The New Chapter

2012 you have been truly a magical year. This year will be hard to beat. I've had unforgettable times with amazing friends and family, great health, endless adventures and  finding the love of my life.

"There's a time in your life where following your heart is the strongest and at it's purest form."

Unforgettable times with my besties!

Almost 2 1/2 years ago I was in pursuit of life's beauty again and a phase of self discovery. Moving out on my own in a new city was exactly what I needed to do in order to seek out that fulfillment. I've chased many dreams and journeys throughout my life, however not one's to seek out my heart and where that passion lives. The time I spent in L.A. I will never forget and has impacted and shaped me in every way possible.

Balance: I probably say this time and time again but balance means everything to me. Without finding your life’s it’s difficult to focus or accomplish your goals. Without balance, life is like a world of fog. You know exactly where you’re going, but don’t know how to get there. We take many risks in life that are outside of our comfort zone, but the most rewarding outcomes are received out of them. Los Angeles has helped me further acknowledge what it means to have balance in life. Even though I feel like a balanced person thus far, there is always room for improvement. The importance of balance and finding that balance is a complex thing but I truly believe it is one of the many components in life we must find and something that is worth seeking.

Strength: I have found empowerment and the strength within myself both emotionally and physically. I learned the strength to stay true to that inner balance.  Having that ability to find that connection of strength is powerful and rather difficult to explain in writing. When you’re at my age, 23 people tell me, “You have your whole life ahead of you and there are endless opportunities that are given and thrown to you.” However, no one tells you there is an inner voice controlling your emotions and telling you to stay true to your heart. Los Angeles has brought me strength and the confidence to know that wherever I am in my life or the decisions I make, I will always have the strength to pick myself up again.

Love: I learned to love again. I don’t just mean love from evolving relationships with people, but with Mother Nature itself. From the outside we may exude with love, but it may not seem that way from within. Being able to connect my soul with the outdoors has taught me how to love again and more than ever. From the sight and sounds of the sea to the echoes of the mountains my glass would feel a little less full. The feeling of chasing life’s beauty has brought towards a new excitement and a continuing journey to find love and more importantly hang on to it. Beauty is everywhere and loving it I consider a bonus.

Taking chances and letting go are the most difficult things in life. But the past few years in LA have helped me find strength, balance and love. Without my move Westward it is hard to imagine my growth as an individual. Everyday from here on it is an adventure. Life’s beauty can offer something to never have thought that could be imaginable. The most important lesson I have learned is “whatever your passions are in life, follow them and find them”. The only constant in life is change. Thank you again LA for the sun, surf, friends, health, food, beauty and adventures that will be cherished forever in my soul. Where there is love, family and good friends, there is opportunity. Los Angeles you have been good to me in every imaginable way. Now it's off to write the next chapter. Helen of Travel is headed back to where I lived during my childhood, however conquering in adulthood. To 2013 and Dallas here I come...

 My first surf competition: Placed 4th in Finals

 Best Friend <3

 Relentless trail on Kauai: 31 miles 

Backpacking in Kauai

10 day Hawaii Surf Trip

 Camping in Ojai

 Rock Climbing in Malibu

 Sailing in San Francisco Bay

Miss the M.A.D.E. team!

 Went from my 7'6 down to a 6'0 

Saw the Grand Canyon for the 1st time

 Fulfilled a Childhood dream

 ASP Tour Stop in Huntington

Started snowboarding (work in progress haha)

 Sailing in San Francisco Harbor

 Quite possibly the best Thanksgiving ever

To the new adventures and beauty ahead...

What Lies Ahead

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson





Today marks my one year anniversary of surfing. Surfing is one of those things you really can't explain to anyone. The feeling of floating in the ocean, the water beneath you and the waves carrying your soul is something extraordinary and indescribable. I've spent my last two wonderful years living in Los Angeles soul searching. Somewhere along the way found myself soul surfing. I found one of my best friends in the water and a year later, riding a shorter board, competing in my first surf competition, qualifying in the finals and surprisingly placing. Seems surreal. I am sitting down and writing this blog entry today, not because of my progression in surfing but how it has affected my life...





