Sunday, December 27, 2009

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Happy Holidays

We hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas. It really does not feel like the Christmas season here because we are in 80+ degree weather, sunshine, hot sand, warm waters, with no advertising "about the latest and greatest." I went to Manta to shop for food for our Christmas celebrations and was bombarded with holiday decorations, christmas music, sale signs, and long lines (just like in the states). In some ways it has been really nice being away from the holiday madness that we have been accustomed to back in the states. We celebrated Christmas eve at "La Mitad" (Scott and Sheryl's new home). Along with 10 other guests/friends, we enjoyed great food, good holiday music, story telling about the "Posada," and a gift exchange where the giving was of our time, talent, or skill and the receiving was Christmas joy (it was a great time!). Christmas day was spent relaxing, enjoying the surf, and of course the food (Henry spent ALL DAY cooking) and felt like the 4th of July, enough pulled pork, bbq pork ribs, and baked beans for 15 people. Henry and the kids made time to go in to town to hand out Christmas chupetes (lolly pops) to children in Canoa (handed out over 120 suckers).

The kids are doing great, they celebrated Breanas birthday (a little early we know) at school on the 17th, had Christmas celebration on the 18th and are now on holiday vacation until the 4th of January. DJ managed to get himself in trouble and had been grounded for a few weeks from surfing (he's back in the water Merry Christmas). Greg introduced DJ to paragliding (jumping off a freaking cliff) during a beautiful sunset (great! another dangerous sport for DJ to take up). He has been offered another job with Canoa Thrills, taking people kayaking to the caves (increible). Breana spends most of her time soaking up some spanish with her friend Leonela and her family. Both of the kids have limited their time in the water due to the numerous jelly fish stings and sting ray injuries that have occurred in the last few weeks.

Our little community keeps growing, we have new neighbors originally from Quebec, Canada, recently from Costa Rica, and Bocas, (Yonic and Francine)and they make Sushi (yey!). They have a 4 year old daughter, Oceana who speaks french and spanish (Henry's new spanish tutor). A couple from Jackson, Wyoming (Mike and Amy) plan on staying here through February. Mike is a paraglider who has been spending time giving DJ a crash course on the sport and makes fabulous mashed potatoes. Another american couple Ron and Cynthia (from the Pacific northwest) who are having a house built next to Scott and Sheryl's are also here looking in their construction progress.

In the last few weeks we've had numerous large groups stay in the hotel. Henry is still training 5 days a week and his group of fitness junkies has been growing (all these exercise people really need to get a life). Needa and Scott are showing tremendous progress in their training. Both of them have had medical issues and thought that they could not do the things that they are doing now (it is really cool and inspirational). The last few weeks we have been fiddling with the idea of running a bar and grill on the beach in front of the hotel for fun (can't seem to come up with an original name, you know Henry, always gotta be complicated!) Henry would like to name it "Maybe Bar and Grill" (may be open, maybe it's closed). He put out his first fire in Ecuador a couple of weeks ago when a transformer blew and caused a brush fire down the street from where we live (he's still got it!). As for me, nothing really has changed, still sleep in, have my coffee, check my facebook, all before our scheduled power outage at 2:00pm. During power outages, relax on the hammock, eat, play games on the itouch, and occasionally shop, for food of course (fresh veggies are delivered on saturdays and wednesdays; beer, cokes and waters are delivered daily as needed; and fresh fish and shrimp on tuesdays and fridays). As you can see my shopping does not constitute me actually having to leave the beach (life is rough!!). Post- power outage at 5 pm, I enjoy helping my wonderful husband (chef boy 1z) prep dinner, take in the sunset, eat dinner, check email, and of course fall back to sleep to the sound of the crashing waves (don't be jealous, come join us!). We love and miss you all, seriously wish you all were here. Enjoy the pix and we'll blog to you later. God Bless, Adios!!

Friday, November 20, 2009

More pix


DJ playing with Fuego (Fire, his horse)





Kate and Breana making a sand turtle.



Breana and Julia together again.










Playing Volleyball





Breana supervising the surfing lessons

Monday, November 16, 2009

November News











I will have to start with the same line again: I cannot believe how fast time is going! I know we said we would blog more often but we are so busy doing nothing, that we just don't go online that often. Since our last blog, we have had different groups of students stay here in the hotel.

Three weeks ago we had a group of 12 volunteers from the jungles located between Santo Domingo and Quito come to Canoa for some rest and
relaxation (beach time). The group was made up of different nationalities from England, Germany, Holland, Russia, Whales, and an Ecuadorian/American. God was good to Canoa and blessed us with 2 great days of sun, surf, and fun. One of the volunteers, Julia (Russian) really took a liking to Breana and gave her a bracelet from Russia (Breana cried when they left). Sam arrived from Massachusetts (we mentioned Sam's wife, Noi a few blogs ago) to check on the construction of their new home just down the beach.

