In the last few weeks I’ve adopted the coastal lifestyle, and it isn’t even summer yet! It is funny how quickly you can turn from being girly into someone wearing sneakers/rubber boots (weather dependent), jeans and a fleece and without my hair done, accessories or perfume! The main “cause” is the hours I’ve spent on and especially IN the ocean lately, training for my new job. It’s pretty hard-core to practice capsizing and re-entering your kayak during this time of the year.. and the next weekend we had to do it all over again, and this time we had to “teach” and pretend we weren’t cold. Both courses were really useful because I not only learned lots about kayaks and different strokes, I also learned how to teach them in a fun way. Or atleast I tried… because teaching is a lot harder than you think! Especially if your students are the instructors who pull everything out to make it as difficult for you as possible! I had to help one of them to get back into the kayak after capsizing, and she seriously did everything to not get in the boat! I had to try so many different ways and different instructions (and try really hard not to fall in the water myself) until I became really really frustrated and she gave in. But ofcourse, when you are really instructing you can have these kind of people and you can never show your frustration! Luckily I’m starting off easy with “just” tours and helping here and there with intro courses for school groups until I get better… or maybe not at all this summer, we’ll see! I don’t mind doing that all summer though, besides the rentals and being a beach babe ofcourse 
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Tom and I also went away for a few days to breath in the real West Coast air on Mayne Island (one of the Gulf Islands in between the mainland and Vancouver Island). So think about rocky beaches, lots of trees, driftwood, hippies/artists, small organic food markets and the smell of burning wood. That is where I want to live when I’m old, and have money, and a dog! And they also have amazing mailboxes there:
