Thursday, September 27, 2012

Birth Control uh-oh

I hope this isn't TMI for anyone but here I go. Before moving down here I counted how many weeks I had left in my 3 month pack of birth control and realized I would run out before we came back to the states. We were cramming every second of every day to get everything done in time to leave when we were supposed to. I'm surprised we found time to sleep. One thing on the list was to get a pill refill. My husband is so cheap that he said forget about it, we'll get it in Mexico because it's much cheaper there. Uhhhh ok... I guess I believe you because I know people to go Mexico specifically to get meds. We find a reputable pharmacy in town and McKay takes the empty pill pack inside and tells the dr we want the same exact one. As you can see, it's not a 3 month pack and the name is different but it has all the same ingredients so we will see if it works. I actually kind of liked being pregnant and am obsessed with being a mom so if it happens again, I'm totally ok with it. But for now I think I'll still try to prevent it until a more convenient time for our family and my poor body.
But there's a chance this might be happening again (40 weeks pregnant with Aiden)

Not much has changed in the last couple days. I've been eating a lot of Mexican food because that's the fresh stuff at the grocery store and on the street. These tamales came from a cooler on the side of the road and I have to say that they are delicious! Our plan was to eat healthy and lose weight down here but that's not really what's happening. We can't just pick and chose what we want to eat, we have to just buy what's fresh and edible. Lucky it's really good but it's also really fattening. 
This sweet, awesome, amazing couple will be here in the morning! I am so beyond excited to have friends here! I've been telling Aiden that Auntie Lissa and Uncle Dallin are coming this weekend and I can tell that he's really excited as well. We're going to have so much fun! I am sad to report that todays weather kind of stunk. It was a little cloudy and super windy so I hope it can clear up by saturday so we can enjoy at lease one fun day on the beach together. 

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Today was a great day!

After having so many rough days with the food, heat, and Aiden, it was so nice to have such a great day!
 We started our day with our morning walk and it was a beautiful day. McKay was smart and wore his bathing suit so our walk along the beach turned into our walk to the beach. I realize now this isn't a very good photo because we can't see Aiden and I look like a hot mess but it's the only one I have so it will have to do. 
When we got back we put Aiden to bed and he fell asleep quickly and easily. His naps are starting to get longer which is awesome. Hopefully we can get him napping like he used to within the next week or so. When he got up from his nap we went grocery shopping and look at what we found!
We went to a grocery store called La Ley which the Pew's recommended and it's super close to the resort which is great. On the way home on that same road there is a tortilla shop which is the size of a (non walk-in) closet and got those tortilla's that are on the left for $1.30. McKay handed them to me when he got in the car and they were piping hot! How cool is that? Of course we both immediately ate one and they tasted just as they smelled, delicious. Then we went down one more block and bought 6 tamales, beef and pork for $1 each. When we got home we put Aiden back down for his nap because he was pretty tired, it was super hot outside and the poor kid was kind of sweaty. I think it took a lot out of him. For lunch we made tamales with beans and rice. Oh My Gosh! Can you say heaven sent? The beans were soooo good and the tamales we're incredible. The salsa, well that was hot, really hot. Our lunch wound up costing us about $2 each. Wow we are saving a ton of money being down here.

When Aiden woke up from his nap we went down to the pool area and put him in his floaty we bought today. This was his first time ever being in the pool, he hasn't even been in the ocean yet (I don't know what we're waiting for). We floated around the lazy river which was mostly shaded so it was really relaxing. Aiden didn't react much to it. He loves bath time so he probably thought it was kind of like a bath. He just sat back, relaxed and enjoyed the ride.


Sunday, September 23, 2012

My scary night

This weekend Dallin and Ralph came down. Ralph (Dallin's dad) is the head of the HOA of the resort we're at and had a couple meetings. Dallin came down as well to go to meetings with McKay on Saturday. They had one at 11am with one resort, a meeting at 3:30pm with another resort and a dinner meeting at 6:00pm with our Sales Rep. McKay, Dallin, Ralph and Eduardo went to dinner and I decided to stay home because Aiden was already asleep for the night and his sleep schedule is very important to me. A couple minutes after they left the door opened. I looked just as the people were closing the door. I figured maybe it was the boys that forgot something and then decided they didn't need it. Weird. But then I got a little scared that I was home alone with my baby and no way to reach McKay to see if that was him that opened the door or to tell him that someone somehow entered the condo. I went and locked the deadbolt, put my rape whistle and pepper spray around my neck, and picked out the biggest sharpest knife I could find and laid back down on the couch with one eye on the tv and one eye on the door. I was now ready in case anyone tried to harm my precious little baby. It didn't help much that Man On Fire was on TV. It's a movie about kidnappings in Mexico. Yeah, a little scared at this point but totally keeping it together. It's amazing how once you have children you no longer fear for yourself, it's all about protecting your baby and your mama-bear adrenaline comes out and you say 'bring it on'. The boys finally came home, on time thank goodness! I let them in with knife still in hand. Hey, you never know! McKay wasn't happy when I told him someone had access to the condo. I could tell he was already making a Plan B. After brainstorming and talking to the boys we realized it was a realtor wanting to show the condo and heard the TV so quickly closed the door. Oh, thank goodness! We said our prayers and thanked God that we were all safe and got a feeling that nothing bad would happen to us while we're down here. I now feel much better but I still plan on doing my part to stay safe.
The mobile website is now up and running and I am so proud of my husband for building it. He is so smart and talented and continues to impress me every day. The meetings they had we're a big success and we're set to launch the tv channel on saturday in the 2 biggest resorts in Rocky Point. This week McKay will be buttoning up odds and ends, getting T-shirts made, and training Eduardo properly on his job duties. I'll do another blog on Eduardo, he has the most amazing story I've ever heard.


