R.I.P. those killed in Boston 4/15-2013

What happened in Boston Yesterday (two bombs exploded at the end of the Boston marathon close to the finish line) makes me so upset, mad and sad. I don't understand why people have to ruin such a nice event and hurt so many people. Three people died, one was only 8 years old, and several people got major injuries. This world is so screwed up, people should be able to enjoy a marathon and cheer for all the awesome people running 26 miles without being afraid to die. I hope they'll find the ones who did this soon. And I wish this was the last time anything like this ever happened.

April 13

Have had a really nice week! Monday got out early from school (12.15) as always, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I started at 11 because of AIMS tests that some students take at school. Mostly Sophomores and Freshmen so I got to sleep in. For once I had some time to skype, it's hard to find a good time to do that with the time difference. Wednesday I had an other Track meet, improved my time but didn't place. Had a good time with all the nice people in my track team :D Gonna miss track even though the workout part is hard!
Friday I had no practice so went home after school. Later I went with some friends from Student Council to help at the school district's Battle of the Bands. Not really my kind of music but still had a good time. Our school didn't win :( Now that it's soon time for me to go back to Sweden I start realizing how much I'm gonna miss some people here...

Dry ice cream.... One of the weirdest things I've ever tried!

the Dog <3

Cactus outside our house

Our house is now for rent, after I leave my parents are gonna move to Florida

Prom

Saturday night I went to prom with my girls :) Went to Desert Edge's Prom (their high school not mine). After a long walk with the dog and a shower in the morning I went to Bruna's and Domi's place to get ready. Fixing my nails, my hair and make-up took a couple of hours.. When we were all ready Sarah picked us up, totally we were 8 girls and we went to a park to take pictures (american tradition) and then we went to eat. We went to a pizza place (but a little fancy) and had dinner. The pizza was one of the best ones I've had since I came to America! After dinner we drove to Prom that was in a place out of town. Really nice though. The DJ was good and we had fun, danced a lot. The dance ended at 11, a little too early if u ask me but not much to do about it. We all went back to Mette's place and stayed the night after that. Had a great night and a good experience of the american prom.

Spent Sunday in at Mette's place tanning and in the hut tub. After a late lunch at Jack in the Box (don't know if u can call a milkshake and fries lunch but whatever) we went to the movies and saw The Call. I liked the movie, go and see it if u get the chance. Now it's Monday again. Came home from school at 12.30 and skyped for a little while with Amanda, then food and practice. Have had a dust storm here today, wind and rain. A dust storm is a huge grey-yellow cloud of dust covering the sky. It's not good to be outside to munch if the storm is big. As it was raining a bit it was not too bad today and we had practice anyway. Have a good week everybody!

Me and Yaya

Gabi, Me, Bruna, Domi, Mette, Jacky, Sarah, Yaya

Spirit Week

This week was a spirit week at school. Dressed up every day, Games at lunch and Pep Assembly on Friday. Monday was Wild vs. Man day so you either dressed up as an "animal" or as a Safarian, I had a  leopard cardigan and scarf and black shirt and pants. Tuesday was Casual vs Buisness day, so you chose between having PJs on or dress up with suit, tie or dress. I wore my PJs. Wednesday was HipHop vs Country, I went HipHop style. Thursday was stoplight day, you wore red if you were "taken", green if you were single (like in my case) and yellow if you were in between. Today (Friday) was as usual School Spirit day (dress up with school colors). And we had a pep assembly. I was in the assembly committee in Student Council which plans the assembly. Think we did a good job, people seemed to like it :) A pep assembly is when the entire school meet in the gym. It starts by singing the national anthem, then everybody in a sport comes out cheered by the cheer leaders. Then there are games and performances by cheer, dance, theatre, band and pom. We also announced the theme for prom (masquerade) and the prom royalties got to perform a dance. (Before Prom and Homecoming the school votes for a King, Queen, Prince and Princess, it's more about a popularity contest though).

Had to be at school at 6.30 in the morning to set up for the assembly and after school I had a good work out at track (3 x 400m, timed) so was pretty done when I came home. Went to the mall with my mom to buy some shoes and had dinner at the Cheesecake factory. Had never been there so wanted to go, the food was awesome and the best part was the cheesecake (I had tiramisu cheesecake). What I love about restaurants in america is that you get  free refills of your drink!

Fabulous Las Vegas

Left for Vegas Friday with my friend Emilia and her family. Got there at 9 pm, me and Emilia went to check out the strip at night. Had a pretty good first night in Vegas, didn't sleep much though.. And Emilia lost her phone :( We stayed at the Luxor Hotel which is in a building shaped as a pyramid made of glass. We spent Saturday walking around, did some shopping and took a lot of pictures :) Since we woke up late we had a brunch instead of breakfast. Found a really good italian "bakery" in the New York casino, the food was awesome! Vegas is really like no other city I've been to. People are drunk 24/7 and you are aloud to smoke inside the buildings :)
After a dinner at subway we headed back to the hotel to rest a little before going out again. At night we went on one of the roller coasters, it was cool to see all the lights on the strip from up there.
Drove back home on Saturday and stopped at the Hoover Dam on the way.

We didn't really celebrate Easter, just a nice dinner. How much people celebrate Easter here depends on how religious they are. Hope Everybody else had a good Easter, my weekend was awesome! Thanks Emilia!

Believe it or not, this is indoor, the sky is fake

Me, Saran (Emilias hostbrother) and Emilia

Our Hotel

Casino

The strip @ night

Thanks America for reminding me

My first Track meet!

