Summer/Fall 2013

Over the past few months, we've been really enjoying our San Diego life. With the exception of a few mini-trips to Orange County and LA, we've been mostly spending our time taking advantage of the beach, surf, events and restaurants walking/biking distance from our house. Late summer/early fall is our favorite time at home when the tourist crowds thin out and the weather is better than ever. This is why we like to save our traveling for other times in the year.

Here are few of the things we've been up to:

Stand Up Paddling - With the recent addition of a baby bump, this has been an even more frequent activity.

Mike, Tanner and Dad.

Trying out stand up paddle pilates. Yes, it was hard!

Tanner and Chelsea SUPing in San Clemente

Surf Competitions - In Oceanside, there are a lot of surf competitions but one of my favorites is the SuperGirl Pro. It's the largest female pro surf competition in the world!

Congrats to winner Malia Manuel

Kayaking

La Jolla Sea Caves

Mom and Chelsea

Camping

Camping trip at Point Mugu Beach.

Surfing

Surfing in Malibu. Chelsea is 13 weeks pregnant here, so hopefully the baby had fun surfing too.

Mike surfing South Oceanside

Spending time with family

Night out with the Denning Grandparents at the Padres Game

Dinner at the Lightouse Grill in Oceanside

Ian (Chelsea's brother) & Jolina's wedding

Most Southern California residents will agree that September and October are the best months to be here! Enjoy the rest of your fall season. :)

Oceanside Harbor

Santa Barbara Camping

Memorial Day Weekend, 2013

We love the Ventura and Santa Barbara Coast and were luckily able to secure a fairly last minute campsite at El Capitan State Beach for Memorial Day weekend. El Capitan is about 15 minutes north of Santa Barbara. We arrived on Friday afternoon and set up our camp and left to take a stroll on the beach. We walked North for a few miles and there was barely anyone in sight. The beach was deserted. It was incredibly beautiful. 

Evening hike along the beach

We then started up a fire and made smores with strawberries. It was Chelsea's idea of making something with absolutely no nutritive value at least have something a little healthy. They turned out really good. We brought our new air mattress and that made sleeping much easier than on the little pads we have previously used. Having a mattress when camping is a serious game changer in getting good sleep when camping.

Cooking up chicken apple sausages for dinner.

Strawberries, roasted marshmallows and graham cracker treat! Tasted like a strawberry shortcake!

We went for another few mile hike, this time South of El Capitan, early in the morning to another deserted coastline. We couldn't believe on the Saturday of a holiday weekend we had found a completely empty beach! It was awesome and really pretty. 

Chelsea getting in touch with nature hiking barefoot.

We then hung out in downtown Santa Barbara at the pier and ate at a cafe nearby. No one in SB was at the actual beach, they were all dressed nice and there for the restaurants and shopping. It was really bizarre. It was an 80 degree day and everyone dressed up nicely as they walked along the boardwalk to get to different shops but not hang out on the sand. Although beautiful, the city of Santa Barbara isn't really our scene, so we made our way to Carpinteria, which was way more like a beach town. We then checked the waves all the way down the coast to Ventura, where we stayed the night. We surfed a slow but fun C-Street the next morning and hung out at San Buenaventura State Beach afterwards. Everytime we're in Ventura we've been able to score fun waves at C-Street!  

Had to put the full suit back on for Ventura surf.

We had a ton of fun together on this weekend getaway and would recommend El Capitan as a place to camp for anyone! Here are a few more pics from the trip.

Ocean view from our campsite.

Taking a stroll at high tide along El Capitan Beach.

Colorful sand crab

Watching the dolphins at sunset together.

Sunset at El Capitan State Beach

In Love With The Philippines

Some experiences are so incredible that when you get back to reality it feels like it was all just a dream. My most recent trip to the Philippines is one of those experiences. Venturing off by myself in hopes of scoring epic waves, meeting cool new people and seeing beautiful new sights was certain to be an adventure. I met up with Surf with Amigas, an all girl surf and yoga adventure retreat and had no idea how far surpassed my highest expectations would soon be. This video will show you what I mean!

Siargao Philippines Surf Trip 2013 from Chelsea Denning on Vimeo.

The Philippines is huge with over 7,000 islands, so my view of the Philippines having stayed primarily just on the island of Siargao will be very different from others. These are the main highlights from my time on Siargao that I would recommend to anyone spending time on this island.

1.       Sohoton Caves

Boating through the caves

After rockclimbing in the dark through some caves you can jump off a cliff back to where you started!

The group hanging out in the cave

2.       Surfing, Surfing and more Surfing 

Surfing Rock Island

Duck Dive

Shallow reef at Hawaiian Jacks

3.       Playing with Stingless Jellyfish

4.       Tropical fruit and awesome seafood

Had a mango every day! This was a typical breakfast.

Tuna in a banana leaf  dinner

Fresh Coconut

5.       Snorkeling

Be careful not to step on an urchin while surfing

Electric Blue Starfish!

6.       Riding Water Buffalo (Carabao)

Tracy and I cruisin by the rice paddies

A local showing us how it's done

The girls loving our new found animal

7.       Yoga on the beach

Yoga Studio. It's the most peaceful feeling having an ocean breeze while doing yoga.

8.       Cloud 9 Boardwalk

Right in front of the boardwalk is where the most famous wave in the Philippines breaks, Cloud 9

9.       Exploring different islands by boat or plane

The view of multiple Philippine islands from the plane on my flight from Cebu to Siargao

The boat drivers that took us around all week

Setting out to explore some surf breaks

Every surf break we had to take a boat out to.  It's really fun jumping off a boat heading out to surf!

10.   Watch Sunrises and Sunsets

I couldn't believe my eyes when I woke up lying in my bed to this amazing sunrise. I jumped out of bed so quick to be able to snap a few shots of one of the prettiest sunrises I'd ever seen!

Sunset view from the boat after an epic surf session

Sunset view from Cloud 9 

I stayed at a cute little place called The Greenhouse. It has just a few oceanfront bungalows with boats right outside to take us to the surf breaks and on our adventures. It was perfect!

My cute Canadian roomate Sibina playing the guitar outside our bungalow

Photo by Cyd Conner

The beauty and enchantment of Siargao makes it feel almost magical. I'm so grateful to have been to such a special place and met so many amazing people along the way.