Funny story, we found out that Aiden is claustrophobic. He has been grumpy the last couple days and cries at every nap time. Talk about stressful. I've been so spoiled with such a perfect baby that never cried, stuck to a schedule, put himself to bed when put in his crib, and woke up cooing. Now I have no clue what is going on. At first I think his room is to hot for him and don't know how to make it cooler. There is a AC/Heat control for the main living space, a separate one for the first master and a separate control for the second master but no control for the third bedroom, Aidens room. We move the pack and play to our room where it's cooler but still no change. He just spins in circles and fusses. Finally we put him on our bed and he falls asleep just fine. We go back and forth between the two and it turns out that he hates the pack and play. We feel that he must be claustrophobic, it just makes the most sense. On top of that he has been waking up THREE times for night feedings, that's two more than normal. Rice cereal and oatmeal do nothing for helping him sleep longer. So now we're trying to figure out if he's dehydrated from the heat or if this is a growth spurt. Having a baby with us has definitely made this a much bigger challenge then it would have been if it was just the two of us. The not sleeping and constant eating and crying has been rough but the last two days have been better so it gives me hope that maybe he just needs time to adapt. McKay gave Aiden his first fathers blessing a couple days ago because we had no clue what else to do for him and it seems to have helped. I constantly worry that we ruined a perfect child by ripping him from his comfy home and schedule. Every day I wish we never left and that Aiden never had to go through this change but then I feel like this is what we're supposed to be doing and that Aiden will be just fine.
McKay has been very supportive of me supporting him and has made an effort to do something special for me every day. On saturday in between his meetings he basically had to force me to go down to the beach to have "me time" while he watched Aiden. He also watched me from the balcony to help me feel safe :) It was a much needed break.
On another positive note, we have eggs!! Sweet Melissa went grocery shopping and got us some eggs for Dallin to bring down. Those and other little (unexpired) gems we've found should last us until we leave for Utah early next month.
Our travel schedule goes as follows:
Thurs Oct 4th- Leave Mexico for Arizona
Fri Oct 5th- Fly to Utah for conference and to visit family
Mon Oct 8th- Fly to California
Sun Oct 14th- Fly to Arizona
Mon Oct 15th- Drive back down to Mexico
I will do my best to see everyone in Utah and California but my number one priority is making sure Aiden is getting enough sleep so if I need to stay home all day, I will. Sorry I'm not a cool modern mom that totes my baby everywhere I go. He just doesn't sleep when we're out of the house and I can't have him sleep deprived like he was last week. Hopefully I can still get out and see my buddies!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Finally some street tacos!

Today for lunch McKay took me into town to get street tacos. Finally! We decided when we got here that we would only eat out on the weekend so that we wouldn't become super fat. Because we've had a rough week in the food department we decided to take a break from the condo and go into town for some yummy tacos. Our favorite place doesn't open until 3:00 so we went to another familiar place. It wasn't as good as I remembered and its probably because they were lacking some great salsa. But that doesn't matter, it was still a treat! I was telling McKay when we were leaving there that we need more taco stands in our rotation. But what are you supposed to do, try them all until you find one that doesn't make you sick? haha I don't think so. I'll wait for the Pew's to give us more recommendations. Hopefully they've tried more than the few we've been to!
While we were out we went back to Santa Fe (the grocery store) so that I could see it since I stayed in the car last time. Don't freak out dad, it was like 2 seconds, he was right inside the doors asking a question. This store was beautiful! It was clean and the food was pretty good quality. Still not what I'm used to but I can definitely deal. Things are looking much better for sure. We were able to buy 4 avocados, 4 bananas, 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, and 4 oranges all for $5!!! That's amazing. Much better than the $100 we spent on crap a couple days ago at Sam's Club which by the way, the carrots expire in 6 days. Seriously? I'm writing an email to Walmart.

