yoga retreat

A Yoga Retreat 🧘🏻‍♀️, and I am the Caterer👩🏻‍🍳 😬

That’s a scary thought huh?! You might be wondering how this happened, I know I was!

Last January we went Mexico to attend a yoga retreat. I did a few posts on that trip. This was the same location as the previous yoga retreat, which we loved! Our yoga instructor, Lisa Shifler for both of those retreats, recently moved to Twisp, WA, 4 hours east of our home in Redmond. She told us that she was building a “yoga Shalla” on her property and would be holding retreats this summer.

We were all sitting at breakfast, talking about her plans when she said she was looking for someone to do the cooking for two weekends in June, during the women’s only yoga retreats. I blurted out “I will do it!” And she said “great!” 😳

What was I thinking!! After my head stopped spinning, I realized that this would be a great challenge and experience for me. And, with the first one in the books, I can honestly say it was a blast!

I had never been to Twisp before, which is located in the Methow Valley. I have heard great things about the area so I was excited to see the area. It is as advertised!

This is the Methow River, and it is so relaxing and I love the sounds of the water flowing along.

I drank a lot of coffee sitting next to this beautiful scenery💕

And all the blooms were out. 🌼🌸🌹It is sunny on this side of the mountains, as they get less rain than the Seattle side.

Lisa’s yoga Shalla was so cute and inviting!

Lisa decorated with articles from her two trips to India

And, bought Mexican blankets, a nod to our other retreats .

But I had a job to do! I made two desserts, both gluten free, dairy free as one of the ladies has Celiacs. Friday night we had a chocolate cake with bruleed bananas. Saturday’s dessert was this angle food cake with triple berry sauce and ice cream (for the dairy folks). Some of you may remember these from instagram, as I have been recipe testing for the last few weeks.

Then I had two brunches to prepare, both had gluten free options as well.

Our first morning we had crustless quiche, one with cream cheese and one without. There was also fruit salad, mango-orange Greek yogurt, gluten free granola, breakfast potatoes (not shown), cranberry & pistachio biscotti and sourdough bread that I had made a few days earlier.

Sunday’s brunch also included the yogurt and granola option, along with a French toast bake, gluten free pancakes and bacon.

Lisa also made some gluten free steel cut oatmeal both days and I never got to taste it! Hopefully I will next time😊.

I am happy and proud to report that no one got sick!! That was my biggest fear, and we all were pleasantly full for the weekend.

The weekend wasn’t all about yoga, we had some creative time. We painted inspirational rocks from the river. I have a couple weeks to think about the next design and am hoping to come up with a better idea for my second rock!

We also went into the town of Winthrop to do some shopping. I had never been there before, and found it to be a cute town. I have travel blogged about Leavenworth, a nearby town that has a Bavarian theme. Winthrop is fashioned after an old western town.

This dude was in front of the Putt Putt Golf Course.

Like most tourist towns, there were plenty of ice cream and coffee shops. I love the mottos and sayings of these two in particular!

The weekend was a success! The 8 of us had a great time shopping, eating and stretching!

The Yogis, relaxing and shopping

Lisa, (left) is our instructor and Teena (right) also teaches in the Seattle area.

And I am now thinking about what to prepare for the last week in June, when I will head back for the next, and final, retreat. Any suggestions??

Yoga Retreat, One More Time

Last January I let my hubby talk me into attending a yoga retreat. He is a big yogi and his instructor told him about a retreat she was holding just north of Manzanillo. I was skeptical. I don’t love Mexican food, we had been to Mexico many times and it was always way too hot for me and I only do yoga when I can’t rock climb or run. So, how much fun could I possibly have?

The answer: So Much!!

Our goal last year was to meet fun people and do some yoga. We greatly exceeded those expectations, so much so that we signed up to go again this year. We even hosted a reunion last summer at our house. My blog posts from last time Good Morning from Manzanillo!, Exploring Bara de Navidad, Happy Hour,Snorkeling and Lunch in Santiago Bay! and Our Yoga Retreat Wrap Up! are full of pictures and images that we were privy to this time around as well. So, for this year’s post, I tried to focus more on what was different.

Bill and Susan, our hosts, were once again, fabulous! They made most of our meals and they both are great cooks! Additionally, they would take us to places that no other tourists go-we had day trips to Colima and Comala and they chose restaurants that the locals frequent. They are a big reason why we chose to repeat this experience. Of course Lisa, our yoga teacher, was another big draw to the event! Once again we met wonderful people and had even more adventures. We did repeat the snorkeling trip but otherwise the experience was unique.