Two weeks ago we celebrated "Dias de los Muertos, which is a 4 day celebration of
the lives of those who have passed on (no school for the kids). The 4 Austrian teachers from Quito that we mentioned on the last blog came back and brought 3 little natives (Paola 10, David 8, Mayerli 6) from the Puyo jungle who had never seen the ocean before. We had a great time playing volleyball, Kate made a sand sculpture, and put
away some serious grub (boy can those kids eat!). Henry made
awesome fish tacos and Greg cooked
up some
Langostinas (big *** shrimp!). The baker Henry went in to mass production and made 6 dozen donuts (glazed, chocolate glazed, and jelly filled donuts), it took him 3 1/2 hours to make them and they were gone in less than 15 minutes, needless to say they were good (Ecuadorian Krispy Kreme).

Last week we celebrated birthdays and the new ownership of the Coco Loco hotel. DJ works at the Coco Loco to work off his surf board and ride time for his horse "Fuego," which has kept him out of our hair and out of the water. He has wrestled with the jellies, jelly fish that is, and has
been stung on his finger, hand, arms, and face (as if the pimples aren't enough). Dj has been seeing surfing with the "Silver Surfer" (Sam), and the "Surfester Nester" (his new nsf (native surfer friend)) on numerous occasions off the coast of Canoa. Besides all the fun, DJ is doing well in school with his spanish speaking abilities, and es muy popular con las chicas.

Breana has been playing in the sand, making sand castles, boogie boarding, and doing her best to avoid the jellies (has been stung once). She's constantly searching and finding friends of all ages to play with. She is doing well in school as is practicing very hard on her times tables and her cursive writing. I am amazed at how well her spanish pronunciation is. She has been exercising with her Dad and is excited that some of her clothes fit again. This past weekend Breana was happy to have her friend Julia come visit and she got to go to a birthday party at the yacht club in Bahia. She appears to be very popular in school with the "older" kids (they all seem to be fascinated with her hair).

And as for Henry, he is finally happy to have a new gym (soft sand pit on the beach with a tractor tire, big ropes, driftwood, sand bags, and a sledge hammer). He started training 3 of our local american girls (Anna, Maija, and Trish) in what he calls sand pit training (I have seen it, it's pretty intense!). I told him that if he replaces the tires with donuts and the water for coffee, then I am in. He has been working on assessing the needs to start a volunteer fire department. He works out monday through friday, studies spanish, and still cooks a lot. I honored my
husband on Veteran's day by cooking for him and letting him enjoy his sunset with a cerveza. Good news is his burn has healed, bad news is he has been stung by the jellies (it appears to have tatted his hand, as if he doesn't have enough tattoos).

Not much to say about me, just that we finally got hand crafted
wood dining table and chairs as well as a wardrobe dresser for our room. The only jellies that I deal with, are the ones on my toast (lol). We have had power conservation in this country, so that means that everyday we lose power for about 3 hours at a time, making it difficult for me to facebook, email, blog, or down load my tv shows (that is the true crisis in Ecuador!). I have gone to Manta which is an hour and a half away by taxi to shop (Henry says "imagine that") on several occasions in preparation for our Thanksgiving feast. We will be celebrating with all of the expat community from the US and Canada (there should be approximately 30 to 40 people here that weekend, que loco!). It has been great tasting all of Henry's experimental recipes like homemade jalapeno mac n' cheese, spicy cornbread stuffing, peach cobbler, cheese cake, and fresh salsas (they are experimental because all of the ingredients here are not like ours back in the states) but boy they sure are good, delicioso! Hasta la proxima!




Monday, October 12, 2009

Where does the time go?







Well it has been about 3 weeks since the last blog and it only seems like it was yesterday. They say time flies when you are having fun, I guess we are just having so much fun.
I cannot believe that October is almost over.

As we write this blog, we are sitting in the hammock on the front porch while Henry is
sucking down a mojito (en serio) and listening to Bob Marley. Breana is playing with Leonela and DJ just got finished surfing (no injuries today). DJ surfs 2 to 3 times per week, and Breana is in the water daily (after school, of course!). It is currently partly sunny and 78 degrees with an onshore breeze. You can check out our weather and surf conditions on www.magicseaweed.com and put in Canoa Ecuador.

