Sayulita Scenes - Early Morning SUP Surf

I cannot tell whether Trace is checking to make sure dad is ok on a demanding day or whether he is making sure I wasn't going to take his wave.  Either way, fun shot of the two of us out early in Sayulita.

Photo by Spencer Ian Harris

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!

Sayulita Christmas 2018

This year, above all others we have spent living in Mexico, is filled with a crazy amount of anticipation.  Why is this year any different?  2018 is the first year we will spend in our new house, Casa Pōno.  No doubt that there is STILL lots of work to be done but this year's holiday season will be spent under our own roof.  Something that has not happened since before we left Utah in 2011.  Ashley will be home for an extended time this year.  With our house in Park City selling in November she will not have to run off to pump more hours into the Delta Airlines machine during the holidays.  She will be able to just sit and enjoy her family, our new house and a glass(ok, a bottle) of Christmas cheer this year.  So much to be excited and thankful for this holiday season.

Trace chilling in front of the "fire" in a T-shirt and board shorts.

Christmas Eve we headed over to our friend's, the Cawrses, house for our traditional yearly get together and dinner.  Joined once again by the Kruegar family it is always a night filled with overeating and lots of "cheer".  If we have one holiday tradition it is the Christmas Eve dinner we spend with these two families and it is always a pleasure to just hang out with all these great folks each year.

So what is Santa bringing this year?  As always the grandparents and friends were generous with their gift giving.  For Ashley and myself just getting the house finished will be more than present enough. But with the Park City house bills a non-factor this year we admittedly have gone a bit overboard as far as the kids are concerned.  We have been super conservative over the years when it came to the kid's gift giving which has actually been a good thing.  With the kids continuing to dedicate themselves to their SUP Team, compete, getting good grades and getting great reports from their teachers we felt it was finally time to get them their own 12'6" race boards.

SICMaui RS boards for our racers.

But, of course, everything that is worth doing in Mexico has to have a story behind it right? Well, this one does too and I will try to make it short...but it won't be.

Friends of ours, Mia and Shane, who we have casually known for several years from surfing in Punta Mita made the move this year to live down here half the year.  They represent the sup/surf brands BIC Sport and SICMaui up north where they are from in Vail, Colorado.  With their seasonal move they were also starting a SUP tour business here called Performance Stand Up Paddle.  Ashley ran into them while visiting some other friends and asked them a little about the race boards they had with them.  We had recently considered getting the kids their own gear but the number of race specific SUP suppliers was fairly limited here and having something custom made locally would take months to get done.  They were now the area's company reps for these two brands and were going to try to bring SIC/BIC to the west coast of Mexico.  We were all to happy to work with them and be one of the few in this area to be on the SICMaui brand and so we ordered up two boards for the kids.

Virtually all the kid's entire SUP Elite Team have purchased or acquired their own boards to train on.  The trick is that to save time and a bunch of money in shipping, taxes etc Ashley needed to get two 12'6" boards and bags to the airport in the USA, persuade the ticket agent to ignore the fact that they both exceed the airlines' length limitation policies and get them through Mexican customs without getting hassled along the way.

The first step was to get the freight company to deliver the packages that were coming from Massachusetts, USA at a time when she just happened to be in Atlanta long enough to receive them.  This was not like waiting for a package from Amazon delivered by UPS.  The freight company ended up being very accommodating and coordinated with Ashley for delivery.  They even brought an 18 wheel freight truck to Ashley's crash pad during a window of time when she was sure to be there to hand off two super large boxes containing the kid's new boards.  Step one done!

The kid's new boards safe at Ashley's crash pad.

The boards sat for a bit in Atlanta .  As Ashley's return trip home approached the stress of actually getting the boards to the airport and down here to Mexico began to grow.  During that time she did manage to get the "ok" from a special services agent at the airport concerning the size of the packages.  She also scored a ride from one of her crashpad room mates to help get the boards to the airport.  Two potential bumps along the way figured out.

The day before Ashley's arrival in Mexico for the holiday the airplane she was working had a mechanical issue and was grounded in Rochester, New York.  Noooooo!  All this planning, anticipation, stress and mom may not even make it home with Santa's special packages!  The plan for the crew was to have them stay the night and hand over the flight to another crew then catch an early morning flight out of Rochester back to Atlanta.  That was just NOT going to work!  As soon as Ashley realized she might be stuck in Rochester for the night and miss her flight home to Mexico the next morning she started looking for a way to get back to Atlanta.  There was one last flight to Atlanta that day and she was able to get a seat on that last flight and was back in Atlanta later that night.  Disaster averted!

It's 7am and it is off to the airport with two SUPs stuffed into the back of a BMW.