We began each day with meditation at the nearby beach then morning yoga, at Bill and Susan’s home. Look at these views!

The infinity pool at the lower house

View from the lower house

Another angle from the lower house

We did all our yoga at the upper house, under the palapa. You can see the pool at the upper house as well

We had morning and evening yoga sessions. This year Lisa challenged us with partner yoga poses. She would give us a pose and then we had to interpret that pose in a creative way. For example, Dennis and I did a “moon pose” on the beach.

And, Janet and Annie did this interpretation of the fish pose, in the pool

So these were more creative poses than the traditional forms. It was fun to see what everyone would come up with for their assignment.

In between all the yoga were the adventures. Snorkeling, hiking, museum visits and lots of shopping.

And the food! Oh my god, did we eat!! If Bill and Susan weren’t cooking then we were at some amazing restaurants! I have a few images, many of which were on Instagram, of some of the cuisine we were fortunate to enjoy.

Breakfast was wonderful! Bill’s granola and yogurt, with local fruit was a fan favorite. And with this sunrise, hard to beat!

Bill and Susan always served dessert-This is a Poncho Villa. Amazing!

Lunch in Colima, these crepes could have been from Paris

Bill and Susan selected this restaurant near Colima. So glad they did!

Many of you know about my coffee “issues”, This Sunday brunch spot, Los Portales de Suchitlan, was a true highlight. A young girl served as our translator as this was a local place, no tourists around!

And then this…A Swiss restaurant (?) in Comala, Mexico! Piccolo Suizo was spectacular!

You can see why we are trying to eat lighter after coming back to Tucson! We ate constantly on this retreat, and it was worth it! So good 🙂

We had another wonderful experience this year, just like last time. One of the tasks I undertook was to organize a slide show for the final night, I was the only one who brought a computer (what a nerd, right?). I took the partner poses and some fun images of our experience to attempt to capture the feel of the week. It is short, only 2.5 minutes and our yogi buddies wanted to see it again. I thought I would post it here for anyone who wants to see a few more images.

So what is next for Dennis and I? We need to spend some time on the homes for now, no trips planned right now, but you never know!

Gardening Update, 3 Months Later!

A few nights ago we hosted a party at our house. This was a reunion for our yoga retreat friends. You may remember that my husband and I went to Santiago, Mexico back in January to attend a yoga retreat lead by my hubby’s favorite yoga instructor. We had an amazing time snorkeling, sight seeing, eating and, of course, doing lots of yoga! I created several posts which you can see here, here and here.

In fact we had such a great time that we have already signed up to go again in January of 2018! Our hosts who are americans living in Mexico, Bill and Susan, were visiting in Seattle this month and we couldn’t resist the urge to get “the band” back together again. We offered our home for the 20 or so folks who attended either the first retreat week with us or were part of the second week group. Since I was responsible for the desserts you might expect that this is a food related blog post. I did post an Instagram picture of my little sugary creations.

top left: Lemon meringue flower tarts, top right: Berry white chocolate mousse cookie cups, bottom left: Peanut butter chocolate fudge, bottom right: Salt caramel cheesecake bites. I also made some appetizers and potato herb dinner rolls.

But this post is not about the food! Everyone who came to our house that night had never been here before. We saw our home through new eyes which is always a delight. It is so easy to take what you have for granted when you view it day in and day out. But our guests were so complementary about our home and, in particular, our garden and backyard that I began to take notice myself. I realized it has been awhile since my last garden post in which I shared the status of the new spring plantings and planter boxes that I hung along the fence line. So, here we go WARNING: lots of pictures!

We have three of these large pots, one on the deck and two on the patio below. I chose coleus plants and sweet potato vines, in varying colors for each pot.

This is one of the two on the patio. The hummingbirds love this red plant (don’t remember what it’s called!)

The hydrangeas are doing particularly well this year. They line the stairway down the side of our home and lead into the patio.

Do you remember what the planter boxes looked like back in April? Ya, me neither! Here they are.

And now….

What a difference in just three months! I also put two other planters (which I did not build but purchased and painted) on the adjacent side of the fence line. They also filled in nicely.

In fact, the entire garden has filled in!

This is a pathway (that leads nowhere really) from the side of our patio.

Same pathway as viewed from above

These plantings fall under the category of “trying to attract more hummingbirds”. It does seem to be working as we now have two fighting over territory of the yard.

Other plants were chosen for their color or uniqueness.

love this purple color

This is a banana leaf plant and will be huge in August

Others were selected to help with weed control, to serve as ground cover, but I still wanted variety and color.

