Creating Your Own Spa Escape at Home

For the past 15 years, my sister, Bobbi Brown, and I have taken a week off together for our annual Mother’s Day trip. It’s a week to be together to nurture ourselves and strengthen our bond as best friends. Most years we have been lucky enough to experience some incredible wellness escapes including Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires and Kripalu Yoga Retreat. This year we decided to do something different, create our own spa experience. We headed out to Telluride and made Bobbi’s house our own wellness escape.

Bobbi Brown and her sister, Linda Arrandt, doing yoga together in Telluride. (Photo: Linda Arrandt)

We began our days with 45-minute to an hour power walks and hikes. We alternated a daily yoga practice with circuit-training stations and interval runs up and down the hills with a great local trainer named Alyssa Saunders. The workouts were great, but more challenging due to the altitude. For wellness, we had a daily Acupuncture treatment from Joshua Geetter of Resource Oriental Medical Services, Inc. He is a very special and highly intuitive healer. You walk out of the treatment feeling so good and on top of the world.

We had fun concocting healthy and delicious recipes ourselves. The first night, Bobbi’s son, Duke made us a great Mother’s day meal of bison burgers, mixed veggies and a salad. We created a great smoothie bar for breakfast or our mid-day snack. We also made sautéed veggies with Applegate Chicken and Apple Sausage, fried eggs & avocado for a late breakfast early lunch.  For another lunch we made roast turkey on Raw Vegan Flat Bread (by ChiaRAWberri) with Kerrygold cheese, grey Poupon, organic greens topped with avocado and grey salt. Another lunch we made zucchini rolls with greens and Bell & Evans Gluten Free Chicken Burgers with a broccoli and kale slaw. For dinners we made organic roast chicken, with a field green salad, avocado, heirloom tomatoes and sprouts, paired with broccoli, seared garlic and olive. Another night we made Cappello’s Gluten Free Fettuccine with grass fed beef meat sauce and homemade roasted kale chips. For our in-town restaurant, we frequented The Butcher and Baker Cafe. They had amazing soups and a great selection of healthy gluten free meals.

Of course since we are not at a classic spa, we added in a little tequila some nights and just relaxed, watched TV, talked or read. We both eat similarly and very clean. It’s nice to travel and prepare food with Bobbi as we are like-minded in our health habits. We make a great team and share the household chores by setting a timer and splitting the work that normally does not come with a spa experience.

I also had the pleasure of seeing my sister actually listen to some of my health coaching advice on this trip. I am a firm believer in making smaller, incremental changes as building blocks to overall better health. Doing everything at once can be challenging. We talked about how to include less-healthy options that Bobbi loves into her life like coffee and tequila. Instead of cutting those things out altogether, Bobbi cut the caffeine in half and had tequila a few of the nights, and also cut that amount in half. As an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, I know that that is major progress. Less inflammation and looser clothes are one of the benefits of these seemingly minor changes that Bobbi has already noticed.

Making time for Dad on the Mother’s Day getaway weekend. (Photo: Linda Arrandt)

One very special addition to this trip is that we also included a few days with our amazing 80-year-old Dad, Joe Brown. He’s incredibly inspiring and began a new career following his writing passion at age 70. It’s so great to see him travel the world sharing his passion for imagination and creative writing with children. He gives each child a book when he reads in the schools no matter what socio-economic status they are. I have witnessed him do this from the time my daughter was in pre-school and my twins in elementary school.  We spent an amazing afternoon at Telluride Elementary School watching Dad teach a hundred children about imagination. Witnessing our father’s passion flow through is so uplifting. The kids are engaged in such inspiring ways.

While I thought I was going to miss the regular spa experience we’ve shared over the years, this was even more special. When I am with my sister, we always create a healthy, nurturing environment for each other. It’s so nice to live similar life-styles. Staying home and doing everything together was really nurturing. Between friendship, the presence of my nephew and our dad, being home and spending quality time together was a truly positive experience.