Let's go fly a kite...

We headed to Coral Gardens on Tuesday to go for a snorkel.   Here the boys are in all their gear.  Unfortunately, the weather hasn't really been co operating since they've been here so the water was a little choppy and murkier than usual but they still managed to see some parrotfish, grunts and snappers (and even a sea cucumber!)  We will hopefully go back when the wind dies down to spot some more...

but thanks to the wind and a quick kite repair it was back to kite flying again!

as we watched the sun set...

a pretty good backdrop for any activity right?!

On Wednesday whilst By and I were at work, Cam and Kevin went on a little kayaking adventure.

They kayaked through the mangroves...

and ended up at Little Water Cay, a.k.a Iguana Island! what a whopper!

When we got in from work we headed to one of our nearby beaches and the boys went snorkelling for conch.  Here they are attempting to enter the water with their flippers on! and check out Cam's awesome Caribbean style board-shorts...pineapples and coconuts and all!

They didn't manage to find any conch this time, but we will be visiting Conch Shack next week and they have some pretty spectacular shells there! 

On Wednesday evenings, us and the rest of the Island (so it seemed) headed to Tiki Hut for their Chicken 'n' Ribs night.  If there's one thing these South African boys like even better than the sun, it's ribs!

Cam and Kevin are working well on their tans, they've pretty much surpassed mine already but you can see in the pic below they've still got some catching up to do to compete with By!

 

Today was a bit of a washout, rain all day! which hardly ever happens here in Provo! so once the rain stopped this evening the boys headed to the dock to do some fishing...not much was biting - the weather still wasn't great so we headed home for some brownies instead! 

We're hoping for a  big improvement in the weather this weekend for all the fun things we have planned!

Back to school blues...overcome by desserts and sunsets!

So it was back to work for me last week...boo, but I consoled myself by getting some tasty dessert at Tiki Hut! Too bad for Mara, we had planned to try their desserts whilst she was here but had so much else to fit in that we never got around to it! oh well...guess she will just have to come back! especially for some Banana Zango because it was the best! 

A warm cinnamon covered tortilla filled with cheesecake, banana and coconut! delish! By got cookie delight: two fresh baked cookies served with ice cream but we shared so we got to try both.  This followed their amazing Chicken and Ribs...Wednesday night is the best night to go! 

Apparently everyone else on the Island thinks so too because the place was packed! We've been several times in the past but never seen it so busy! We went on a nice after dinner walk around Turtle Cove Marina and got this great shot with the lights of Tiki Hut reflecting in the water.

Byron also sneakily snapped me jigging to some Bob Marley beats.

The lights of the Marina looked pretty cool.  In other news Byron caught this whopper of a fish, it was his biggest catch to date! He blackened the fish in a frying pan, Island style, and served it up to the Missionaries when they came over for dinner and we still have tons of it left so tonight he is cooking us up a coconut and mango fish curry...yum yum! 

Just before Christmas, a local company who one of the boys mother works for raised donations for new toys for the therapy house, and we were able to put all the funds together to buy this awesome 'bounce house'.  

It is certainly a hit with the boys and is great to help them release some of that excess energy they have so much of! 

I love this shot of Josiah...what a cutie! 

When we unplug it and it deflates, Jo runs over to it and throws his arms down on it and says 'you okay?'!!  Yes he's quite the caring boy!

Yesterday we took a sunset kayak ride over to Iguana Island.  The water was so calm and By decided it was time to get me to try my skipping stone skills out again.  He has been trying to teach me since we arrived on Island...and so far I've never managed to skip! until yesterday when I managed to make the stone skip 3 times...result! (P.s if you look closely you can check my crazy sunburn I got on my back! I haven't got sunburnt since we arrived!)

By is a bit of a pro and can make his stone skip 8 or 9 times.

It was an awesome scene as the sun was setting and we headed back home...

A passing speedboat made a few mini waves...

and we headed back down the canal towards our house...

I love the silhouette of those trees! and I love chilled out Kayak rides across the ocean - fun times!!

A quick catch up and on to the NYE fireworks!

One of my very favourite things to do at Christmas time is to go house spotting for the houses with the best light displays! There was always a crazy one in St.Albans near where I grew up and it wasn't Christmas until we had been to see that house!  We even continued the tradition in Reading and used to spend ages driving around seeing which was the best house we could find.  This year it didn't take up too much time to drive around and find any because 99% of the houses don't put any lights up at all! but we did find 2 houses in our area that had gone all out and this one with it's lights reflecting in the water was pretty special.

Of course we had to test out the awesome new milkshake glasses By got me for Christmas so the night before Mara left we made some tasty Mint Oreo shakes! Here I am showcasing a few Christmas prezzies actually...the spectacular glasses from By, the umbrella's and my butterfly top from Mara and my polka dot headband from my mom! 

After the shakes we headed out for Mara's last night here and we spent it at Maskanoo.

It was a cultural event, that will be held annually going forth, but this was the first one the Island had ever had.  It's name is taken from Junkanoo (which is a street parade with live music held in the Bahama's) and masquerade (due to the masks that people wore) producing 'Maskanoo'.

Our few pictures don't quite do it justice, you can see a little video clip of it on the local news website here and you can hear a little of the rake and scrape ripsaw music TCI is famous for.

They had quite a lot of dancers performing and some Island singers too, our favourite was Barbara Johnson with her 'Island in the Sun' song all about Turks and Caicos.

The advertising for the event had promised 'real island food', I'm not quite sure how the hot dogs and cheeseburgers fall into that category but they were welcome all the same! Here we are showing a little Turks patriotism by waving their flag!  

Tuesday was a sad day as it was the day Mara went back to England, how we loved having her visit and miss her now she is back home, but we consoled ourselves with By making us some amazing chocolate log milkshakes.  I had been telling him of a few of the Christmas treats from back home I had missed out on this year...one of them being Shakeaway's chocolate log milkshakes so he reminded me we still had some leftover chocolate log in the fridge and he whipped us up our own! 

He enjoyed his whilst doing a spot of fishing, and I did a spot of tanning.

We then tried to embark on a little kayaking adventure with Sunny on board, By assured me he would be fine since potcakes hate water so he wouldn't try and jump in...

well a minute or so after this was taken, he went overboard!! we weren't really sure how well he could swim or how far and so By was trying to get me to jump in after him! but luckily he made it back to shore himself...

here he is looking a little bedraggled, he really wasn't impressed with us and sulked for the rest of the day that we'd made him go through such an ordeal! 

We kayaked around to a secluded beach (and left Sunny behind!) and found quite a few conch shells embedded in the sand with the conch still inside! I'd never seen a conch alive before, look at those weird little eyes! 

By finally got to have his BBQ, just a week late on New Year's Eve instead of boxing day.  We had it down at the dock and it was perfect way to kick off our celebrations.

Later we moved our celebrations on to the beach and had a giant bonfire to keep us warm! 

I was reminded after seeing this picture never to stand near Byron again! he makes my tan invisible! 

Nothing beats cooking up some s'mores...

We had the telephoto lens on all ready for snapping the fireworks so this is a bit of an extreme close up of By enjoying his s'more! 

I never knew I was so animated during conversation! Telling stories around the campfire with Milah, Ashley and Grason whilst we wait to ring the new year in...

As the clock struck twelve, it was also extra special for Joelle and Neil who got married on NYE 11 years ago...

and so the fireworks began, and we were actually pretty impressed! Our spot on the beach was perfect as we were able to see 5 different firework displays from 5 different resorts happening all at the same time! 

Hope everyone else had as memorable a New Year's Eve as we did! and here's wishing everyone an even more memorable 2011! Happy New Year!