The garden really has come a long way. I am happy with the overall look, but will still be tweaking things here and there. After the third growing season I can see that some plants need to be thinned, or removed all together. Of course there is the constant weeding! I am going to try to remember to take a step back and enjoy the surrounding and attempt to avoid the tunnel vision I often acquire when I work in the yard. After all, the point is to enjoy the fruits of our labors and not just look for more flaws, right!

We also recieved a lovely bouquet of flowers from one of our guests, so I would like to leave you with some pretty images of lilies and dahlias.

Thanks for reading this far! Enjoy the summer while it lasts and I wish you all good fortune!

Our Yoga Retreat Wrap Up!

We finally made our way back to Seattle, which thanks to Trump and his new policy made it quite difficult as we were swept up in the protest at SeaTac! But, mine is not a political blog and I will leave that story for someone else to tell!

I spent our first day back much like anyone else arriving home after a week away. I did bills, laundry, grocery shopping and a run to Costco to stabilize the household. Now I have a moment to describe the last two days of our retreat.

Thursday morning we got an early start, to beat the heat, and went on a hike to an abandoned hotel. Palm Royale did not survive for long. The story that was told is that the hotel was finished and was scheduled for a soft opening. However, the workers were not paid the wages they were owed and they decided to dynamite the only road leading to the hotel to protest the lack of reimbursement. The developers never reopened! Now, I don’t know if that story is true but it is certainly colorful. The hotel sat at the top of a mountain and the views were outstanding!

We arrived at the top just after sunrise

This is a birds’ eye view of the shoreline where we met our boat for the snorkeling tour

As you can imagine, this is a favorite hang out for local teens to tag and party!

We made our way back down and headed over to La Cumbra for breakfast. This restaurant is located in a gated community consisting of condos mostly owned by Americans who have retired and relocated, at least for some of the year, in Mexico.

The view from our table located outside on the patio

This is a small portion of the full condo complex

We were told about a bridge on the property that had been damaged, some years ago, by a hurricane and had never been repaired. So, of course we had to go investigate after our meal.

It did not look to bad yet!

We started to see what they meant!

It was stabile enough for us to cross one at a time, and the view on the other side was worth it!

That evening we had a special treat. A local woman came to our condo to teach us all how to make authentic Mexican tamales and enchiladas. I am not a big fan of Mexican food in general but do love to learn how to properly cook alternate cuisine, so I was very excited to learn from her. She is the “lunch lady” at the local elementary school down the road from our hosts. She brought a mix of masa, which is corn meal, flour and lard, and a variety of fillings for the tamales and enchiladas. She then proceeded to show us how to construct and cook the dishes, she even brought her personal steamer which was large enough to hold all 24 tamales.

With the tamales done, it was time to work on the enchiladas.

Of course, no Mexican meal is complete without home made corn tortillas. I got to try my hand at making these. The mixture was just corn meal and water, no lard this time! I rolled them into a ball, then pressed them with a traditional wood press. We then cooked them off in a dry sauté pan. It was actually surprisingly easy!

We ate, too much, then went to evening yoga and meditation. The next day was our last full day in El Naranjo. I skipped yoga in lieu of one last run in the warm weather! I ran 5 miles and then jumped in the pool! After breakfast we headed to the Tortugario Ecological Center of Cuyutlan. This is a sea turtle preserve and plantation. We were treated to a boat ride in the mangroves to search out snakes, birds, iguanas, turtles and crocodiles.

The turtles were easy to find, the other animals, not so much!

The large adults in their holding tanks would swim right up to the edge to check us out

These cute little guys hatched not too long ago

The eggs are protected by fencing and marked with plastic buckets

We made our way to the boat and got our first glimpse at the mangroves and tropical forest

We saw many birds and a few iguanas that hid too far back into the jungle to photograph. We did catch a couple interesting sights.

Two Great Snowy Egrets

This little croc was hiding in the reeds trying to cool down.

These are two of the biggest termite nests I have ever seen!

The tour was at an end. So, you know when you take your kids to the zoo which ends with the obligatory trip to the gift shop, and they want everything in sight? Well, you won’t have that problem at this gift store!

We had one last evening yoga session that night and prepared to leave paradise the next day. We had a blast on this retreat! Our hosts, Susan Lewis and Bill Pecha are amazing! They provided all the meals, transportation, lodging and excursions-this was truly all inclusive and can they cook! The food was amazing, better than any of the restaurant meals that we had! They worked with our yoga teacher, Lisa Kaulen, to put together a great week of activities that kept us motivated and engaged. We highly recommend this type of trip if you want to see some place that is not just the regular touristy sights, and enjoy physical activity!

