Okay, seriously i'm turning 31 in just a few days.  How did this happen?  All I remember is I was prepping everything last year for my 30th birthday with M and also planning a really special Merry Unbirthday Tea and now it's been a year?!

Last year was really one of the best, one for the books.  As repeated numerous times M and I have the same birthday but we're a few years apart (he's older).  Last year I knew I had to make it one of the best as I was reaching a milestone in womanhood, and I just want M to have great birthdays especially with us being together.  Last January 2018, I was already planning and looking at different campgrounds (believe it or not!), then I came across treehouses..  A treehouse.. who stays in a tree house? UMMM ME! It's a great opening for me to get used to the outdoors and it'll help me ease with being with nature (as i'm not a big fan, but now am open to it!).

After doing a brief search on hipcamp (airbnb for nature), I came across this one, and the rest was history...

This treehouse is located in Northern California deep within the redwoods and mountains in an area called Mossy Bench/Beach, the closest main city is Santa Cruz but small towns are surroundings.  The tree house is located in Flipjack Ranch where a lovely couple have a bed & breakfast, farm, distillery,  and have built a treehouse for guests to stay.


Inside the treehouse has running electricity, different areas (bedroom with a king bed/living room),  WiFi, an outdoor shower along with a compost toilet, and my favorite- a wrap around deck.  One of the workers on the farm called this treehouse the "Cosmopolitan (las vegas) rooms of treehouses" and I couldn't agree more.  It was so cozy, roomy, and beyond comfortable.

I had so many moments where M would catch me happy sighing and smiling because the experience was perfect and beyond our expectations.  Shown in the last photo is the coffee and tea that was severed every morning for us which was separated from the home booked breakfast we received walking down to the farm every morning, i'll be sharing the food in a second part post ;)

Since staying here, it's opened me up more to being adventurous with M, we've hiked a few times last year and even stayed at a cabin  in the mountains on our anniversary late last year.  I can confidently say 2018 was more about trying new things and hopefully this year we can continue to do more.

Just in case here are the links:
Treehouse: https://www.hipcamp.com/california/mossy-bench/romantic-treehouse
Flip Jack Ranch:http://www.flipjackranch.com/

Side note: getting to the treehouse is a bit challenging if you are not comfortable driving really narrow roads that have sharp turns, there is also no cell phone reception once going up the Redwoods.

I figured with snail mail mondays, i'll add in a little something for Thursday.  I've got so many things archived from the past 5 years, I can't wait to share it all with you here.. on Thursdays!  This one is one of my favorites.  Late last year I was able to go to London for the 1st time and visit Paris for the 2nd time.  My cousin was currently living in London, so why not?!  So many tea rooms were calling my name, but a little owl named hedwig made sure I went to give him a visit too ;)

I gave my fair warning to my cousin that I knew that the Harry Potter WB Studio London  tour was a must for me, thankfully he was willing and so we went!  Mind you, I had purchase these tickets in advance, they sell out quickly and time slots are slim!  I had done a little mapping beforehand, and knew that it was  going to take up most of our morning and early afternoon.  Little did we know, how much we were going to cover.  I can't share everything in one post so i'll posting it bit by bit.

If you don't know what the WB Studio London is, this is basically where Harry Potter was filmed for 10 years, this Studio contains 3 huge lots, indoor and out!  I can't express to you how many times I lost my shit and how astounded and amazed I felt.. With this title of the blog post you can guess on what i'll be sharing below...

After walking through the 1st building of props and sets, there was a cafe and then a outdoor area before entering another backlot.  In this outdoor area had the hogwarts bridge, chest players, knight bus, and most importantly: 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.

It was the actual set of the house they used to film that you could walk through.. They had displayed the scene of when Harry's acceptance letter to Hogwarts came flying in, I SERIOUSLY DID NOT WANT TO STEP OUTSIDE THE HOUSE,  I wanted to stay in there and look at every detail, prop, wallpaper, etc..  Everything looked just like the movie and brought me back to being 10 years old reading the first book..

As a little bonus, I ended up stumbling across the MinaLima store/gallery before watching the play, which made me so happy as I had that on my list to visit for over 8 years now :) . If you're not a Harry Potter fan, I hope you were able to enjoy the photos as you probably don't know what on earth i'm talking about.  Either way, this won't be the last post on HP.

Lets see where next Thursday takes us here ;)