, what leaded me to bringing some Linzer Torte, since I still had that and wasn't able to eat it by myself (well...SHOULDN'T is the more appropriate word, but I'll just stick with I COULDN'T eat all of it ;) )...
So we found some German bread, swedish chocolate balls, Thai eggs, and Swedish cinnamon buns,..aaaah - to top it we also had crackers, eggs, dips, tortilla chips etc. to stuff ourselves ;)
It was delicious!

Swedish cinnamon rolls



hihihihihi



Me and my new friend Ida (isn't that awesome! ;) ) enjoying the FOOOOOD :)

After some time we also started dyeing our eggs, which was a lot of fun- I can't remember doing that before!
My friend's hostkid was all into it and enjoyed the attention of the other aupairs that were glad that they just could talk to the kid but didn't really have to be responsible for it :P
(I shouldn't say that, right ;) )

Most of the aupair group :)

I can say that this was a really nice meeting where I definitely made new friends and found people that I could talk to- it is always nice to get to know new faces and just make new contacts!
After the meeting me and Emilia, a swedish friend of mine, decided to go to the movies to see the movie "water for elephants", which just started- man, YOU GOTTA SEE THAT!!! I can totally recommend it!

Well...I hope you had a great Saturday, too :)

Talk to you soooon :)

Up!

On our last day in Texas we decided to take the El Paso Wyler Aerial Tram which took us up on the Franklin Mountains where we were able to enjoy a wonderful view-
over El Paso, New Mexico and Mexico!!!
Kyle and Kaitie where a little nervous as the tram started to take us up on the mountain, but we all enjoyed the impressive view over two countries!
The kids were begging for quarters every minute, too, to take a look through the huge binoculars... ;)

El Paso, actually Fort Bliss, the Army Post



in front of the tram



xoxo,
Ida :)

Impressions of El Paso

This week we have been exploring El Paso and the desert, and I rather liked it!
It's just so different from home and even different from the Eastcoast, although it's the same country with the same language!
It had been preeeetty worm all the time- started at like 22 degrees in the morning when I did my runs, and got up to like 32 degrees every single day- jealous, huh? ;)

On Tuesday we were driving through El Paso, and I got a pretty good impression of Downtown El Paso and this part of Texas in general...
We went to one of the churches of the Mission Trail in E.P, which was pretty interesting and also beautiful to my mind!

On the inside the church was very old and a little bit falling apart as well, but the outside was nice to look at ;)

For lunch we went to a very authentic Mexican restaurant which had delicious meals! I had a chicken burrito, and everyone else had something Mexican too, well, except for Mr .Picky-Kyle ;)
But the dessert on his plate was Mexican, though...gotta give him credit for trying it :P

We also went to the border of Texas and Mexico- behind the River was the city Juarez, which is a pretty dangerous city with a lot of drugdealing... it was interesting to see how close countries lie next to each other and how different they seem to be concerning the people, the language, the cultural backgrounds...



Kyle and me danging SAMBAAA in front of the border





Franklin Mountains



Killing time in the car :D

Hope you are having a good one!
Bye,
Idaho

Texas, baby!!!

Welcome to Texas- drive friendly- the texas way

On Sunday we headed off to Texas, where we would stay in El Paso( Fort Bliss, one of the largest complexes of the United States Army), also called the Sun City, and where we were about to have a great time!!!

After a day of relaxing, I went running in the morning to enjoy some early sunshine (yeah, I am getting tan :D)  and to explore the complex, which I think is very interesting!
After a shower and a gorgeous skype-talk with Dani, we went to New Mexico, where we would go Sand- Sledding!!

The exact place where we were going was the White Sands National Monument, which can also be seen from outer space!
It was beautiful! There were white sand dunes all over and you could just choose a spot, have lunch in a booth, and then go sledding down the dunes!- It was SO much fun!!!

Getting ready on top of the dune

weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!



Kyle, relaxing in the sand



AWESOOOME!!!

It was kinda nasty to get the sand out of ...everywhere...., but it was definitely worth it- all of us had a blast!!!

I'll keep you updated,
hope you had a great day just like we did!

Yours,
Ida :)

Spring break, here we come!

Yaaaaay- the break we've all been waiting for finally arrived- that meant that after just half a day at school, we headed off to Arizona and Texas!
Despite being all excited, the kids were very good in the airplane  and I slept for almost 4 hours (hey, we got up at 5! ;) )

When we arrived in Phoenix, my hostfamily's good friend picked us up and we stayed there for a couple of days.
The kids enjoyed swimming in the cool pool, hanging out, watching TV and playing with the dogs and cats...!
One day we also made it into Phoenix- I got a little impression of what the city is like and I loved it! We saw a Japanese garden, the Hard Rock Cafe, Heritage Square with its historical buildings and restaurants and while driving around I got to see a little more...

Phoenix is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States and  is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area (also known as the Valley of the Sun), the 14th largest metro area by population in the United States with more than 4.1 million people. In addition, Phoenix is the county seat of Maricopa County, and is one of the largest cities in the United States by land area. Phoenix is the largest capital city in the United States and the only state capital with over 1,000,000 people.
(from http://www.wikipedia.org/).

feeding hungry fish and ducklings at the Japanese garden



what an oasis in the middle of the city



the ASU right in front of Heritage square



at the Hardrock Cafe, where a funky waitress with white-blond-blue hair served us some lunch :)

On Sunday we had to leave Arizona, which I loved (AZ, not leaving ;) )
Every morning I had runned for a few miles, enjoyed hanging out with the kids aaaand getting a tan in the sun- did I mention that it had 35 degrees? ;)

Take care buddies,
Ida

Student of the month

At the school Kyle is attending, they have monthly honors for students according to what they achieved at school, for instance for wokring together nicely- well, Kyle got a certificate for being very creative!
So me and my hostmum went to Kyle's school where he and some other students got that certificate in front of proud parents and teachers.
As he was announced to be creative, we decided to take a fun-creative- funky picture ;)

Cherry Blossoms

On Saturday Miriam, Ida and I made our trip to Washington DC to see the Cherry Blossoms-- despite cloudy weather, wind and almost faded cherry blossoms it was an amazing day trip with "the girls"...!
We enjoyed walking through DC, passing a lot of people that obviously were tourists (just when we took our cameras out we outed ourselves as foreigners ;) ), sipping some starbucks-coffee and capturing the whole atmosphere of the city.
We didn't miss out on the Monument, Capitol, Hard Rock Cafe and the White House either and after a 3-hour busride back home we were looking back at a relaxing, perfect Satur-Day :)

Have a nice day, folks!
Hope that spring is catching up back home and that everyone is doing well :)