we knew that we needed to move out of our old house by the end of february. our landlord had already rented the house out for march and april, so we had no choice. brenda and i started looking for a new place to live quite early on, but were disappointed with what was out there. houses were too expensive, too far away, too shabby and sometimes all of the above. we got disheartened and kind of gave up the search. there was also the possibility that we might end up living for free in this huge new mansion that our friends built, and having that glimmer of hope took even more of our motivation away.
about ten days before the end of february (i.e. coming down to the wire), our friend will called with a house he wanted to show us. will is a real estate agent in sayulita and has his ear to the ground for all kinds of deals. we saw the house and immediately loved it. its big – 4 bedrooms big – and has a nice open living space with a huge yard to boot. plus the main bedroom has a king size bed. i was worried that the rent was going to be too high, but they offered it to us for less than what we were paying in our old studio apartment!
it almost seemed too good to be true, and it kind of was. what we didn’t know at the time was that there was this guy andy who had been living in the house for free for some time. andy is a friend of the landlord’s and needed a place to stay after he broke up with his girlfriend. andy liked living there and was a bit… reluctant… to move. on the day we took possession of the house he still had all of his stuff in the house and was digging in his heels, despite having heard from the landlord and will that he had to be out. we ended up postponing our move by one more day to give andy one last chance to move out.
the next day i arrived with a carload of stuff and found andy in the house. luckily he was in the process of moving all of his gear out. it was my first time meeting him, and despite all of the drama that was unfolding between him, will and the landlord, he was pretty cool. he took a while to get all of his belongings, but after that he was gone and we moved in without any incident. its been smooth living since then – having more space is just so awesome. nayou gets to spread all his toys out and run around, rocky gets his own hang out area and i get lots of room to do yoga. win win win.
here is a tour of the new place:
and just for comparison’s sake, here is what our old place was like:
it seems like february is the month that all of mexico’s public holidays happen. since the calendar ticked over from january, its been a non-stop party in some corner of sayulita. this past week has been especially festive. on top of the considerable number of tourists already here, many more came when a bunch of carnival rides sprung up on the football field. there was also a parade through the plaza yesterday to commemorate the founding of sayulita (i think). i’ve been playing with a really cool program called lightroom which lets you enhance your photos very easily. with all of the events going on, i couldn’t pass up the chance to get out the nikon and snap some shots. i’ve still got a tendency to go a bit overboard with the dials in lightroom, but i hope you enjoy the photos!
mike tyson decided to show up with a friend.
these ones are from the carnival at the football field. nayou went crazy on the rides, especially the merry-go-rounds with cars. all the rides started very close to his bedtime, so by the end of the night he was one tired baby.
this was a really fun (and really dangerous) game for the adults. for twenty pesos (about $1.60USD) you get to choose three rocks to throw at the bottles. if you break one, you get a beer. if you break two, you get two beers. and if you break three, then you get a six pack! i sucked at it, but brenda scored pretty well. i don’t think you’d ever see this kind of thing in new zealand or america. its a lawyer’s wet dream. viva mexico!
someone commissioned napoleon dynamite for some of their stall art. great shading on the upper lip.
today i spent the afternoon playing with nayou in the yard. it was one of those perfect sayulita days where the temperature was just right. we had an awesome time playing with the hose and in the puddles left over from the freak rain yesterday.
and there’s this photo that i really like. i think i went a bit overboard with it in lightroom, but its still kinda nice.
its been a long time since we posted any sort of video. compared to photos, video is so much more of a pain to sort and edit. however, now that nayou is starting to speak, we thought it was high time to share his mad spanish skillz with you all. subtitled for your viewing pleasure
including blogging, even surfing (unless the waves are really good) until brenda and i finish breaking dawn, the fourth and final book in the twilight series. our friend kris brought the first three books down for us when she came to visit over christmas. i started reading the books about five days ago and have raced through 1700+ pages already! we downloaded the last volume as an e-book and are spending every spare second glued to our laptops. i was dimly aware of the twilight phenomenon via the buzz about the movies, but dismissed it as teenage drivel. who would have thought that teenage drivel was so… addictive. awesome. un-put-downable. anyway, in response to many requests for more photos, i thought i would upload some from the last couple of days to keep everyone happy.
it rained for two straight days in sayulita. everyone was freaking out a little because it never usually rains for more than a couple of hours, especially not in february. we got crafty at home and made some fish out of paper and markers. we put paper clips on them and made a fishing rod with a magnet. nayou is obsessed (and i’m putting it mildly here) about fishing so this was a big hit. he’s been carrying out his tub of fish ever since!
everything cleared up by this morning so we jetted off to punta de mita to soak up some sun and splash around. being away from the sun for those two days was totally depressing. i’m not quite sure how i used to cope when we lived in seattle and wellington. i suppose there are more non-outdoor activities to do in those places. out here its the beach or bust!
note the sun bleached tips. that’s nayou’s hair after a good scrubbin’ and brushin’. next morning it still comes out looking like this:
the weird thing is that he has straight hair on the top of his head. he’s got the japanese businessman up front, a whole lot of feisty puerto rican everywhere else, with a cheeky aussie mixed in there somewhere.
today was errand day for the clan. yawn. we went to costco to do some stocking up. i think the only thing i like about that place is its awesome parking lot. they have huge green spaces with lots of soft lawn and tons of huge trees. nayou fell asleep in the car on the way home, but woke up shortly afterwards. by sundown he was so tired he turned into a zombie in front of a movie.
this morning we bid a sad farewell to our best friends in sayulita. i suppose we all knew that this day was coming sooner or later but it doesn’t make it any easier. especially since we had about one week’s notice! brenda and i managed to get a surf in early in the morning so we were all mellow when dmitri and heidi rocked up to the plaza with their kids for one last play. a good thing too because it could have been an emotional disaster otherwise!
the four of them are going to be settling down in hawaii for the time being, so at least it won’t be too different from sayulita. but i know that sayulita is not going to be the same without them. they’ve only been gone for a few hours and i already miss them! that’s ok though – something tells me that our paths will be crossing in all kinds of places in the future bon voyage!
remember a couple of posts ago i was asking you to vote for aya’s entry in this film competition? well guess what? she is one of the five finalists! she just won a trip to new zealand to go and make her idea a reality with a tidy $100,000 budget. how awesome is that?!?!?
she’s flying to new zealand on friday and will have three weeks to make her film. if you voted for her, thanks so much for your support! she will be sharing her adventures on her resurrected blog if you want to follow along. go aya!