Good Bye El Naranjo!

Happy Hour,Snorkeling and Lunch in Santiago Bay!

What a day we had on Tuesday! I decided to play hooky from yoga in the morning and went for a 3 mile run instead. It was a huge treat to run in warm weather! It was 8am here and 77°F. My last two runs were back at home and it was 36°F and icy one day and 41°F and raining the next. My body didn’t know what to do in the warm weather. When I got back to the condo everyone else was still in yoga practice, turns out they had a 90 minute class-so glad I decided to run! My husband headed out to golf with our host Bill and the rest of us had some tough choices to make, either walk to the beach, read by the pool or head into town for a message. I went with the message! So glad I did as I am truly sore everywhere! We all met up again for Happy hour at The Oasis Ocean club in Santiago Bay.

The next morning we all got up and did sunrise yoga and afterward, our hosts Susan and Bill made us a wonderful breakfast.

Our Yoga teacher, Lisa (left) and Susan (right) posing with a huge spanish omelet

This was much needed fuel for our next event. We returned to Santiago Bay for a 3 hour snorkel tour. We had spectacular views on our way to the first of three coves that we would be exploring.

Yoga teacher Lisa enjoying the ride!

Condos along the waterfront

The water was warm and clear, perfect for snorkeling. One of our guides dove in and came up with this little guy.

Puffer fish

I’m pretty sure you are not allowed to do this in the states and we made sure to not keep him out of the water for long!

We spent about 45 minutes here and then moved on to another cove and enjoyed more scenery along the way.

Our last spot was a sunken ship near the beach. To be honest, my husband and I have been fortunate to have snorkeled in many other locations around the world and we were not as impressed with the sights this time around, so I stayed on the boat and took this picture above the water line.

This pelican was waiting for something to swim nearby

Then, as we were all starving from such a tough day (feel sorry for me?) it was time to head to shore and have a late lunch at a local restaurant. I don’t know the name of it or have any pictures of the food because the ten of us didn’t wait for pictures and just dove in. I will tell you that it was delicious!

One of many beachfront eateries.

Tomorrow: A hike to an abandoned hotel and a cooking class! And, of course, more yoga!

Exploring Bara de Navidad

We had our first full day in El Naranjo, which is just outside of Manzanillo, Mexico. We are staying with a host couple who have two condos, one in which they live and the other they rent out to guests. They have graciously allowed our group (9 in all) to have our yoga retreat in both homes. They have provided all the transportation, meals and arranged local excursions! What a deal! I am having a message later today-can’t wait!

There is so much beauty everywhere that it is hard to choose just a few pictures, but here are some of our neighbors.

After our morning yoga we went down to the beach. Just a quick walk to check out the waves.

I was impressed by some of the natural structures.

The waves are impressive and the water temperature was perfect

Someone placed these stones into small structures.

We went back to the condo and set out for Bara de Navidad, a small and charming town about 45 minutes north of El Naranjo. There was a outdoor mall full of shops, not unlike most found in bigger tourist destinations in Mexico. If you have ever been to Puerto Vallarta or Mazatlan then you have experienced the shopping frenzy that occurs when american tourists enter the plaza. Bara de Navidad was far more laid back, we were never pressured to make a purchase, or approached by aggressive salespeople. I did appreciate the opportunity to just browse around. I ended up buying vanilla for baking when I get home and some ground coffee that we will most likely drink here. Beach was equally beautiful there too!

This is a view from a hotel pool overlooking the ocean

We took a water taxi over to a restaurant and went past the Grand Bay Hotel on Isla de Navidad. It was stunning and had several amazing yachts out front.

We ate a light lunch and then returned for a dip in the pool, followed by -you guessed it- more yoga! It was a fun day, but pretty tiring! Ready for another adventure today.

Good Morning from Manzanilla, Mexico!

My husband and I are on a yoga retreat in Manzanilla. We have never been to this part of Mexico before and never been on a yoga retreat! We just got in last night after a rough connection at LAX. Turns out that there is a major storm hitting California right now and it made for some delays and uncharacteristically choppy air. The views from the plane were beautiful as we made our way to a very small airport.

We arrived in the late afternoon so there was only time for a dinner, prepared by our gracious hosts, and then it was time for evening yoga by one of the two pools in our gated community.

The sunrise was perfect this morning and I was able to get some shots of our surroundings. We are in a condo with the ocean on one side and a small bay on the other.

And this is just the upper house! There is a lower condo where a few other retreaters are staying. I am hoping to get some pictures later this afternoon of both the lower condo and from a small nearby town. Right not, it’s time for morning yoga!

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