St. George Winter Retreat

White capped mountains against the Red Rock is gorgeous.  We wanted to retreat in St. George because of the great weather...and we FROZE.  It was so cold and snowed a little bit, but we did get outside and walked both 25 degree mornings. 

We stayed at the Gather house which was in a a really tight subdivision, off the Washington Parkway, filled with homes...but ours looked out onto wilderness and we lived off the back of the house, so it was perfect.  Plus it was decorated so cute!  Every bedroom had it's OWN bathroom.  

So Many lovely women came to play.. Back row:  Becky Farley - our Mindfulness and Meditation teacher, Laureen Carlsen- Miss Personality, Jacki Taylor- who tells it like it is, Darlene House- full of energy and love, Kimi Farley- my right hand and all around great gal, Me.  Front Row:  Tammy Siebert- so kind and caring, Danine Davis- Fit and ready for adventure, Annett Pond- Miss WOW and Laura Belnap-- who knows everyone...or made some kind of connection.

We gathered on Thursday night in this really FUN house.   We prepared cafe rio type salads and did 2 truths and a lie ice breaker to begin getting to know each other.   Then we gathered for Story time where everyone gets to share a story from their life.  What ever they want to talk about for 7 minutes.  We learned about adoption, how I met my husband, one of my funny kisses,  how kids say the darndest thing, gay kids, kids in jail, moving a lot,  chicken capers....you name it we shared about it.  

In attendance  were some of my old friends,  two ladies that came together from Mountain Green but didn't know anyone else there, another lady that my friend brought down from her work, and another lady that came who didn't know anyone.  She just wanted an adventure!  I'm always to impressed with the courage it takes to jump into a fairly intimate situation with strangers.  BUT  I know that within a few minutes, personal barriers are brought down and we see that we have more in common that we do different.  It's a beautiful thing to witness.

 Day two brought an early morning walk in the frigid sunshine, learning about whole hearted living and then jumping in with both hands in to a painting project to get everyone out of their comfort zones and to practice creativity and not living in comparison.

 Lots of good tunes from the 70's and 80's plus a little Adele thrown in, kept us grooving and moving.

I love this paining project.  I know some of the women don't, but it's so interesting to see how different women tackle it.  

 THE SNOW came back.   It was beautiful to watch out out deck.  We stayed inside and learned about Mindfulness and Meditation from a wonderful teacher- Becky Farley.  She has a gift and is so engaging and supporting to everyone as we all tried to wrap our minds and spirits around the art of mediation.  She put us all through a guided meditation at the end, that put some of us to sleep-- it was that relaxing.  We all promised to at least practice the breathing part of this mindfulness at red stop lights!

 That night Debbie Zockoll came and spoke to us.  She  has run 268 marathons in the past 4 decades.  She has run every single St. George Marathon  sometimes pregnant, sometimes in the middle of chemo...she has also beat cancer twice... in 2005 and 2016-- and ran marathons those years as well.  She really is inspiring and not intimidating.  Such a beautiful soul.

 We laughed and cried and shared and supported and ate and laughed some more.     The Sun came up and it was time to head out.  Lots of hugs and we all drove off into the SUNSHINE

The Gather house left a polaroid camera for our use... by the time I figured it out I didn't get a picture of Every lady... we are missing two.... of the pictures but they are not missing in our hearts and memories.  Yay for Soul Sisters.