Winter Spirit Week

Last week was a winter spirit week. Spirit week is a week when we the school get together and dress up, o games and play music to promote the school spirit. This week's theme was "back to the old school". Monday was "cray cray Monday" where you were supposed to have your craziest outfit and mix and match! Tuesday was "twin day". Student council decided to all be "twins" (even if we're 40...). We dressed like crayons, everybody had one color. I way a black crayon. Wednesday was "Geek day" so we dressed like nerds. Thursday was pajamas day so everybody wore their pajamas to school, some people had slippers and bathrobes on as well. A lot of people dressed up this spirit week which was fun!
Started track pre- conditioning  on Tuesday, could barely walk the next day but it was fun, nice to be working out again :) Track is a spring sport so now we're just exercising. I'm probably gonna do the sprint (short distance running). 
Friday became a very sad day. Thursday night we got the news that a boy's body was found, this boy happened to be from Shadow Ridge High School. He was in my English class. Even if we never talked that much it was very hard to see his desk empty on Friday. The boy took his life. So we didn't have the pep-assembly or anything on Friday. It was a very hard day for both teachers and students.
R.I.P. Levi

Me and Allanah (from Australia) on pajamas day!

Mix and Match day! (notice my different shoes) This day I't felt like my entire closet matched...

Caroline as a geek! Think I'm gonna stick with that... ;)

Pajamas day!

Almost December?!

Feels weird that November is almost over and in a week we'll be in December. The sun is shining as usual here and the temperature is 81F (ca 27 C) :D made swedish pancakes the other day, came out good and my family loved them:)
Ysterday I went to see breaking dawn again. Emilia hadn't seen it so we went seeing it :)
Then she stayed the night. We watched a movie ate a lot and had a good time as allways with Emilia :D
Also skyped with both my brother and sister, haven't talked to them in at least 2 months... I've missed them so it was nice to see them again!;)
This morning me and Emilia made smoothies and sat out in the sun, tryin to get a tan. I almost burned myself as usual... I feel very very sorry for all of you who are freezing in Sweden :'( but sometimes life isn't fair ;)
Tomorrow it's time to go back to school after thanksgiving break. I'm glad there are only four weeks until winterbreak.
The dog got a haircut and they took the chance to style her a little bit:O
Was out for a short time while my dad was washing the car -took some random pictures!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Ooops, haven't been writing in a week... time goes by fast!

 Sunday I went to church with a friend from school, Becca. I've always wanted to see what it is like to go to church here as I've heard it's so different from Sweden. Even if I normally don't attend church at home. It was a lot different! The church was bigger and full of people. And they sang a lot more. Went to the youth group that meet before the service every sunday with Becca. But we didn't do much. Ate cake cause it was somebody's birthday and than sat and talked the rest of the time. 

Since wednesday I've been out of school for thanksgiving break (5 days). Wednesday I helped cleaning some more at home hanged out with Rhianna. She came over and we saw the movie Honey 2 :) then late at night both Karen (my mom) and I decided to bake... I baked "pepparkakor" but I cheated cause I used IKEA's cookie dough. Karen baked some lemon and ricotta cheese cookies that were awesome! 

Need to learn how to make them.

Thursday was the day I have been waiting for! Thanksgiving. The people we had over came at 3 PM. We were 9 all together here. We ate soo much food! I'm not even sure we ate half of it :O

And my mom i such an awesome cooker so everything was delicious. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, rice, croissants, beef, pumpkin pie, cookies, cheesecake and more... I don't remember everything. what we did was to sit down and eat :D 

Here in America the day after thanksgiving (Friday) is called Black Friday and is a big shopping day. All the stores have big sales and people are crazy! most stores/malls open at midnight, so after thanksgiving dinner people go shopping. We were going to go @ 2 AM but decided to go later instead. So I woke up at 5 and me and my mom went shopping. Went first to  an outlet mall,  then victoria secret and then to an other mall. We also had breakfast between the two malls at a place called the corner bakery - yummy food! Found a lot in the sales, almost done christmas shopping aswell which is nice ;)

Braking Dawn

Just had Subway for dinner! That's what we get when I get to decide where to buy dinner :) 

Been to the movie theater today and watched Braking Dawn part 2. Haha believe it or not but the movie was released in Sweden two days before it was released her in the U.S. !!! I didn't see it at the premiere though. I liked it, the best of the five twilight movies for sure! 

We got our student council t-shirts last week and agreed to wear them on friday. Here is the picture of the StuCo family :) (I'm in the middle on the left).

Also went shopping real quick today again, there is a new outlet mall not far away from here that I went and checked out. Awesome mall. Started to buy christmas gifts. Won't buy much, shipping things is soo expensive :( I'll buy a lot of stuff before I go back in June instead. Christmas has already started here with christmas trees and christmas music, I'm sure it's the same way in the rest of the world... they should at least wait until thanksgiving is over (which is thursday).

My mom got stopped by the cops today for speeding... I was in the car and OMG cops are really like on TV here... They are acting like you've killed somebody when all you did was driving a little bit to fast. If you drive 20 miles/hour faster than the speed limit you go directly to jail... 