We have pretty much settled in to a daily routine. Henry gets the kids off to scho
ol (while I sleep), and spends an hour or two with Rosetta Stone (while I still sleep), goes for a run (I'm still sleeping), and then fixes brunch (good morning honey at 11 am). The kids get home from school around 1:45, eat, finish homework, eat again, play, eat some more, play again, eat dinner, and get ready for bed. Henry has been doing a lot of creative c
ooking (homemade biscuits, donuts from scratch, cookies, beer battered onion rings and fish, chinese food, various pastas, and sauces from scratch, yummy!). Life has been great for m
e because I get to sleep in, play games on the itouch, relax on the hammock, chat on facebook (internet willing), and enjoy the amazing view. So he brought me to a 3rd world country because he wanted to get away from the riches and me getting all spoiled (like I was in the US!) but yet here I don't cook, I don't do laundry (we have an Ecuadorian lady who does our laundry), and there is very little cleaning to do (ha, ha, the joke is on him!), I am living THE LIFE (thank you babe!).

We had a group of Austrian teachers from Quito come by the "Hotel de Greg
" for the long weekend. We hung out with them, went out for drinks, and enjoyed a Paella de
Greg. A paella is a spanish rice dish consisting of various vegetables, chicken, shrimp, and clams (delicious). The wind conditions were good enough for them to go
paragliding (pretty cool, almost cool enough to make me want to go flying). Thank you girls for bringing the sun with you to Canoa.

The good news is things are good. Kids are doing great at their new school, Breana is popular with kids of all ages, DJ is popular with the girls of all ages (came ho
me asking, "What is guapo?"). Bad news is Henry has been stung by a jellyf
ish, got a 2nd degree burn on his finger while BBQing, DJ took a head injury (again), scraped his leg with the fin and pulled an abdominal muscle all while surfing (it's a dangerous sport), Breana can't seem to stop injuring her toes on rocks and shells (we need to cut them off!), and me, I think I may have injured my neck while sleeping (ha, ha!).

DJ has learned how to use a machete effectively to open coconuts, while Breana has learned how to drink the coconut juice effectively. Henry and I have learned how to mix the coconut juice with rum and consume it effectively (it's a family affair). We will hopefully blog again soon, it won't be this long next time. Thank you all for reading
and for sending your comments.
Hasta Luego.


Saturday, October 3, 2009

School, new friends, celebrations, frustrations and success

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Sorry for the delay for the post, hope that you enjoyed reading our previous one.

On the 27th of September, Henry and I celebrated our 12th year wedding anniversary and on the 28th, his 9th year of retirement. We enjoyed breakfast with the kids at the Surf Shak, happy hour at Bambu, then dinner alone at the Shamrock (it was nice being alone).

The kids ended out the month of September at the school in Bahia, but will now be going to a school in San Vicente. Manglar private school, is only 15 minutes away by bus and has a true spanish immersion program for the kids (they will now get to sleep in till 6, yey for them and Henry too!). They will start the new school on monday at 7:30 and get out at 1:20.

We have met so many wonderful people. Noi was just here checking on the construction progress of her new home. Noi, her husband Sam, and 2 kids will be moving to Canoa at the end of this year (we met Sam last time we were here, what a wonderful family). Fernando (another mexican, tattoo artist) and Kate (a british girl, what a cool accent) are here visiting and are looking to move to Canoa at the end of this month ( our little community is growing already).

This week we had to go to Quito to register our visas. We (the 4 of us, and our neighbors Mike and Needa) took the wednesday midnight bus from Canoa to Quito. We arrived in South Quito at 7 am on thursday, took a trolly to downtown Quito and the taxi cab adventure started (let the frustrations begin). The first taxi cab dropped Henry and the kids off at the corner where we were told the building would be (I followed in another taxi with Mike and Needa), upon exiting the cab, the driver sped off with our luggage in the trunk. We could not find the building and asked another taxi driver who took us accross town only to find out that we were at the wrong place ( I had just about enough of this country at that point) . To make matters worse, we took another taxi back to the original location only to realize that we were 20 feet around the corner from the right building in the first place.

So now we are there and there is lots to do. We find out we need to make a deposit in to an international bank of 10 dollars per applicant. Make numerous copies of our passports and visas, buy file folders and manilla envelopes, hole punch, and organize all paper work before submitting our forms and passports for registration. Unfortunately for Mike and Needa, they were informed that they had to pay a substantial fine for not registering their visas within 30 days. They decided to return to Canoa that afternoon by bus and try to straighten things out later. We submitted everything and then find out that we would not get our registration and passports returned to us until monday (no bueno because our luggage was stolen!). We were informed that only the director of the department of extranjeria could expedite our requests for registration any sooner (we felt a bribe coming on, ha ha). After waiting for an hour and a half for the director, we pleaded our case and had success (no bribe necessary). So they were able to process our visa registrations and returned our passports in about an hour and we thought we were done (wrong!!). We then needed to make more copies of our passports, visas, and now new registration stamps, more manilla envelopes, as well as provide a passport photo for each applicant (are you kidding me?!?!) to submit to a different department (same building, thank God!). We were fortunate enough to receive our new ID cards at 4:29pm (they close promptly at 4:30).