Tonight during dinner we heard music coming from outside. They had an instructor down there giving mexican dance lessons! How cool is that? If Aiden hadn't been sleeping we totally would have gone down there. People were also just sitting in the water enjoying the sunset and others were riding horses. It's so peaceful down here. Anyone want to visit? :)
Aiden is quite obsessed with his lovey. Here he used it to pretend he's an Egyptian prince.

He usually winds up with it snuggled next to his face and always looking at his Sleep Sheep


I have to give Aiden credit for adapting so well. He had such a nice life back home. He had a beautiful crib, the best mattress available, organic cotton sheets, and blackout curtains. Here he has a pack and play (which Dallins mom is letting us use until we have room in our car to bring one down and we are very very grateful for that). The mattress isn't so comfy and he doesn't have blackout curtains but in spite of all that he's missing he decides to make the best of it and make his own blackout curtains. Seriously, he's such a trooper. 
If he can adapt and make the best of it, so can I. And if I can do it, anyone can!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Getting into a routine

Let's start with the important stuff. Today my baby turned 5 months old. Holy cow where has the time gone? This actually makes me sad. For his birthday his Aunt Amanda gave him a sweet little girl cousin who is yet to be named. Congratulations Willey family, we are so happy for you and can't wait to meet the precious addition.
Today was less eventful and felt more like a vacation. Hooray! We decided on a daily schedule which goes as follows:
7:00am         Wake up
7:00-8:00am Walk along the beach
8:00am          Put Aiden to sleep (McKay gets ready for the day)
8:00-9:00am  Scripture study, daily planning, breakfast
9:00am         McKay starts work (I get ready for the day)
12:00-1:00pm Lunch
5:00pm         Stop working, start Aidens bedtime routine
6:00pm         Dinner
9:00pm         Get ready for bed
Now that schedule fluctuates by about half an hour depending on when Aiden wakes up in the morning and when we wakes up from his last nap. We're on Aiden time now. Speaking of the darling handsome Mr. Perfect, he has been having a rough time since we got here. He hasn't been sleeping well at all and has been crying a lot. This is the kid that NEVER cries, fusses, or complains. Maybe once a day, max! Thank goodness he's not sick, just way over-exhausted from over a week of packing, not having his crib, staying in multiple places, sitting in the back of the car all by his lonesome and then having to deal with this heat and running errands while not getting to sleep on his usual schedule. I don't know why AC isn't getting to his room but it's the hottest area of the whole condo so I had the ceiling fan and a plug in fan right on him. It kind of helped. Tonight I put his bed in our room which is nice and cold and he went to bed no problem. This gives me hope for the future that he wont be a fusspot forever and that he doesn't hate us for ruining his life.
Today McKay made a lot of progress on re-doing his websites. He's using a new software which I guess is pretty cool. It's so confusing to me, I watched him for a little bit and it seems so insanely hard and super boring. I'm sure it will be done by the end of the week and then I can share the website so you all can critique it. :) I'm not used to having McKay work from 9-5 and I'm trying to figure out if I like it or not.
Today I got to lay out on the patio while Aiden took a nap and I got a slight shade of coloring. I can't go down to the beach yet because of how much sleep Aiden needs to catch up on right now, maybe when he gets back on schedule.
I stuck my feet in the water on our walk this morning and the water is so warm! It has to be in the 80's. I can't wait until saturday when we get to enjoy our weekend! Contrary to what people think, we're not here to vacation, we're working a whole heck of a lot and McKay had to purposely set aside Saturday and Sunday for family fun time or it would never happen. He's a worker bee.
**Update on my blog from yesterday about the groceries here:
I wanted a bowl of cereal so I opened the box and pulled out one of the bags, BIG gash right down the side of the bag. Ok, not eating that one. Trash. So I wound up creating a breakfast sausage sandwich, we don't have eggs yet. Then for lunch McKay makes Mac n Cheese. The cheese is brown, it expired over a year ago. So we eat some crackers which I notice expire next month. It's gotten to the point where it's just so funny and we laugh about it. I sure hope I don't get sick eating all this food that's on the verge of going bad. So far I feel fine so we shall see.
See those hills in the sunset under those little clouds? That's Baja and behind that is San Diego. Hello home! I can't wait for McKay to get a plane (I know he said a long time ago he would never get another one but times have changed) and then we can be here in 1 hour instead of 7. Yikes! That would be awesome. They don't have a major airport here but they do have a good long runway so it would be perfect! McKay want's to see it on saturday and get all the info needed to land there so hopefully I can get some more fun pictures!
That's all for now! like I said, not very eventful but overall it was a nice day

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Grocery shopping is its own adventure