Anyway, thank god we didn't rive that fast. At the end we got away without ticked, we were lucky :D

Yesterday I orded pizza for dinner (home delivery) and guess what, it came 1,5 hours later... And then the guy seemed mad cause I only gave him a $3 tip (you tip for the driving here). Shouldn't take that long to get food -.- 

Veterans day

Monday was veterans day so I was off school. Or actually it was Sunday but most people celebrated monday. Not that you do anything to celebrate, you just get a day off:) the holiday is to honor people in the army.
Tuesday night we had a teachers vs student volleyball game at school. Not a lot of people were there but at student council was;) I didn't play but it was fun to watch!!
This morning I woke up at nine.. Which maybe doesn't sound that late but it means that I missed 3 of 6 classes. Oh well that happens I'm lucky I don't have strict parents. Gettin late to school is obviously not as easy as it is in Sweden here though, you have to go through the front office as all the gates are closed to get into campus. And then you have to ask for a "tardy pass" to get to class and sign in with the time you came to school + the reason you're late.
I run over to my neighbours to ask for a ride to school as I was late, so now I know them a little better- they are really nice! They live in Canada and come to AZ for the winter, pretty smart people!

Btw, I've booked a trip to Hawaii!!! I'm going with my friend Sofia (from Sweden) who is in Kentucky and a lot of other exchange students:D I'm sooo excited!! Only 79 days left! (Going in February). Can't wait!

IKEA

It's already an other weekend, time goes so fast!! For the last few days the weather has been cloudy and it rained once!:D
Thursday night we (student council) had a movienight at school to raise money for scool events. You paid $4 (ca 28kr) and got pizza, a drink and saw the movie. The movie was The Avengers. I had fun:)
Friday I just stayed home, I was soo tired! I guess I've had too much going on lately and needed to recover;)
Saturday night I hung out with Rhianna, we went for a walk with the dog first and then spent some time at my place:)

Today is sunday and me and my parents are on our way home from IKEA! Kind of wierd to see IKEA with palmtrees in front of it. I've never thought it was that fun to be at IKEA as now when I've been away from home for 4 months... We had swedish food (meatballs + mashed potatoes) and bought some swedish stuff at the swedish food store. The food taste the same as in Sweden. For those who don't know - in the IKEA stores around the world there is a "swedish food section". I bought some salmon (gravad lax), saft, chocolate, pepparkaksdeg, herrgård (I've been missing swedish cheese so much!) and kardemumma skorpor! And then I tried the american version of cinamon rolls... I'm disapointed, their cinamon rolls are covered with frosting -the american way to add more sugar. Way to sweet.
My hostmom decided to try some swedish traditions so she bought an "adventstjärna" (the stars you hang in the window for advent with a light in) and then we bought an advent kalender, It supposed to be for me but I think my hostmom is the most exited about it ;) I think we all had a nice time!

Elections 2012

Today is a big day in America, is the day of the elections. I've seen sooo many commercials for the election on TV every day the last month... And everybody is talking shit about each other on the commercials, so it's nice that that will be over tomorrow:) It stood between Romney and Obama. I'm now sitting in front of the TV and it was just decided a few seconds ago that Obama is re-elcted! I've been following the elections for the last two hours on tv like the rest of this country;)
I'm happy with the resoult as I was hoping Obama would win:)
Now I'm gonna watch his speach to the nation bofore bed:)

I've also taken some pictures of my school as I've been asked to do:) took them this weekend when I was there for play practise so that's why it so empty. I'll take more an other day!

Arizona State Fair

Sunday morning after we (me, Anna, Miranda and Emilia) woke up we had breakfast in the sun outside by the pool, life is awesome sometimes!
After that we got ready and then we went to the State Fair:) As it was before 2 PM we got in for $2 instead of $10 :D
It was a fun american experience haha! The place was big and there were all kind of rides (like rollercoasters, carousels ect) and a lot of different stands where you could buy food. Most fried food. We tried deep fried snickers and oreos.. The oreos were good but the snickers was grose.. I guess you only find these things in America haha!
We saw a short show by native americans, they danced, sang and played their music with their colored clothes on. I liked it:)
We didn't do any rides as there were lines everywhere and they were expensive:( but we had a great day anyway! For lunch the girls had fried chicken with fries and I had ice cream.. It was hot in the sun!
I also saw my first pig race in my life! They had five pigs each one with a different colored scarf that had to run around a fenced track. The pig that first came back won... All the audience screamed and clapped their hand so that the pigs would run faster^^.
when I came home I was exhausted. I did a lot the passed week, so I went to bed at nine after have had yummy dinner made by my hostmom:)

Once on this Island

Thursday, Friday and Saturday we have had our preformances of the school musical I've been participating in. The name of the musical is Once on this Island (not very known though). I was part of the choir and was a peasant. So I danced and sang. Has been a week with a lot going on. A lot of play practise amd then the shows - not much sleep... But it has been fun! I'll post some pictures of the cast before our last show.

Everything with my new hostfamily is great so far which is awesome:D
Saturday right after the play we webnt to Anna's house (exchange student from Finnland) at an international potluck. Everybody brought a dish from thier country and shared it. It was fun and there was a lot of good food + it was nice to meet all the awesome people again! I baked Swedish "kladdkaka", it's kind of a mudcake :)
I spent the night there together with Emilia and Miranda, we had a good time:D thanks girls!