Sayulita Scenes - Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

Photo by Amy Daniels

Just a fantastic photo by our friend, Amy Daniels, of La Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe just off the Plaza here in Sayulita.

A New Casa...In 2019?!?!?!? Yep, Another Construction Update

With the contractor all but vanishing from any responsibilities here I have taken it upon myself to get things done.  (We still owe him money so we are not sure why he hasn't come slithering around.)  It is extremely liberating to go out and find contractors, talk to people for references, get pricing and implement a particular project.  I have control now for the most part and do not have to go through the contractor's BS and delays to get things done.  That time is over.  Game on!

So, what's been happening?  Thanks to having a little money free up to spend thanks to the Park City house selling, we decided to get some iron work done and finish the driveway.

The driveway was on hold for so long due to the new street surface and sidewalks being installed.  We just couldn't predict at what height the driveway needed to be to connect to the sidewalk and begin this project.  This project included a meter tall wall along the neighboring church, a 5000 liter cistern buried under the driveway and all the electrical pumps, wiring and plumbing hook ups.  The guys who were doing the work were a small group who splintered off from the contractor including the foreman, Antonio.  Antonio knows the house as well as anyone and wouldn't be surprised about anything he may find while getting the project done.  Plus he is a good guy, shows up and works hard everyday.  He doesn't always get it right but he is a guy I could trust.

The damn thing is stuck!

The big part of the project was digging the hole for the cistern.  The blue plastic bin was to be buried in a round concrete block chamber with a reinforced lid strong enough so a car could be parked on it.  So the system was that the city water supply would fill the 5000 liter cistern.  If the rooftop tanankos needed water a sensor would alert the cistern pump and send water to the roof.  Town water supply to driveway cistern to rooftop tanankos to house supply. After a few days work the day arrived to drop this large blue water jug into the hole and.....it did not fit!  Whaaaat?  No matter how they tried to drop it in the hole it was just too big for the chamber they built.  Freaking great!  Antonio even went to the supplier to get the dimension specs of the cistern before building this thing so he was confused and probably kicking himself for not making this chamber a few centimeters bigger.  At this stage of the project I just let things roll.  Antonio would make it right...somehow.

Well, it turns out that the cistern has a thicker rib that runs around the circumference of the tank that is not included on the specs and this was what was holding things up.  So, for a half day they chipped away at the interior of the chamber to make a few more centimeters of room for the tank to drop into.  That done the tank dropped nice into place and worked continued on other things.  The wall began to take shape, the final level for the driveway was determined and the plumbing and electrical could be installed.  Oh, did I mention our lovely original contractor ran the plumbing for the cistern to supply the rooftop tanankos but failed to provide any means of communication between the two locations.    So, we needed to cut a channel into the finished face of the house to run a conduit 5 stories up to the tananko location.  Idiot!!

Cistern access and string lines set for the driveway finish.

Stone awaits placement for the driveway.

Our "jefe", Antonio, fitting each stone carefully into place.

At the same time as the driveway was being finished the iron workers showed up to installed a whole bunch of stuff.  This crew was recommended to me by two people and the owner seemed to be a decent guy so I was eager to see just how they operated and the quality of the work.

The first day they showed up it was a group of about 6 guys and they just stood in the driveway, then sat down already defeated.  They knew they would have to figure out how to get all their gear like welding equipment, compressors, hoses, hand tools, power tools and all the materials to the roof since this is where the install for the interior courtyard roof was located...essentially 5 stories up.  So, they developed a human chain of sorts.  The gear went up the stairs but all the materials went from truck to apartment terrace to roof of church and from roof of church to roof of house to be installed one level up from there.  Whew.  I felt a little bad for the guys but I could tell they were laughing at the situation as well and not really too upset about the number of stairs associated with the job.  Turns out they just got done with job that had even more steps and they had been there for weeks.

They made pretty quick work of the roof structure and by the end of day two they were done to make room for the polycarbonate sheets.  Once those went in we had a totally new space and it was odd that this area that had been open to the sky for so long suddenly had proportions.  The design we had in our heads for the space was taking shape in real life.  With a little work to do to make it "secure" we are now mostly protected from the weather and all the debris that comes down off the tree but yet still get all the light and airflow.

While the lid was finishing other work was going on.  On the roof they had a painting station set up so that whatever they installed was freshly painted and did not show the scars of being tied down to a rack of a pick up truck.  Railings went in on the roof and inside the house and the super cool stair stringer was installed that we will have parota wood treads made for at some point.  All day long they were welding, grinding, painting and installing pretty much right in the living room of the house so each day they left behind a layer of dirt, welding soot and grinding dust all over everything and fumes of spray paint.  All that said, we cannot really complain since working in a mostly finished space is not where welding should be taking place anyway.  Our fault there with our project timing but we are certainly glad to be over the hump on that and beginning to see the spaces evolve.

Metal stringer for stairs.  Wood treads yet to be installed.

Smoke and fire.

Rooftop terrace railing.

Rooftop terrace railing and view.

Main stairs railing.

The 2 steel doors were one of the remaining items on the roof.  We needed to secure the doorways from the house to the utilities at the back of the house and from the house to the rooftop terrace.  We decided on steel since they would not be seen like the front or bodega doors and provide added security in locations that were not really visible should someone stop by uninvited.  Super bomber and we designed them so they looked similar to the front doors keeping them looking like they were in the same family.

