Yucatan Adventures

I just had the wonderful experience of spending the last two weeks traveling around the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, visiting the cities of Cancun, Tulum, Merida, and Playa del Carmen. I climbed Mayan pyramids, swam with turtles in cenotes, watched folkloric dance, ate the best street tacos of my life, snorkeled with giant manta rays, checked Chichen Itza off my bucket list, danced salsa to live music, and even ate crickets. That was definitely a first! Here's a few fun highlights from my recent adventures.

 Now to get caught up on dance practice....

Back to the Studio

While I usually prefer to do creative, fantasy or belly dance inspired photo shoots, sometimes it can be nice to just keep it simple. I did just such a shoot with Nick Rodriguez back in 2019. Here are a few of the images we captured in that session.

Shine Bright

Well hello new decade! It's hard to believe it, but it's 2020. A whole new decade, with shiny new possibilities. And man oh man, am I ready for an easier, happier, more joy-filled year. Twenty-eighteen and 2019 were not simple by any means. It was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to clear out situations that were no longer serving me and, in their place, rebuild a new, more authentic life. Curious what that was all about? You can read about my 2019 and 2018 in prior posts.

But enough with the past. I'm ready to move forward. Ready to let bygones be bygones. Ready to ditch all baggage and focus on the future instead. As always, I've done some soul searching and goal-setting for my year ahead. Here are the highlights of what I hope to do, enjoy, explore, and accomplish in 2020:

•  Explore the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan peninsula (happening February 2020!)
•  Develop at least a moderate level of skill with a bow and arrow (yasss inner badass!)
•  Go sky diving (terrifying!)
•  Tour Bran ("Dracula's") Castle in Romania
•  Audition for and join a ladies salsa troupe
•  Ride in a hot air balloon
•  Get a photo shoot published in Envious, a fantasy boudoir magazine
•  Bare it all as a naked biker in the Fremont solstice parade (also terrifying!)
•  5-day Tone It Up detox (because holiday food and drinks have been no joke this year)

Overall, my aspiration for 2020 is to shine bright. That is in fact, my theme for the new year. The affirmation and intention I will be reminding myself of as the months progress. I encountered so many difficult circumstances over the last two years; situations and hardships that dulled my sparkled and dimmed my shine. I'm so ready to leave all that behind me. I'm ready to live in the light. No more dancing with the shadows. I'm ready to exude radiance and glow from the inside out.

Twenty-twenty, I see you. Let's go. I'm ready. I'm more than ready. The last two years have polished me, smoothed out some of the imperfections and rough edges. I've been tumbled and refined, and now I'm ready to shine.