lost at sea

 lost at sea

 there ye shall be

so sweet and bright

 but cut short your time

   sunk to the bottom of the dark blue brine.

tom and i went surfing in santa cruz this weekend and we brought our wonderful underwater camera only for it to have sadly fallen off after tom had a little wipe out. what was on that roll of film will only live as the most wonderful, sweet and magical moment in my ENTIRE LIFE! yes, people my ENTIRE LIFE! picture this....

 a beautiful super bright warm day, tom and i jumped in the crisp cold kelpy water and paddled out. taking in the beautiful surroundings when a faint clapping sound interrupted my zen like moment...what i saw was heavenly, a huge otter floating on his back, slapping his latest crustacean meal against his rock, minding his own business as if i didn't exists, i was in HIS territory and he could have cared less. my jaw dropped, i yelled at tom and he started snapping away, the otter went back down only to come back CLOSER to me and my board. people, i could have quite literally jumped from my surfboard and claimed this furry bearded cutie and made him my pet! he was that close to me. it was beyond amazing and right after that i caught my first wave of the day and was the happiest clam ever until tom discovered the proof of my most magical moment of my life was claimed by the sea god.

we sat on the beach for a bit before we made the trek back to the car. me: "so when the otter was super close to me, was i like, in the picture with the otter?", tom:"...yea..." me: "hmmm...bummer dude"..... it was the saddest of times but also the best of times.

well, besides that we had a killer day. great waves, otter times, we did a bit of thrifting, i found a blazer, ate the most amazing falafel and then enjoyed some beach time before we headed out into the sunset.

it felt like summer and i never wanted it to end. sea, we shall meet again...very soon.

xo,

cb

oh the salty sea

happy monday peaches! what a GLORIOUS weekend it was here at the city birds nest! thursday tom kidnapped me and drove me to san francisco and bought me a wetsuit!!! another thing to check off my 2012 list and then took me out to dinner for pizza and beer, it was pretty fantastic. we ended the night early because...........

we woke up at 5:00AM to go surfing the next day! waaaaaay too early for my liking but the early bird always catches the good waves  or something like that :) we drove down to santa cruz which is about a 2 hour drive. we drove along the coast which is a super beautiful drive. it was pitch black and super foggy but by the time we reached santa cruz the fog had peeled back and the sun was shining.

a flock of seagulls, hehe. we had no idea why there were sooo many flying about. we were pretty lucky that none of them shat on us!

the spot that we typically surf at is called cowells which has a look out which we stopped to have a look at the waves. the water was spotted with a few surfers and A OTTER!!! you could tell he was a otter because of the way he was swimming, i couldn't get a great picture of him because he was so far away but you can see of glimpse of him, isn't he the cutest!

tom and i parked at the local surf shop and waited for it to open. we didn't want to use the board i just got as it needs some repairs and we didn't want to damage it further so i had to rent a board. the way of the surfer is to dress in the parking lot with a towel around you. you get used to it after a while....and now the moment you have all been waiting for....ME IN MY NEW WET SUIT! sexy huh? haha, im sure more then you ever wanted to see of my body :)

we had to walk a bit to get to the beach and the board i was renting was very big so it made it really hard to carry. carrying it on my head was the easiest way to get down to the beach.

the paddle out to the waves is far out, so my arms instantly turned to noodles. the waves were very small and lazy so it was a lot of work to catch one BUT i did however catch one! it was the greatest feeling EVER! i don't even know how to really describe it. i only wish tom had gotten a picture of it so i can look at it forever but he was trying to catch the same wave but failed, hehe.

it was soo exhilarating which gave me tons of energy to keep trying.  that was the only one i caught but so god damn worth it!! i was smiling for the entire rest of the day.

it can be really scary at first to surf, being out there all alone, in the deep cold water, seals playing about and waves coming towards you. you just have to remember that it is just water and nothing else. that wave gave me the confidence to keep coming back for more. but the fog set in, and the tide grew higher so the sets were coming less frequent or dying as you were trying to catch them. so we headed back in and did a bit of bodysurfing on the beach, i was super excited that the above picture came out! just look at that face, priceless.

 we dried off, ate some left-over pizza we brought and cruised around a bit. we drove over to another local break, called pleasure point. the waves were great there and maybe next time will hit up that spot.

nothing like the perfect day and sharing some waves with the one you love <3 until next time!

xo,
cb

snippets

let me first say that it should be made mandatory to have the week off after christmas. one day to spend with family just isn't enough sometimes. christmas eve and christmas day were awesome! i had such a great time at both family celebrations. both different and both excellent in their own ways :)

the night before the festivities, i decided to do some festive nails, this is my rendition.

my brother makes the yummiest appetizers: trix, tuna, chedder cheese topped with a jalapeno. pop those bad boys in the oven and way-la! they literally do not last long when put out.

we played a couple of rounds of scattergories and can you believe this was our first holiday picture as a family? after desert tom and i headed up north to his parents house and called it a night.

we woke up super early on sunday and got down to it! we were all still pretty much asleep, clemie-buns face is priceless and bowie-man's just cracks me up.

kelly-anne made me this deer hat that i had been drooling over for a while and it is so awesome! she loved it so much she made one for herself too! aren't we so cute, hehe. she makes other really awesome hats and when her shop opens up again, you should check em out! what you also can't see is she made me a lace collar and i love it!

we hand make most of our presents and almost every year tom does a drawing for everyone. i showed you what he made us and this is the rest of the family. they turned out so perfect, he is just so amazing!

we got clemie a bamboo log cabin and the men trying to built it. it came with no instructions but they finally got it :) i think they liked it more then she did. hehe

we sat around watching movies in our pj's for the rest of the day and then it was dinner time, dave's famous tacos! tom made him a sign for christmas so we could keep track of how many taco's we eat.  the rest of the night was filled with champagne drinking and the boys playing a couple rounds of trivial pursuit and then it was nightie night for us.

i had to work early today so tom's dad made us breakfast and coffee and then were on our way. tom has been saving money for a surfboard and he came back to the shop to surprise me with our newest addition :) now for a wetsuit and we can catch those winter swells! here we come santa cruz!!!!!!!

hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!!

xo,
cb

my word for the year

the lovely diane from the dew drop inn has started a great tradition...every year on new year's eve she passes around a bag filled of words and throughout the night people can pick from this bag. the word you chose is your word for the year...each person has their own interpretation of the word and what he or she chooses to do with that word is up to them. she had left over words and was offering them to her blog buddies and i thought it would be fun so i signed up...she picked out of the bag a word for me and my word is...

i thought it was very fitting as a month before i wrote a list of things i wanted to do before 2012. this little list was inspired by the oh so lovely elsie from a beautiful mess who is an endless bit of inspiration. it was fun to write because it satisfies my love of writing lists but also wanting to try new things, pick up old hobbies or things i want to accomplish.

my list includes a few things like:

*riding my our bikes to santa cruz, camping along the way and then finally staying at the light house    hostel!
* making a bike jersey!
* go surfing again!
* go mushroom picking!
*be in the bazaar bizarre craft fair!

now i am not holding myself to this list as life never goes as expected but if i can cross some things off my list, great and whatever doesn't get done will then get transferred to the next years list. i kept in mind also things that were realistic...i mean going to the moon would be SWEET but i don't have a spaceship to get there but i do have two legs and a bike and i can go pretty far with that :D

do you have a list of things you would like to do?

xo,
cb