Officially today is my first Halloween, but for today being a Sunday we went to our first Halloween party, yesterday. Our friends Jeana and Scott took us to their friends party and were also so nice to lend us some costumes. I had to improvise mine a bit, because the dress belonging to the dead bride costume that Jeana gave me, was a bit too tight for me. Flo went as a Ninja and we both felt kind of weird, because we never wear costumes in Germany (except for carnival – but we both are not huge fans).

For us the weirdness actually started pretty early that day when we went for a coffee run and the girl at Starbucks greeted us with Happy Halloween. Afterwards we met our hotel manager with a little girl (maybe his) who asked us to Trick or Treat. I had to give her some german gums, because I hadn’t got anything else in our apartment, but she was fine with it and gave us some candy for a change.

We went to the party in the evening. Actually right before that we drove by a car accident and there was a dead body lying on the street, which was a very creepy way to start your Halloween night. The party we went to was in Newport Beach and the couple that throw it set up everything really nicely. We were kind of stoked about all the costumes. There were Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, a Care Bear, Little Bo Peep and Scott went as the movie character from the film Nacho Libre. We were a bit shocked about how short the girl’s costumes are over here. Not many girls would dare to go to a party with skirts that not cover up their whole behinds in Germany.

But I think we have to get used to this as much as we have to everyone being friendly, interested and really openminded. Today we will treat ourselves to a little shopping trip, but if you celebrate Halloween today: Happy Halloween and have fun times!

So, we arrived at LAX for our last stay in the US as tourists yesterday. It was not only a very good feeling to finally be back in California, we were also welcomed very nicely by the airport officer. We were a bit afraid of that moment, because we read horror stories of Greencard winners getting in trouble for being out of the US for six months. But in our case the guy was very nice, asked us only one question about when we will move here and than sent us off with a warm “Welcome back and good luck!”.

For this is our first morning here, there hasn’t happened much, yet. But, I do have a huge change to announce: I finally figured out what to do with my name here. The last times we were in the US I noticed that Americans can’t spell my name Janina. I tried everything from saying it very slowly to saying it letter by letter. But, it just didn’t work. My parents call me Nina since my birth, so I thought why not try this name out. I know from the movie “Father of the Bride” that Nina is an existing name here. So at our coffee run today I told the nice lady that I was named Nina and it worked!

On Wednesday one of my good friends visited us and she had a brilliant idea for Flo. His real name is Florian, but everyone calls him Flo. The only problem is that Flo is a girls name over here. But my friend Sabine noticed that Florian is a combination of Flo and Rian. I can’t get Flo to try out the Rian-thing right now, but perhaps it will be an alternative for the future.

Stay tuned for more news from our visit to our future home
Nina and future-Rian

Today my friend and me did a little photo session with our wedding dresses. She got married two weeks after us and we both thought it would be a shame to store our dresses away right after the weddings. So we decided to do a little photo session together. Both our husbands love taking pictures so it wasn’t a problem finding someone to play photographer.

Actually I never was a person that loved being photographed. The years before I met Flo I was a real bitch, when someone tried to take my picture. And I not only hated being on pictures, I also didn’t like taking them. That changed about the minute we won the Greencard.

I think life is far too precious to not catch its best moments on photos. Also the people that are surrounding us in our lifes are far too precious to lose their memories someday. That is why Flo and I both have our laptops full of memories. Memories of the people we love, memories of the moments we want to share with our children one day and even memories of banal moments that become precious through our love for each other.

I am actually a big fan of having walls full of photographs in different shapes and in different frames. I never had a wall like this. But I definetely want to put dozens of photographs on our walls and cupboards when we live abroad. Because when you can’t have the people you love near you, you should even have them present via pictures and in your heart.