its hard to think that we’ve already been in sayulita for three weeks already! in many ways it feels like our time here is just starting now. our first week was a bit stressful because there was a mix up with our accommodation. originally we had secured a place for a month through a friend of ours. he was moving out of his place so we were taking over. our friend had told his landlord manuel that a couple with a young child would be moving in. through just sheer coincidence, the day before we arrived another young couple with a child spoke with manuel and paid a deposit to rent his place for a few months. of course manuel thought the couple was us, so he promised it to them. so when we arrived, all travel weary and ready to relax, we found that we needed to find another place to live within a week. oops.

at least for that first week we were able to enjoy an outdoor kitchen and dining room 🙂

of course as luck would have it february is the busiest month in sayulita so finding accommodation is not an easy task. we got our hustle on the mexican way and drove around asking people if they knew of any places that were available. we managed to find a couple of leads but nothing really jumped out at us. this was even after raising the amount of rent we were willing to pay by a considerable margin. the good news was that at least we weren’t going to be homeless. the bad news would be that we would have to live in a sub-par place for a month and then move again in march.

six days before we had to move out, manuel spoke with us and told us that he owned the house across the street from where we were staying. he offered to show it to us so of course we said yes. he took us across the road and my instant reaction was “uh uh, no way”. while the place definitely had potential, it hadn’t been lived in for over a year and needed a lot of work. still, both brenda and i thought it could be a nice two bedroom with some work. plus it had a big garden out the back which was cool too. manuel knew it was a ramshackle place and offered to rent it to us for very cheap.

after we saw the house we went to play at the beach. we were discussing our various housing options and brenda hit upon the bright idea of offering to fix up manuel’s house in exchange for rent. initially i was against it but after thinking about the fun things we could do with the place the idea slowly grew on me. when we floated to idea to manuel he was all for it. so over those next six days we had the painters, the carpenters, the plumbers and the electricians in, plus the telmex people to hook up internet. it was nothing short of a miracle to see all of these people come in and get their jobs done in such a short amount of time! not only that but we got ourselves a king size mattress delivered the day we moved in! i’m still on awe over how much sleeping space we have. its so luxurious!

so our days since we moved into the house has usually consisted of some beach time followed by some serious home improvement time. we’ve become very familiar with the layout of our closest home depot and also made many trips to (and i hate to say it) walmart and costco to get the essentials. its been a LOT of work, but also super fun. and the best part is that the house is starting to look really homey 🙂

here is our messy kitchen. hopefully it won’t be this was for much longer!

we had a custom wood base made for a day bed we’re putting in. we painted it ourselves and are currently in the process of getting the top cushion made for us. i can’t wait until we can chillax properly on this thing. its going to be so awesome!

there has been a fair amount of this going on. nayou has been a good help (when he wants to be) with all of this.

this is the current state of our bedroom. brenda put some curtains in and it really made the whole room so much cosier.

in between all of this madness we have also managed to get some other things done too! i’ve started teaching yoga twice a week at paraiso yoga and brenda has started a green juice bar at the weekly farmers market. the market used to be this half-assed thing when we were here before but now its a big proper event with lots of amazing stalls. last friday was her second time doing it and she has already been chosen as the star stall in the market’s newsletter!

we’ve been going to the beach every day. nayou is an absolute rockstar in the ocean, jumping over and around waves like nobody’s business. i bought him a boogie board the other day and he has been catching waves too! its nice to go during low tide as the waves are very gentle but still have enough boost to carry him long distances. i keep on forgetting to bring the camera to the beach but one of these days i’ll get some footage of him doing his thing.

instead, here is a short clip of the nayoubizzle and his friend juan antonio having a water fight outside our house. nayou and juan antonio used to play together when we lived here three years ago. they were reunited today after all this time and picked up right where they left off. nayou started picking up some spanish words pretty quickly too so hopefully this will be the beginning of something regular.

aaaand, finally some random photos from brenda’s hipstamatic because they’re purrrty.

this one was taken at burrito revolucion’s new location. its not as nice as the previous digs, but their burritos are still the best in the world!