Ashley arrives in just a few days and I am happy she can come home without too much construction going on and see the big changes.  We will be talking about the next phase(whatever that means) while she is here and can compare "to do" lists and make this place more of what we want it to be.

It's been busy.  More to come!

Sayulita Scenes - Trace And His SICMaui Rocket Ship

Our family SUP Pro pausing for a spontaneous photo by his mother as he leaves the water here in Sayulita.  Turned out pretty damn good we think.  SICMaui did too since they posted it on their Instagram and Facebook accounts as well.  Needless to say, Trace was pretty stoked to be featured on SIC's social media seen world wide with his new gear!

Photo by mom

Alex and Pegasus At La Patrona Polo & Equestrian Club

These shots were part of a professional photo offering of the weekend's events a few weeks back at Alex's competition.  So good we had to share.  Enjoy!

In the warm up arena.

In the warm up arena.

In the warm up arena.

Game time.

Enter the competitor.

A New Casa...In 2019?!?!?!? Construction Update - January

Feliz Año Nuevo!

It seems like our lives have revolved for years around house construction, riding horses and racing SUPs.  Actually, we are in month 22 of actual construction and we are still not done.  I will not get into the whole story about what's been going on in this post and frankly we do not want to hear "It's Mexico" any longer since the Mexican construction crew on our project even says this is beyond normal to finish a job up.  Hopefully we have put some players in place that will finish things and we can feel like this marathon is behind us.

The new news is that we moved upstairs two days ago!  With Ashley home for an extended stay we really started to dig into things to finish up that we could do outside of using a construction crew.  On top of that a friend of Ashleys from Utah is coming for a visit today and it provided some much needed pressure to get some things done and us moved out of the first level apartment so her friend could stay there.

Trace's room. A bit sad looking at the moment.

With Ashley leading the charge to Home Depot, Walmart and some other home related department stores the house is really starting to look like a home.  Again, once she sets her mind to something the rest of either step back or wait to receive our orders since only she understands the plan and what she wants to accomplish.  Good to have a quarterback with things like this.  The kids are set up in their rooms.  Alex has done a lot of painting and planning and I have done some simple built ins to make use of the space she has.  It really looks nice and over time we will get her more organized since her art supplies tend to take over inevitably.  Trace could literally sleep in a cardboard box and be totally fine.  As long as he has a surfboard and the internet he is content to be wherever so his new space is not one he cares to decorate much or  hang out in but that will change over time.

Alex' room in progress.

The living room is lacking sofa cushions so Ashley has used a bunch of old throw pillows to make the space usable.  The kitchen is fully functional now and the dishwasher is a great addition.  The dining area will need a dinner table at some point and the need for artwork of some sort in every room in the house is obvious as we continually stare at large blank white walls.  We have put some temporary countertops in the kitchen and all the bathrooms to bring them up to being usable with a few concrete sinks that I have been making.  All in all the temporary fixes will be great for the months to come as we finally decide on what we want and how it should look and feel.

Master bedroom

It is really becoming clear just how big this place is.  It was never supposed to be like this.  It just sort of happened with the elevation error early on by the contractor's planning stage of the project.  Lots of stairs and lots of square footage.  Much different than what we were accustomed to in the places we owned, rented or even in the 600 square feet we were living in for the last 11 months.

So what his happening around the house?  Now that the new road and sidewalk is complete, we have  began construction on finishing the driveway and adding a cistern.  The cistern will store 5000 liters of water which will more that double the capacity of the 2 smaller tanks on the roof currently.  It will be located in a pit in the driveway.  With the driveway finish the crew was able to use the extra dirt that needed to be removed to fill the planters in the front of the house.  Unfortunately we had to abandon the grey water system planned in these areas with the plumbing piping errors that occurred during the project.  So, the planters will be normal gardens and we will try to come up with a design for those soon too.  Iron work has been designed to provide needed railings, handrails, window security, doors, interior garden stairs and a support structure for a polycarbonate roof system that will keep the weather out of the interior garden yet provide light and secure the space as well.

Front planters filled

Driveway work.  Cistern rough excavation.

Planters, stairs, driveway and cistern

Whew...and so it continues.  Lots going on here in January and school starts again Monday.  More updates and photos along the way.

The future rooftop hangout spot.

El Toro - The Celebration Of The Virgin Of Guadelupe

The Celebration of the Virgin of Guadelupe is one of the kid's favorite events in town.  It occurs in early December so it is a bit before the intense high season begins.  As a result it feels more like a "local" festival than one filled with vacationing visitors.  One of the most popular events of the Festival happens at night in the Plaza when a metal wire sculpted "bull" or "Toro" is loaded with fireworks, hoisted overhead and run through the Plaza.  At the same time dozens if not dozens upon dozens of local kids try to out run the Toro as it makes laps around the Plaza shooting sparks along the way.  Depending on the night hundreds of spectators look on and it is absolutely the best kind of chaos that would NEVER happen in the States.

In the red shorts Trace avoids the rush of the Toro.  Photo by Camilla Fuchs.

Great shot of the Toro by Derrick Lundy.

Here is a short video of the awesome chaos by Curt Barter.

Many of the parents we know, including myself, tend to hang out at a local bar with a good view of the Plaza and watch while sipping tequila or some kind of cocktail from the bar.  The week or so long Festival is always a good excuse to hang out later than we usually would on a school night.  Alex and Trace absolutely LOVE it!