Creating My Best Life: The first of twelve... or more! #Take12Trips

Last week I saw a link on Facebook to a blog that's challenging people to #Take12Trips. I was so excited to find such a cool challenge. Basically, all you need to do is plan and take at least one trip each month for 12 months. It's the perfect way to get people motivated and excited about life and to encourage people to take time out from their busy lives to do things they haven't done before or to go on adventures, either just down the road or to far away places. The trips can be as big or as small as you like. Check out the following link for the full post - http://www.needanotherholiday.com/celebrating-12-months-blogging-challenge-take12trips/.

Sunday 27 October 2013 marked five and a half years that Scotty and I have been together. And I love celebrating anniversaries. The first year that we dated we celebrated every month together and I used to say we should celebrate because neither of us would ever have a one, two, three month... etc etc anniversary again. At the time I was saying it to be sweet, who knew it would actually be right!

So, with our 'half anniversary' to celebrate and my first 'trip' to be taken I decided to plan a surprise for Scotty. We wanted to go stand up paddle boarding in Thailand but ran out of time, so I looked into where we could do it in Perth.

I found a company called Elemental who operate from Point Walter and they only charge $50 each for two hours. It was really easy to book online and we just paid when we got there on Sunday. They say to book in advance so that you don't miss out because its pretty popular, especially in the summer.

Sunday morning had perfect weather, it was going to be 28'C and there weren't any signs of wind. There was one other couple there too and we all went down the river together. You can choose to pay for a lesson but we just chose to do our own thing. The lady gave us a quick lesson on the sand and then we were off.

It was so easy! We thought it was going to be hard to stand up but it wasn't at all. We paddled down the river stopping to muck around on the way. We had two hours and the lady had told us how far she thought we'd get before having to turn around.

It was such a fun morning paddling and mucking around, both trying to stand on one board and trying to put one foot on each board. This resulted in a lot of time in the water!

Stand up paddle boarding is also a great way to exercise. You get a great arm and core workout and can push yourself as much or as little as you like.

This challenge has motivated Scotty and I to add our own twist. We're going to take it in turns to plan a surprise activity/outing each weekend for us to do together. We love being outdoors and spend a lot of time running which you all know is our favourite thing to do, but we want to make sure we are experiencing other fun things on the weekends too and thought this would be a great way of doing something new and fun together.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Scotty has planned for this weekend. He's great at planning surprises. He once planned an amazing weekend away in Akaroa. The whole town is 'French' so he planned a French weekend. He even surprised me with French desserts that he'd made and packed in a cooler bag along with lots of other tasty French treats. He always sets the bar very high!

I'm hoping that by sharing my trips with you all that it will give you inspiration and ideas to take your own trips. Planning trips or activities is so much fun and having things to look forward to is a great way of staying motivated at work or with other aspects of your life when they might become repetitive or boring.

I hope I've inspired each of you to plan an activity or a trip. Now, what will your next 'trip' be?