Archive

Monthly Archives: January 2010

oh yes indeedy.

P1010792

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:

P1010808

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.

P1010798

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.

P1010830

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!

P1010772

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!

you’ve probably guessed by the lack of updates that we’ve been chasing the swell for the last week. everyone kept on talking about this mysterious swell that was going to be so awesome it would make the rapture look like a picnic in the park. the waves definitely picked up, but we never got those epic days we were hoping for. still, we’ve been having a great time spending all day at the beach! we capped off our run with a full day at our favourite surf spot and have rejoined the 21st century again. nayou has been a bit cranky because we’ve been napping him in the car, so the poor guy is a bit sleep deprived. but don’t worry little man, we’re back on track now!

DSC_0590

DSC_0546

P1010724

there isn’t much to report from sayulita. the lease on our house expires at the end of february so we have started to talk about what our next move is going to be. we’re not ready to leave mexico just yet, so the current plan is to stay another three months until the end of may. we may have to move house, but that’s all part of the adventure! nayou’s going to be very sad if he has to say goodbye to his bff saul. their friendship is still going strong and they play together every day.

DSC_0529

DSC_0605

DSC_0615

we’re also having a blast with rocky, who still likes to chew on things but is otherwise a model citizen. he has mellowed out considerably since we first got him and sticks close to us when we take him to the beach. i think he has tuned into our pace of life and really understands that he is part of our pack. our friends kris and joe in san francisco fell in love with him when they came down to visit. they are keen to adopt him so i think he will make the move stateside once we decide to leave.

DSC_0525

beyond may everything is still a little vague, although all signs are pointing to a trip to geneva, with stops in l.a. (to see aya) and maryland (to see epito and epita). we are researching the possibility of sneaking off to france, spain or portugal for a summer surf trip, but its looking pretty darn expensive. but hey, we’ve got time to hunt around. if you know anyone who has a surf shack they want to rent in europe, get in touch!

a permanent move to sayulita is still on the table, but we decided that we needed to put some distance between us and the town in order to get some perspective. i’m sure we’re going to miss it terribly. the big question is whether we miss it enough to want to take the big plunge!

speaking of leaving, our best friends heidi and dmitri are leaving on thursday. dmitri got a job offer in hawaii (tough luck, i know) so they are packing their stuff up and taking off. their depature marks the end of an era – we arrived in sayulita within days of each other and have become very close. their kids are like our kids and vice versa. sniff sniff.

we’ve still be woefully lazy about taking photos. now that the waves are dying down perhaps we’ll start snapping shots again.

P1010702

P1010717

DSC_0633

oh, and congratulations to kara-leah & luke, and dennis & miae for becoming proud parents! welcome to the club!

poor nayou has been dealing with the arrival of his two year old molars. we noticed he was quite cranky over the last week and when i finally stuck my fingers in his mouth i found some hard lumps making their way up through his gums. at least he is doing much better with the whole teething thing this time around. its so much better to be able to communicate with him and explain what’s going on. i don’t think he fully understands what we’re saying to him, but he gets the idea.

P1010670

we have been woefully lazy about taking pictures lately, so i really don’t have anything to share with you this time around. for that i am deeply sorry, but to make up for the lack of visuals, here are some of nayou’s favourite phrases. he is speaking more and more each day, busting out some new word or sentence and making us smile.

  • “[insert name here] sucio. necessita bano”. this is his current favourite. he loves to see things like trains and animals get dirty and tell them they need a bath. we have a thomas the tank engine dvd where thomas gets mud all over him and nayou is all over it. a variation of this one is “[insert name or body part here] boo boo. necessita medicina”.
  • “i see you!”. a surprisingly useful phrase if you happen to be a two year old.
  • “uno, dos, cinco, seis”. nayou has an aversion to the number three, the number four and any number larger than six. not that is stops him from sharing his passion for counting with everyone. he likes to get all of his pacifiers in his hand and count them out.
  • “come [insert name here]”. this one is accompanied by frantic waving of the hands.

i’m sure i’ve missed some other classic ones, but after surfing for a long time and teaching a yoga class today i am exhausted!

P1010674

we’ve had three days of great surf after a long drought that stretched back to christmas. brenda and i are far enough into our surf addiction that any drought longer than a week starts to affect our mood. there’s something so… magical about being on a wave, just riding along with this big mass of water. i understand why people compare surfing to meditation – when you’re on that wave, you are truly present in the moment. you become a part of the ocean and that feeling is so special!

P1010689

oh, and we finally saw avatar! in 3d! brenda and i went on separate days with dmitri and heidi and all of us loved it. the whole film, from the story to art direction to the special effects were amazing. sure it was a hollywood script and maybe it could have been a bit shorter, but i found myself glued to my seat for the whole time. this was the first movie i’ve worked on where the end product was really really satisfying. which is good because i spent two whole years of my life on it! and since everyone is curious about what my part was here it is: i worked for a year on the facial motion capture system, which records movement of the actors’ faces and applies it to a digital model. the rest of the time i was involved in sorting, tracking and massaging the huge amounts of data pertaining to the jungle. there were a lot of plants to keep track of and although the system we came up with was hardly adequate, i was happy to see such a gorgeous jungle on the screen. apparently a lot of other people thought so too.

my sister aya has entered a new zealand film competition called your big break. basically the brief is to create a pitch for a short film about new zealand. five winners will be chosen and given $100,000 to make their film into a reality. the theme of the film is “100% pure new zealand”. without being too biased, i can honestly say that aya’s entry is one of the best out there, so please show your support and vote for her!

you can vote for her entry here. you have one vote per email address, so if you happen to have many, then feel free to vote multiple times!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

may 2010 be full of happiness and love!

after two weeks of visitors its finally time for us to settle back into our normal routine. kris, joe, francisco and aimee left yesterday afternoon for san francisco, and now we are officially back to being a nuclear family after almost two weeks of glorious mayhem. sniff sniff. having the four of them in sayulita was an absolute blast. their zest for life is contagious, and seeing sayulita through their eyes reminded me of how awesome this place is. i was getting a bit complacent without some outside perspective to bring things back into focus! there was some great symbiotic sort of energy with everyone – i think the four of them thought we were awesome for showing them around town, and we thought they were awesome for their amazing generosity (fancy dinners, tequila, pedicures, tequila). our combined awesomeness was very much greater than the sum of its parts, and this made for a very special holiday.

we were having too much fun to take photos. which was fine – some things are better experienced without the aid of a camera, especially when incriminating situations are involved 😉 the only good photos i have are from the day we spent cruising around on a trimaran, which ranks as one of my best in mexico!

P1010651

P1010642

P1010640

i hope everyone is enjoying a good start to the new year!