The next day Ashley was to head to Puerto Vallarta.  At 7am, with help from her room mate, Ashley was off to the airport and checked in the two board bags.  She had to pay some oversized luggage fees but the bags were checked in!  All good right?  Well, not so fast.  It couldn't have been that easy right?  Ashley boarded the plane and used a baggage tracking app to double check the location of the boards while the plane sat at the gate loading passengers.  According to the app they were not loaded yet and not anywhere near the plane!  Noooo!  Boarding continued and the boards were not moving anywhere closer to the plane.  Shit!  Of course I am getting the play by play via Facebook Messenger unable to do anything about it...not that I could even do anything if I was there anyway.  Just as the plane was about to close the doors and leave the terminal the captain came on the intercom and announced that they would be leaving just a few minutes late to load some additional cargo.  To Ashley's relief this cargo included the kid's boards and she received word that they were being loaded into the front of the plane and would make it to Mexico!!  Another disaster narrowly avoided!

13 foot board bags on a 4 foot rack.

I arrived early at the Vallarta airport and hoped that Ashley would get through customs without triggering the dreaded "red light".  The "red light" is a way for Mexican customs to randomly select passengers for further inspection and questioning about what they had along with them entering the country.  It wasn't that we were hiding anything it was just that it was one more hassle along the way for items that we were going to use personally and not for resale or profit.  Fortunately, Ashley emerged from the international terminal on the other side of customs with the assistance of a baggage porter and she appeared to be in a good mood.  Always a good thing.

The porter handed off the bags to us and we made our way out to the parking lot to figure out how to even strap these large new boards to the small rack of our car.  Ashley had purchased some new surfboard straps and I had some old ones and I was able to double strap the boards to the roof.  With fingers crossed that the boards would not fly off the roof we headed to Sayulita for our next challenge.

We knew the kids would be waiting for their mother to arrive at the house and hoping to get a glimpse of anything that would give away any Christmas present secrets.  Friends of ours in town have a garage full of their family's surfboards and they were happy to let us store the boards there overnight so that was our first stop before heading home.  This allowed us to arrive at the house without obvious Christmas cargo strapped to the roof.  As expected, the kids were waiting for our arrival and as soon as we opened the car doors we could tell Trace was a bit deflated.  Happy to see his mom but deflated.  His last chance for the Christmas race board he had been hoping for was dashed when we arrived with only mom and her suitcase.  This reaction of course made the whole effort even sweeter because we knew what waited for the kids in just two more days.

Christmas boards, "wrapped up" with leashes, fins and T-shirts.

The next challenge was to get the boards from our friend's house and to our house to hide them in our bodega.  Once that was done we needed to figure out how we wanted the kids to find them come Christmas morning.  Christmas Eve day Ashley coaxed the kids into town for lunch and some shopping leaving me at the house to do some work.  This gave me a window to run back up to our friend's house and grab the boards to bring them back to our house unseen.  The plan worked perfectly.  Later that afternoon we were due to go to our friends house for Christmas Eve dinner and we sent the kids over just a little ahead of us.  This gave us the needed time to be able to bring the boards up from the bodega and unpack them so the kids could find them in the morning.  Again, our planning and efforts worked perfectly and the boards were in place for them to find them on Christmas morning.

Whew!  All the planning, stress and secrecy was well worth it to bring these awesome boards to the kids.  Now they will be on their own equipment as they continue to train each week and travel to their next competition.  Special thanks to their Sayulita JR SUP Team coaches for their input, The Kruegar Family for storage assistance and to Performance Stand Up Paddle for supporting the kids and to mom for coordinating everything on the USA side then lugging these two 12'6" monsters all the way from Atlanta for Christmas!

Trace is soooo stoked!

Felices Fiestas 2018!

Alex And Pegasus Mid-flight!

This great shot was taken by la Patrona Polo & Equestrian Club during Alex' jumping competition over the weekend.  The Club, facilities, stables and grounds are just stunning and remind me of skiing at Deer Valley or Snow Basin back in Utah.  Just amazing.

Alex and Pegasus at la Patrona Polo and Equestrian Club.  Photo by La Patrona.

As usual Alex' team, though small and riding on "rescued horses", continued to show that they are a skilled group at all jumping heights in every contest.  I say "rescued" horses because most of the horses Alex' team uses have been "rescued" from neglect, indifferent owners or just plain abandoned. Goes to show that with a skilled trainer, a good coach and dedicated riders many of these horse have been given a new life and the results can be fantastic.

The horse Alex' is most fond of is "Pegasus" and he is a rescue with a less than pleasant personality most of the time.  Alex is the only one who really wants to train and compete with him and they are doing great things together.  Alex placed in 5th place at the 65cm height and competed for her first time at 75cm.

Sayulita Scenes - Main Beach

Photo by Curt Barter