"Knock!"

It's good to be back.

Caroline missed me a bunch I can tell. She just comes up to my room and wants to hang out and cuddle. I'm so glad. Actually it was pretty funny, she used to be really good about not just walking into my room without knocking...or maybe it was just that she wasn't big enough to open the door. In any case, the past few times she came up she just walked right in. Now, even though the times she did that it wasn't a big deal, it still needed to change so I attempted to teach her to knock and then wait for me to say come in. I began my lesson by telling her that she needs to always knock on my door before coming in and then knocked on the door myself to show her how to do it. I then did a practice time and said "Now I'm gonna shut the door, you knock, I'll say come in and THEN you come in" So I shut the door and said "okay, knock." to which she responded by yelling "KNOCK!". I tried two or three times to get her to actually use her hand to knock and then decided that her saying the word accomplished the exact same thing as actual knocking so I just gave up...

On a whole different note I am suffering from the worst jet lag EVER *sigh* Seriously, I'm up until up like 4.30 or 5.00 in the morning and then can't wake up until 13.00 or 14.00 the next afternoon. More than a little frustrating let me tell ya. It's getting slowly better I think and once I start working next week and actually have to be up at a normal time my body should fully adjust.

Hm what else...the weather is nice and cool (mid 60's low 70's) which is a pleasant change from the 102 degree weather I left in Indiana. It was nice to have but I've had enough steamy hot weather for one summer thank you very much. Most of the year I like the weather here, it's almost never too hot or cold and yes it rains a lot but I like rain so that works out well.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with my life here. The only huge bummer (besides being so far away from people I love) is that all my friends so far are au pairs which means half of them left this summer. I miss Anna like crazy and I just saw Bea for the last time before she goes back to Hungary to start school today...Oh well, I guess that's just life as an au pair. I already have a list of people that I want to meet up with in the next couple of weeks and my wonderful host mom's super cool website will also help me meet some cool new people hopefully.

So yeah, I guess that's about it for now. Until next time *smile*

My trip to the States

I had a wonderful trip back to the States. It was so nice seeing everyone again. Sorry to everyone that I didn't end up getting together with. I was a little distracted...

Here's some pictures from my trip. I didn't take very many (which for those of you who know me tells you just how distracted I really was, hehe) but there's enough to give you an idea of what I did-


I flew into Chicago O'hare Airport. It's one of my favorites because of these fun lights that they have over the moving walkways.


Lana and Nathen while we were hanging out at my house one night


Joel and Hunter...*smile*


Sunset over the lake at Cornerstone, great a view for a campsite isn't it?


Millennium Park in Chicago, Joel and I went to see the orchestra under the stars one night.


A view of the other people enjoying the beautiful summer evening


4th of July in the rain, we still had a lot of fun and saw some pretty fireworks though.


One of our game nights


A cute little movie theater in Hobart where Joel and I saw Madagascar


Joel sleeping on the way home from Ohio


And so ended a great trip. It was nice to go but it's also good to be back and I look forward to another exciting year filled with lots of fun, friendships and many new things learned. *smile*

Yes, I am still alive

I know I know, I've been seriously slacking when it comes to blogging, I'm sorry. I'm back in the states right now and having a wonderful time. I don't get much of a chance to get in front of a computer while I'm here so I may or may not post any pictures of my time here while I'm still here. I promise things will get back to normal after the 28th of this month though. I hope you all are having half as good of a summer as I am. I miss all of my holland buddies and look forward to seeing you all in a couple weeks. Until next time *smile*