Today we went to town to go grocery shopping and all I can say is WOW, what an adventure! They have Sam's Club down here and a Mexican Walmart, both stores are owned by Walmart. You all know how much I love that store right? NOT! Walmart is seriously a product of the devil and I would never choose to go there on my own. Walmart sells products that are too bad to be sold anywhere else so just imagine what leftover products Mexico gets. Anyways, I'm hungry and we need to fill the kitchen with groceries so I go. We start with the Mexican Walmart because we don't want to buy bulk. The place isn't air conditioned and even though it's built like any other grocery store, somehow there are birds flying around inside and flies in the baked good cases. The broccoli is almost black, the fruit is discolored and bruised beyond recognition and everything cold expires about 3 days from today. So far it's not looking good. I wanted to take a picture for the blog but didn't want to offend anyone. McKay takes me down an isle where they should have stuff I recognize and we could possibly eat. Nothing. I was so overwhelmed at this point for so many reasons. I was sad for the people of Mexico (maybe just this town) that this is what they eat, I was sad for myself thinking that I was going to starve down here, I was worried about what the heck I was going to feed Aiden because I sure as heck wasn't using their produce and I'm not going to risk the canned stuff. I was so overwhelmed and it took everything I had to not burst into tears right there in the middle of the store. McKay obviously is seeing what I'm seeing, I don't need to say anything, we leave and head over to Sam's club which is supposed to be more my speed. It's clean, almost empty (of people) and the food isn't expiring this week. We got a membership and were able to find about 15 items: Milk, cereal, yogurt, water, frozen broccoli, crackers, english muffins, tortillas, sausage, salmon, plums, carrots, and lettuce. We brought cash with us so for the first time in years I'm looking at the prices to stay in budget while also thinking "what the heck, I cannot make a meal out of any of this." Still overwhelmed at this point but at least I have some food and wont starve. We weren't able to find eggs in either store so we go to a local grocery store (Santa Fe), they don't have any either. What the heck? Turns out that Mexico killed all of their chickens last month because of an outbreak of bird flu. Great. When we get home I wash off a plum for me and McKay, they're both hard as rocks. Deep breath in, deep breath out. By now I am just shaking my head in disbelief. We will be asking our friends to go grocery shopping for us before they come down this weekend and then we will be up every couple of weeks (to visit home and for McKay to still be able to run his business there) and will grocery shop there before heading back down. The moral of this story, besides showing how much Walmart truly does suck, is to notice how lucky we really are to enjoy organic fruits and vegetables and free range eggs and air chilled chicken. I miss these luxuries already and am so grateful to be born and raised in such a great area, it isn't like that everywhere.

We may be a tad crazy

McKay and I have officially moved to Mexico (for the time being). We don't know how long we'll be here, your guess is as good as mine. It started out as one month then turned into two, then three, then possibly four. And each time I found out we were going to be here longer, it's because I heard my husband telling someone about it. My reaction: "What? We're staying for how long?? That's not what you told me." The truth is, we will be staying here until everything is done. What is everything? Good question.
About a year and a half ago my husband and one of his best friends (Dallin Pew) started to brainstorm a new business idea. It stemmed from an idea that McKay previously had but it wound up changing completely. Previously he wanted to use technology that he already uses and knows to make an information board in the lobby of hotels aka digital signage. Lots of hotels in the states use them, for example, Marriott. Once the boys started talking they realized there was a better alternative and a much better money maker. Dallin told us about and took us to a resort that he grew up going to, Rocky Point. A perfect place to test the waters and start the new company. There's an easy way to explain what McKay and Dallin are trying to do. In the US, resorts all tend to have the same amenities, when we turn on the TV we expect for there to be a channel about the resort, about the city we're visiting, about the activities we can do, as well as being able to watch a movie at night via video on demand. But as Dallin and McKay visited some of the resorts they realized that those simple amenities that we take for granted are simply not available in other resorts throughout the world regardless of how nice they are or who they're owned by. I'm sure you can see by the photos (below) that these resorts are quite amazing and its surprising that they don't have some of those basic amenities. That's where McKay and Dallin come into play. They started a company that creates systems that adds these amenities to those resorts without any major installation, construction, etc. They own channels that are being broadcast within the resorts and they are building a video on demand system for the resorts. The purpose of McKay and I being down here is to get that done and to set it up as a model to then expand in other cities and other parts of the world. We felt that the best way to replicate it elsewhere was to be here from start to finish. McKay met a very wealthy Mexican that owns about 10 resorts and wanted McKay and Dallin to install and run the equipment immediately. That's why we hurried down here to get this city up and running so we can move on to the next resorts.
This week McKay is re-doing the websites and setting up meetings with our sales representatives to properly train them.
I understand that moving to Mexico after just coming up with the idea a month earlier, when you have a 4 month old baby, and when your current business couldn't be any better, is just a tad crazy. But we believe that this will be a better opportunity for us and hopefully with great risk will come great reward. That's what I keep telling myself. :) I will keep you updated with our progress and adventures!

The one above is double that size since they finished the second phase.