Has been a really busy week. Monday after school I came home for a little while (school ends at 12.15 on Mondays) and then back to school for practice. Apparently there were 3 fights at school that day, but I did't see any of them... Tuesday I went to school, practice, came home, went with my dad and had Panda Express (they really should open in Sweden) and then back to school with Rihanna for the "Fine Art night". There was ceramics, paintings, pictures to look at and then they had some dance, theatre and music performances.

Wednesday was my first Track meet. It was at Desert Edge Hight School so we took the yellow school busses there (always excited when we take the yellow school busses). Since we are 100 ppl on the team it was tight to fit everybody on the bus, we sat three people/seat...
I only ran the 800 m, which is two laps around the track. Went well for being my first meet. Started out a little to fast so was tired at the end which made me from from third place to seventh :( But I'm happy with my time, 3min 22 sec. It was a fun afternoon even though it was long. The people in my track team are really nice :)

Today is Thursday, had an easy day at school. Did nothing but watching movies and talk in my classes.  At least I finished my ceramic bowl. We are making bowls for a charity project. People can buy the bowls and get cereals and the money goes to buy food for hungry kids.
At practice we ran almost all the way to the mountains, around 4 miles (6.5km) and then some sprinting. It starts to be really warm now... 80-85F (30C), you feel it when you run. But when I'm not running it's perfect ;)
Tomorrow I'm not going to school, I'll have the "I'm going to Vegas disease". Cuz i'm going back to Las Vegas with Emilia and her hostbrother Saran!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So excited :D :D :D

Drive-in Movie

Friday Night I went to see the school musical at Desert Edge, they played Grease. It was great! Love that musical. Then Gabi came and spent the night at my place. Saturday we Mette and Tanya picked us up and we went to the mall. Did some shopping and found our prom dresses. Mine is a peach color. I'll post a picture. Also found  pair of high waist jeans shorts, a scarf and a cardigan. 

When we were done shopping I went to Mette's house for dinner and then we went to a drive-in movie. First time for me. You pay, choose the movie's you wanna see (Every screen shows two movies) and then they tell you which parking to go to. You park front of the big screen and find the right radio station connected to the screen (that's how you get the sound) and then all you have to do is to make yourself comfortable and enjoy the movies! We laid outside on the back of the track with sleeping bags, blankets and pillows :) Pretty cool to see movies under the stars... We saw Admission first and then Safe Haven. 

The humidity is very low right now in AZ, It's down to 1%. The average of humidity in Sweden is around 70-75%. You can feel that you live in a desert when you have to put lotion on at least once a day...

TODAY I'VE BEEN IN AMERICA  250 DAYS!!!

Safe Haven, Drive in Movie (the lights are the city lights in the background)

Grease!

watching movies

Found our Prom dresses :)

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Friday! :D Finally back to track practice! Out of shape but I'm working on it. A lot of homework in history this week, talked about the great depression and WWII. Tuesday I went with my friend Nicole to her tennis practice and tried to play for a little while. It was fun! Other than that it has just been a regular week in school (in a good way). In student council they made a poster and needed to paint footprints on it. As I have small feet I got to make the footprints. They painted on my feet and then I walked on the poster haha. Temperature is now around 85F (30C). Sun is shining every day, nothing to complain about. Now I'm eating spring rolls and soon I'll be on my way to Desert Edge high school to go and see their spring musical Grease with Mette and Gabi. Have a good weekend!

Catalina island, CA

We left Arizona Wednesday morning to go to California for two nights. We drove to Long Beach (south LA, took 6h) and took a ferry from there to Catalina Island. The ferry ride took 1,5h. Catalina island is a small island outside LA with barely any cars, and just a small town called Avalon where we (swedish mom, american mom and dad and me) spent two nights. The weather was foggy and called most of the time, with some sunshine on Thursday. We walked around ate a lot of good food: sea food, mexican food, american burgers etc.  On thursday I went on a boat ride in a submarine, You sat and looked out through big windows and saw all that was going on under the surface of the ocean.. Really cool, saw a lot of different fishes and sea plants that were as big as trees! We also rented a golf cart and went around the island and saw some pretty views. Then I saw dolphins for the first time! there were hundreds of them swimming in the ocean when were on the ferry on our way home. Think we all had a great time!

Came home Friday night, the dog was very happy to see us again :) Saturday started with a good breakfast and then show Mamma around the school. Then we headed to Scottsdale were we visited the house of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. After the tour of the house we had some mediterranean food before driving to the airport. Much easier to say goodbye to mamma this time when I know I'm gonna see her in 2 months than last time when we said goodbye for 10 months instead...
Has been a good week of spring break!

Here she comes! (at the airport)

Almost in Cali!

Leaving LA

In the submarine

The beach in Avalon

time to go home

Driving back to AZ

Mamma på besök!

Picked up my mom (swedish mom) from the airport saturday night. So awesome to see her again! You realize how long time ago u saw each other and at the same time that nothing has changed...
We ended up having dinner at Red Robin (burger place) all together, a first american experience for my mommy :)

Sunday we went for a walk in the neighboorhood to show her around a little and then Tanya (my YFU area rep) came over with Mette (exchange daughter from Denmark) for lunch. They ended up leaving at 6 pm so it became a long lunch... Had a really nice time!

Monday was shopping day, went to the outlet mall Tanger and returned to the car with at least 10 bags or something, haha!
Then we drove to downtown Phoenix to eat at Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. Believe it or not but it was the first time I went to downtown Phoenix (live 40 min away and been here 8 months...). It is a nice city, 10th largest in the US. For dinner my swedish mom cooked some awesome italien food, after all she is not swedish :p

Today we went hiking in the white tankss mountaines close to our house. Saw a lot of catuses and had a nice time even though my feet hurt now ;)

Tomorow we'll be off to CA to a little island outside LA. Will be nice to see the ocean again. The weather is really nice here in AZ right now, around 80 F (25-30C).
Have a good one!