Chilling on the beach, Colada smoothies and crazy amounts of conch...and it's only day 4!

                             

We had planned to go kayaking on day 4 but when we woke up the wind was pretty crazy and it would have made for quite hard work to kayak across the channel, not that you would know it from the pictures of the crazy calm water above! so we opted for a beach day instead, which pleased Jade greatly as it meant Sunny was allowed to come too!

Jade is very well travelled...we made her list today, 34 countries and counting! so for her to say that Provo has the best beaches she has ever seen is a pretty big compliment! in the picture above though it's not hard to see why!

Bang on with our colour co-ordination again! those who've travelled with Jade before will know that posing for this shot was a bit nerve wracking for Jay-dee as it involved climbing over rocks!

Jade's been taking plenty of 'family pics' of the 3 of us while she has been here...

and of course she's been getting involved too! Sunny is one adored potcake! or cake pot as Jade would say!

Jade was so impressed with her first patty she tried the other day that she requested more of them for lunch! This time we went to Chinson's and persuaded Jade to get a chicken loaf instead...and to try some coco bread - both are amazing! and it was nice to sit outside, listen to some Bob and chow down.

Jade's first experience with a drive through atm!

and her first experience with a smoothie from froots! We both opted for the pina colada - and wow I forgot how good those smoothies are, it had been far too long! 

We whizzed back to Pelican Beach in time to catch the Sunset...

that is pure delight on Jade's face right there!

I promise this picture is not fake...it looks like it is but it's just because the colours were so crazy vivid and we managed to catch a particularly amazing sunset that night! 

We ended the night at Da Conch Shack.  Jade was having trouble deciding so she went for the conch combo platter...a great intro to all things conch!

We took a walk on the beach whilst waiting for our food, and were amazed to discover all the conch shells in the sea! 

and here is the pile of discarded conch shells after the conch has been removed...check out the awesome pink colour on the inside of the shell! 

It was a great night...great food, great company, great atmosphere! 

and Jade has definitely become a conch convert! 

Scuba, Sunbathing and Sunsets at Chinson's...and it's only Day 3!

So today Jay-dee got to put into practice her newly learnt skills and go on her very first dive...ever, and what better place to do your first dive then here in Providenciales!

We took a 45 minute boat ride out to the dive site at North West Point. The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the water was clear and it was the perfect day to see some fish!

By and Jade got suited and booted, and then it was time to jump off the boat!

After a few last minute nerves and a slight panic on the surface after Jade's weight belt fell off, she made her way down to 60 ft and was diving like a pro in no time.

Here are the triumphant divers after their 1st dive, they saw alot of tropical fish but not too much else so they were ready and eager to take on the 2nd one!

The 2nd one proved much more fruitful, and they saw a pretty big barracuda (which Jade is still seeing when she closes her eyes days later!) it gave her quite a scare! along with a reef shark, an enormous lobster, a turtle and a sting ray.

As they made their way back to the boat, the captain told me to throw some pringles out in Jade's direction.  The fish would eagerly swim to the surface to eat them up, and she would get to see them up close! Unfortunately as I threw the pringles in Jade's direction the wind blew and they went in the opposite direction ending up right on top of Byron.  The next minute a whole group of 10 or so snapper fish were surrounding him gobbling up the pringles and one over zealous snapper ended up flapping around in his face! It was pretty hilarious, and I was laughing so hard I forgot I had the camera in my hand so I'm afraid I didn't get to capture it! but if you look closely in the pic above (which I took straight after) you can still see some of the snapper lurking behind him! 

Everyone was all smiles after the 2nd dive, and after eating some cupcakes! it was time to just soak up the sun on the boat ride back to the marina...

...and what a boat ride it was! 

Here we are with Bridget, Jade's dive instructor and our friend from church.

After the diving fun was over we went up Harbour View Drive which is a great little lookout point and By snapped this pic of us and the crazy turquoise ocean behind us! 

We also got a good view of the marina where we had set out from on the dive boat.

