Better Together
February 2023 Couple’s Wellness Weekend Recap
This weekend we hosted our very first Couple’s Wellness Weekend in Lake Placid. The inspiration for this weekend came from our last women’s wellness retreat; there was a great deal of conversation about how to balance wellness in relationships since they are significant influences on our lives and environment. It seemed like something that would benefit so many if we could bring a Couple’s Wellness Weekend to life. So we did!
We had five couples join us and we had such a great time learning from and connecting with each other.
We kicked off the weekend with a catered welcome dinner at co-hosts Dr. Drew and his wife Taylor’s chiropractic office. Talented friend and yoga student of mine - Brandon Schatko (Chef Humble) - catered the dinner and prepared farm-to-table food for us to enjoy: carrot ginger tea, beet chèvre salad, brisket, potatoes with maple sour cream, and a delicious maple vanilla ice cream. Mere ingredients on paper do not do the flavor of the meal justice. Trust me.
Friday’s welcome dinner brisket
Friday’s welcome dinner
Saturday’s snowshoe adventure
Cabin yoga
Me & Mike on our snowshoe adventure
Dr. Drew in action
Dr. Halie in action
Sunday’s Big Slide brunch
The next morning we met at the ski lodge just outside of town for a snowshoe adventure to a cabin in the woods. There we rolled out our yoga mats and did a therapeutic yoga flow for our hips. The space we found in our bodies on our mats helped us move even better on our extended snowshoe adventure back to lodge.
After a break for lunch - we all split and did our own thing - we met back at the chiropractic office for an afternoon of workshops. The men learned about gut health with Dr. Drew, while the ladies learned about gut health with Dr. Halie. Then we all came back together for my workshop on stress: how it affects our health and our relationships. We dove into how important sustainable self-care is, not only sustainable self-care for our individual wellbeing, but also sustainable self-care for our relationships. Then Dr. Halie and Dr. Drew treated everyone to a chiropractic adjustment - a rich afternoon of wellness.
We encouraged a date night following the workshops and adjustments. Many couples went off on their own, taking advantage of an evening without obligation. Halie, Nick, Mike and I enjoyed a dinner together at the Whiteface Lodge and then turned in for an early evening.
Sunday morning we met for a hike at John Brown - Tala and Loyo are now best friends - and then we wrapped the weekend with a mouth-watering farm-to-table brunch at Big Slide Brewery.
The only thing that could’ve made the weekend even sweeter was an extra scoop of Brandon’s maple vanilla ice cream on Friday night.
As someone who hosted, but also took part in the weekend, I was able to get so much out of it. Mike and I had the chance to staycation and spend quality time together. Seeing everyone’s relationships be nourished throughout the weekend was an encouraging thing. No relationship is perfect, but if we continue to strive to improve, the improvements will come. We get caught up in feeling like it has to be complicated and more more more, but sometimes stepping back and simply taking quality time to learn how to better ourselves and each other is all it takes to change course in a better direction.
We look forward to hosting many more weekends like this, and we hope you can join us for one in the future!