The tides of the ocean I allude heavily with my life. Everyday there are challenges and obstacles we face. The ocean is ever changing and the will of Mother Nature is a powerful thing much like our own lives. Everyday is different in the ocean and sometimes physically and mentally I am not prepared for it, however at the end of every session I feel better, satisfied and clear.





These past two years have been life experiences I have needed. Living away from familiarity and being in a new place, I was able to challenge and embrace new discoveries and friendships. Life is complex and has changed a numerous amount of times since I graduated from Texas' two years ago. If you asked me a few months ago, a year ago or even three ago...I couldn't have fathomed my life to be this way. Because life changes when you are making plans. I live my life always wanting to learn more about myself, the things around me and to think in others shoes. Surfing has allowed me to find a sense of fulfillment that no one could give to me, even myself.

I see it as one of those milestones in my life where self reflection and discovery. I am not sure what the next chapter of my life offers, but I know that the ocean will always be in my mind as a place of tranquility and has made me a patient, less anxious...a better person. That's all I could ever ask for.


Here is to one year of surfing and many more to come...wherever life takes me. I will always be exactly where I am supposed to be...

Camping in Ojai. Pronounced Oh-Hi

campingpresent participle of camp (Verb)

A recreational institution providing facilities for outdoor activities, sports, crafts, and other special interests and typically featuring rustic overnight accommodations.

Rose Valley in Los Padres National Forest. To sum up our trip...there was a two tier waterfall, a private swimming hole with a rope swing and intimate conversations over the campfire. However a private campsite was non existent, it was still worth checking out if you make a trip to Ojai and if you consider making your way to the southern end of the Los Padres Mountains. Only an hour and some change from West LA.

Even though a less rustic camping trip was on this agenda, it was probably one of my favorite camping trips to date.We shared laughters and stories around the campfire. A bonding retreat for my friends and I. 

Took a hike in on the Sespe Trail and discovered a gem of a swimming hole a few miles in. Did I mention we decided to go back the next day?

Got a fishing session in. We caught...well we saw the supermoon rise (brightest moon of 2012).

Lucky to have gotten the last camping spot. Everything happens for a reason (or thanks to our friend Matt for getting there early after work). Always cutting it close...

Happy Earth Day

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find resources of strength that will endure as long as life lasts”  -Rachel Carson

Topanga Canyons Community House fairgrounds.

Nestled in the Topanga Canyons on Earth Day weekend every year you can find a lush surrounding of arts, music, culture, healing and sustainability. Southern California is known for it's amazing variety of outdoor festivals and farmers markets year around. Looking to experience a weekend besides the typical surf and farmes market run, I came across a gem and unique find of it's own in one of the most organic array of trails and mountains on the West side of Los Angeles. From live spiritual music, vegan food offerings, jewelry, healing therapy sessions to handmade shoes, the Toganga Earth Day Festival was a vibrant energy full of people looking to soak in a multitude of positive energy. 

Protect Our Oceans

An estimated 50-80% of all life on earth is found under the ocean surface and the oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet. Worldwide about 90% of the stocks of large predatory fish stocks are already gone. Forever.

Eat sustainabile fish! Check out the sustainable seafood guide! Learn more about overfishing...

A Year of Self Reflection

"Life is full of adventures and journeys. Journeys full of questions you never thought to ask. Those questions are uncertainties that make life worth living and more interesting than you could ever imagine"...

-self (My 2012 quote)

This past year was indeed a period of self-reflection and self-growth. A period of growth that has helped me appreciate the smaller things in life and bring forth the focus on the importance of personal reflection and self fulfillment. I never thought my life would have turned so unexpectedly. It was a complete 180 shift. If you asked me a year ago, where my life would be now, I would’ve had a completely different answer. There was a shift and a change I have been longing for and a sense of happiness was infused back into my soul and brought back up to the surface. The pieces are slowly coming together. I have met many new friends and started a new beginning for myself. I am very thankful. As life brings you a lifetime of journey and discoveries regardless of the wait or timely manner something brings, a path is set in a way it is exactly suppose to happen. I have found self-fulfillment and have become a less worrisome individual.