We headed back to Emerald Beach (our local) to soak up some sun before dinner time.  Jade was amazed at the conch that you can just find randomly on the beach! 

and we spent a couple of hours working on our tans...

and it seems Jade's 'photographing Sunny obsession' is rubbing off on me too and I couldn't help but snap away as he wondered around...

...he's actually getting pretty good at posing for me now! Check out that cutie pie!

As it was Friday night, where else does one head but Chinson's, because their Jerk Chicken special is amazingly awesome! The owner happily posed with Jade for a pic as the sun was setting in the background, and we tried to restrain ourselves on the drive home from not eating it all up but it was hard because it smelt sooo good!

So it was a day of firsts all round and Jade's experience with Jerk Chicken was definitely a good one! and is sure to be just as memorable as her first scuba dive too!!

Half way happy times!

So we're exactly half way through Mara's visit and time sure does fly when you're having fun!

Our beach bonfire complete with tasty S'mores (made the European way!) was awesome! We had the beach to ourselves...as per usual! And despite the windy days we've been having recently the evening we had it on was perfectly calm!

By decided it had to be done in style...so Mara and I went conch collecting to make this ring of conch around the hole we dug!

The fire started up pretty well and kept us nice and warm, it wasn't actually cool out - our long sleeves and jeans were to protect from mosquito's as we cycled to and from the beach, they are out in force after dark!

This picture makes me laugh...it looks like we are having some kind of seance!

So you know S'mores are traditionally made with Hershey's choc but you know my dislike for that stuff! So we stuck with mini squares of Milka and these little Caramel Dairy Milk's that Mara brought over!

We even tried some with Mint Aero, much to By's disgust...apparently mint and marshmallow aren't a good combo in his opinion but they tasted great to me!

By crafted us these great little skewers out of sticks to roast our marshmallows with, after a rocky start for Mara and a few marshmallows catching on fire she got the hang of it!

It was actually her first time making S'mores!! I have a feeling it won't be the last...maybe we'll put a little Christmas Eve campfire on the agenda!

Root beer and S'mores = pure happiness for me!

By took this great shot of the sea...even at night you can see the awesome colours!

On Friday morning By went to help on another dive boat excursion, this time he got to go snorkelling on his lunch break and got to snorkel with a 6 ft shark...scary stuff! Mara and I had a much tamer day consisting of a tasty breakfast of chocolate chip and banana and walnut pancakes, accompanied by some delicious smoothies!

                    

After that we went to check out an awesome view point at Harbour View Drive...

and we tried our hardest not to fall in...it was a sheer drop behind us! We then picked up By from his excursion, here is a picture of the boat he's been driving:

Our breakfast was so enormous I literally couldn't eat until dinner! And what a dinner it was, we hit up Chinson's to give Mara the true Jerk Chicken experience!

She wasn't disappointed, they do the yummiest corn bread too to compliment the spicy chicken that we all love.

Saturday consisted of a crazy bakefest where Mara and I made over 150 mini festive cupcakes - you can check out the pics here! They were for our Christmas party at church. We managed to make it to the beach for a few hours in the afternoon and the water was pretty calm so we were glad we did, we even walked out for a while on the sand bar which was super cool.

Look at that water! Mara was trying out her fisheye setting on her new camera...

We topped up our tans for a little while too

and Mara was pleased with the turquoise nail polish she borrowed from me, it is the perfect match for the colour of the sea!

Today was a pretty exciting day...all week we have been planning to bake some root beer pulled pork that I had seen the recipe for on a blog. Today was the day! It had to cook for 8 hours so we put it on before church and when we came home and walked through the door the smell was amazing!!! It was hard to restrain for the next few hours but it was worth the wait for the deliciously tender pork and oh the taste of root beer too...you need to try this recipe! By was excited...and I'm even more excited that I've made a root beer convert out of him since we moved here!

Doesn't he just get more and more tanned every time you see him??? The funny thing is I'm actually getting the best tan I've ever had before, but stick me next to By and I still look like a white Pommie!

I forgot to show you what our festive conch looked like when they were dry! Pretty cool hey!

It's amazing how 'it's beginning to look alot like Christmas' and there's not even a snowflake in sight!