Yandara Yoga Teacher Training

I don't even know where to begin to describe the Yoga Teacher Training I recently completed at Yandara in Baja, Mexico. It was an amazing experience that is difficult to put into words. Some experiences/highlights:
-Connecting deeply with others at Yandara: my fellow 16-day ladies, the teachers, the staff, the other awesome folks in the 26-day training. In the relatively short amount of time that we spent together, we made deep connections. It was an honor to be with them and learn from them.
-Enjoying the beautiful surroundings: being able to hear the waves and see the ocean from my tent, seeing AMAZING stars every night, seeing the sunrise and sunset every day, watching the transitions of the moon, walking along the beach most days, beautiful weather and no rain for 2+ weeks
-The talented and caring teachers: Shane, Kate and Sara were our 3 wonderful, inspiring, loving teachers that shared much more than excellent knowledge about the physical practice of yoga. They truly live in the present and showed us how to apply the principles of yoga into our day-to-day lives off the mat.
-The food: It was delicious, it was nutritious, it was made with love and it was shared with others in a loving, fun community. What could be better?! The only other thing that made it even better for me as a dietitian was that it gave me such a nice break from thinking about nutrition and food: all of it was taken care of for me so I could simply relax and enjoy. 

Now for the photo tour...
This is the beach pavilion where we trained every day. It was a 3 minute walk to the beachfront from here. Beautiful and serene. 

 View from the beach pavilion facing some of the tents. Mine is just to the right of the small pavilion.

 One set of outdoor toilets and showers.

 My breakfast every morning :) I loved the papaya with lime juice squeezed on it.

 A typical lunch/dinner. The food was definitely a highlight. Let me re-phrase that: not having to think about planning, shopping for, cooking and preparing delicious, healthy food was absolutely wonderful.

 One of our last mornings together. It was so chilly at night! Once the sun set at 6 p.m. the temperature dropped about 20-30 degrees until 9 a.m. the next morning.

 My final "presentation" was to co-teach a 70 minute class to the whole group. Here I am after the class with my buddy Ximena, who was also my tent neighbor :)

 On our last full day, we walked a ways to an oasis where this huge fig tree has clearly been thriving for many, many years!

 Beautiful Kate, made us a delicious raw chocolate pie. It tasted divine.

 Our group the night of graduation

I miss this place and these fabulous people but I am excited about applying all the things I have learned into my life. The teaching principles will be put into practice much sooner than I thought: I start teaching at Buena Onda Yoga this Wednesday!! I couldn't be more thrilled! :) Right now I have 4 classes per week, at least one class at each of the three studios, so I have been prepping a lot and trying not to get nervous :)

Busy, busy December

Hello! I'm finally back from 5+ weeks of traveling and slowly catching up on life and this blog. December was a full month, both before I left and during my time in the States. The weather was starting to really warm up here, which I love! Almost every morning I wake up to beautiful sunshine and say to myself in almost disbelief: "ANOTHER beautiful day!" I am a lucky girl (of course for many other reasons than just the weather!) :)
The Polo finals are at the beginning of December and the fields are just down the street from us in Palermo. I had never gone to a match before so I went with my friend Laura from Spanish school. My favorite parts were the beautiful horses, crowd watching, enjoying a delicious beverage in the outdoor lounge between games and chatting with Laura. I had no clue what was going on in the game :) I was surprised at how quiet the crowd was, similar to a tennis meet. This is the absolute opposite of Argentine spectators at a football game!

Later that week, Fernando, Sofi and I went to a "closed door restaurant" (en español: "restaurantes a puertas cerradas") called Jueves a la Mesa run by my friend Meghan, who is also the co-founder of Buena Onda Yoga. There were about 12 of us total and we dined on the rooftop terrace of a beautiful home in San Telmo. It was gorgeous! The food was amazing as well!

After spending a day at our friends' home in the country one weekend we saw 2 adorable owl families on our way home. Here's one of them. The baby owls were precious! The only time I have ever seen owls has been in Argentina: that's 3 times in less than 6 months vs 0 times in 31 years in the States. I am taking that as a good sign that I will hopefully see many more during our time here!

Later on, Sofi and I made homemade marshmallows for these cookies, which are some of the kids' (and Fer's) :) favorites.

We ran out of chocolate, but that's probably a good thing since they are SO rich

From sunny, warm Argentina to... wintry Chicago! I was thrilled to be back in the city before the holidays. I loved all the buzz and holiday cheer. The weather was thankfully mild, although I did miss snow. Unfortunately, I took very few pictures during my time in Chicago. I think part of the reason for this was that my time was so jam-packed that I honestly forgot! From the moment my mom kindly picked me up at the airport to when she drove me to South Bend (isn't she the best?!) I was non-stop with friends. It was fantastic.
One picture I did manage to capture was of the adorable Norstrom family: Eric, Melanie and baby Lincoln. I had a lovely holiday dinner with them in their cozy Hyde Park apartment with our friend Suchandra.

This Christmas my side of the family all stayed at my parents' house in South Bend. It was a full house! I felt like I had lots of time to just be with everyone and have relaxed conversations and bonding. Some highlights: seeing all my nieces and nephews playing together, cooking together, lots of laughing, playing a hilarious game of "telephone" at dinner one night per my nephew Peter's direction, going on walks together, holding adorable babies, baking challah with Georgia and our little helpers, and having my Aunt Becky and cousins Tracy and Christina come the day after Christmas (unfortunately no photos of them).
Mom reading to some of the kiddos:

 Making challah with my favorite little baker:

 Georgia very patiently and kindly let Isaac, Peter and Sylvia help us

 Ready to bake!

 Dad on Christmas morning :)

 Cutie Theo

 Coy, beautiful Vica :)

 Issac and Peter became best buds

 Jenny reading to Isaac and Ellie

All of us! Except Fer, Sofi and Martin :(

Right after this full, wonderful time with family and friends I headed to southern Baja, Mexico for an amazing yoga teacher training course at Yandara Yoga Institute. More on that in the next post!