My New Years resolution for 2012 is to have more patience in my thoughts and how I approach every day situations. Because ultimately in the end it all work itself out. The more you pace yourself and let time unravel the kinks, a sense of clarity will be brought up to the surface much sooner. Last year was primarily focused on self-reflection and growth. This year I will work on patience along with the continuity of self growth.

Bring me further adventures and risk taking days ahead. For I am still learning the meaning of exploration...

2011 you treated me well. 2012 let's see what you're made of...

Swell Days Ahead

Never thought in a span of the universe I would believe my surf instructor's spiel about surfing becoming a lifestyle and possible obsession. I consider myself an individual who lives by the rule, "Everything in moderation." It is considerably and in my honest opinion one of the key attributes in maintaining a balanced and healthy lifestyle, but what have I gotten myself into. Before my first surfing lesson in July, I had only appreciated surfing as an extreme sport and vicariously lived and watched pros on the ASP tour like Kelly Slater or CoCo Ho. Of course, as an Aquarius water carrier and my deep love of the ocean, it was natural for me to want to experience a surfboard underneath me at least one time in my life. Something about moving over water tickled my inner soul. Moving to Venice Beach and living steps away from the sand, I felt obligated to in a certain sense. If anything it was something on my bucket list, one check mark of the thousands I still need to check off.

As I sat waiting and twiddling my thumbs in the parking lot of Bay Street in Santa Monica, the anticipation was building and I began to feel a bit antsy. Starring at my watch with the July end's sun blaring down, I waited for my surf instructor Christian. He was already 15 minutes late. I had begun to take it as a sign that maybe this was never going to happen or maybe surfing was just something I had to try once to say I did it. As I looked down at my phone, a yellow envelope or as most would call it a text message, my instructor wrote the words of apologies and said that he was waiting for me in the parking lot. After thinking this surfs-up was nix, I threw my hands up mentally and thought to myself, "well here it goes".As I glanced down the stretch of black asphalt, I saw him waving at me with his shiny metal gun grey pick-up truck and stack of boards. Never in a million lifetimes and rotations around the moon could I fathom a physical lifestyle shift this drastic. But here it all began...

Christian showed me the basics. If I was going to surf, I wanted to learn from the experienced. First we started on the sand and he demonstrated the correct way to carry a board, how to put on the leash, paddle, stand-up, etc. I mirrored everything and in hopes or the slightest doubts that I was even going to paddle correctly on a coming wave, let alone stand up on the first one. Paddling seem to come all too naturally. However, the different set of upper body muscles that you utilize for this watersport is something you have to physically work at. As I paddled out, Christian was alongside me guiding me through every step. After explaining to me the anatomy of a wave, awareness of the shore, and alert at all times, I was ready to catch the first set coming. As I maneuvered my 9 footer around to face the shore, I could hear Christian saying, "paddle". Before I could breathe or register what was happening, I had felt my body connect itself to my yellow banana board. It was surreal feeling, but popping up and standing up for the first time, on my first wave...it just felt right. Then broke the biggest smile-to-date on my saltwater face. Christian hollered, and when he swam back towards me, he said "you don't even need me, you are hooked, and you'll be doing this for the rest of your life"...

I have been surfing almost everyday since I had my first lesson about 5 months ago. Sometimes even double sessions. It gets a little ridiculous, especially the only suit you own is a 3/2 and it's mid December. Surfing is something that has completely changed my life in mental, physical, and emotional ways. I say this with all honesty. I am an individual who naturally worries and stresses, but surfing has completely altered my way of self thought in a positive light. I eat better, sleep better, and feel better all the time. Surfing has become my way of life, a natural and powerful drug to get me through the toughest of the days. The days of Breakwater, El Porto, and Malibu have treated me well and I am thankful to have such a positive activity in my life. Try it and you may be obsessed with it as well...it becomes a way of life and engrosses a positive chi through your entire well-being...

Swell Report Website