After all that taxi drama, Greg was able to get us in contact with a private taxi service, who becomes your private driver, Jose (and guardian angel). Jose was able to get us around safely and effectively to accomplish our mission. After all of the drama, all we wanted to do was get back to Canoa, so we called to book a flight to Manta at 4:45 to find out we had to pay for our flight by 5:00 at the airport (20 minutes away). Jose worked his driving magic and got us to the airport with 5 minutes to spare. We flew out promptly at 6 and arrived in Manta at 6:35. At 6:55 we got in a taxi to Bahia which arrived at 8:20. Took the panga (water taxi) to San Vicente. Jumped in a cab to Canoa and was home by 9:00pm on thursday. In 21 hours, we managed to sit on a bus for 7 hours, get squished on a trolly bus, take 6 different taxies, one airplane, one panga, get robbed, take care of business, and make it home safely (the Wonsey way). Amen.

It has been great hearing and seeing our family back in the states on skype. We were able to see and talk to Caleb, Erin, and Trace, as well as Steve, Allison, and Hannah, Terrina and family. We have talked to Morris and my mom every week (sunday is a good day to contact us via skype).

Thanks for following the blog, makes us feel connected. Please continue to make comments or ask questions via this blog or email. Hope you enjoy the slide show, we are trying something new.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Our New Home




As many of you know, we left the wonderful US of A and made a big move to South America. After 3 planes (2 excess baggage fees) and one taxi ride, we arrived in Canoa, Ecuador on the 2nd of September. Our apartment was not quite ready for us when we got here, so we stayed in another just above till ours was complete. We enjoyed a mini vacation getting reacquainted with all of the locals and preparing the kids for school.


We celebrated DJ's 16th birthday on
September 7th and
he had a blast (started
his first
job teaching surf lessons to a couple
of girls from the UK). DJ spent a whole day working with horses at the local Finca (ranch) on the
8th (16 and already has 2 jobs... no unemployment crisis here in Ecuador!).






Breana and DJ started school at the Interamericano school in Bahia de Caraquez
on the 9th and were welcomed with open arms (they already are so popular, who would have guessed!). It's a highly ranked private school in the area that is costing us $280 per month for both the kids and $100
a month for their transportation to and from the school. Thank God for my
wonderful husband who gets up at 5 in the morning to get the kids ready for school, they get picked up at 6 am by private vehicle and take a water taxi to Bahia at 6:30, then the school bus picks them up at 6:45 and start school at 7 am. School here is not only challenging for them as far as the language goes, but DJ is required to take chemistry, biology, physics, accounting, and investigation classes, on top of our US typical classes of english, physical education, and math (holy cow!). Both Breana and DJ are receiving daily tutoring in spanish provided by the school. They get out of school at 1:20 and are home by 2:20. They both seem to enjoy school and wearing uniforms (blue jeans, white polos, and black tennis shoes), but DJ was required to cut his hair due to their school rules (he looks so studious now, no more surfer look).



We were excited to move into our apartment on the 11th and it is so simple and nice. It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath
(with hot water showers), with kitchen/common area, and a private patio/outside living area (it's just over 500 square feet total living area). The kitchen has concrete counter tops with tile backsplash (it's kind of cool). After eating out for a week (which seemed like for months), it was nice to finally cook in our own kitchen (Henry cooks (most of the time)). Our furniture is being made by one of the local guys and should be ready in a couple of weeks (but we are in Ecuador, so it could be a couple of months). It's hard to believe that this is now where we live and that we are no longer here on vacation. The view out of our front door, the sound of the waves, the people......... simply amazing.



The kids are having so much fun here. Breana loves it, even though she misses her Hannah, she has made a new friend, Leonela who lives in the same complex, and spends most of her free time on the beach. We have already had visitors this last week, it was great seeing Ryan and Vanessa and meeting Gary (their dog). Two days after we got here, another american couple from Florida (Mike and Needa) decided to make Canoa their home and became our neighbors. We have already had the pleasure of making new aquaintaces with people traveling through Canoa (Nadine, Aneesa, Liz, Stacey, George, and Allissa) and look forward to keeping in touch with all of them.


Sorry for the delay in setting up this blog, but we have just been busy getting settled in. We hope to blog on a weekly basis from now on (but again, this is Ecuador, power is not always on our side, so....). Please feel free to ask questions and or leave comments.