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! 

Hip hip...On an Island in the Sun...

Well, we took a Sunday night stroll on the beach just in time to catch the spectacular sunset! It was pretty incredible and Mar was amazed...she had never seen anything like it before.  It's great to have her here because her appreciation for the Island makes me appreciate it even more too! as I realise how truly blessed we are to be living here.

The rest of the pictures need no explanation - the sunset speaks for itself, but I'll explain the one below - it's Mara and By doing their best karate kid impressions! 

Can you believe the colours in the sky?! It's like a rainbow! 

And the heat goes on...

It's been a busy week here.  Last Friday Night we experienced Pie day Friday at Salt Mills Diner down in Grace Bay which was really fun...especially cause we used to do our own Pie day Friday back in the UK! and we got milkshakes too which made me super happy! It was a nice way to celebrate being done with the first week of work! I didn't get to make it to Beach Volleyball since we had meetings on Friday night til after 6...but I'm definitely hoping to make it tomorrow night.

On Saturday we went to Grace Bay beach which is a 12 mile stretch of one of the best beaches in the Caribbean and it's often found among the beaches of the World's Top 10 Beaches list.  I have been excited to go ever since we arrived.  The waters are crystal clear and the beach is pure white sand.  It was a really fun day of chilling on the beach but unfortunately we didn't take any good pictures...next time.

On Sunday we gave our talks at church which was a very interesting experience! We had to stop after every sentence or two to wait for the translator beside us to translate it into Creole as most of the members in our branch are Haitian.  I think I worked him a little too hard and was speaking too fast for him to keep up with, it will definitely take some getting used to! We downloaded an app on our Ipad to learn Creole and have been busy learning slogans and giving ourselves little tests to see how we're doing! It's like an easy version of French so it seems like it could be picked up fairly quickly.  We were invited to have lunch with some Americans from church and we had a delicious taco bake with them and some yummy desserts! They asked me if my work visa had come through yet and I told them it hadn't, and they said don't be surprised if it comes through after your year is up! which seems a bit crazy! They definitely do things on Island time around here...that's for sure!

We went to Family Night on Tuesday at Church which was fun, and accompanied by more yummy treats! and last night Alyssa and Brandon invited us round for dinner and cooked us a Pennsylvanian-Dutch speciality of cabbage and noodles.  We also went for a stroll along the beach and the sunset was awesome.  We took advantage of having someone else with us to take a picture and so here is one of the two of us! 

On Monday Byron went to this marine biologist's house to help her transplant mangrove trees.  It's a conservation project she has been working on.  He seemed to have fun, and she has even offered to take him kayaking to a nearby Island, Star Island, sometime soon which he is excited about.

He has been busy exploring the Island with his camera and taking lots of shots so I thought I'd share some of them with you.  He is meeting next week with a photographer who is interested in him doing some editing work for her so here's some shots he's snazzed up a little to show her.

He also chatted with a wedding co-ordinator at church who came over yesterday to take a look at some of the wedding photography he has done in the past.  She seemed pleased with what she saw, and said she may have a wedding in November for him to do...so the work is coming in a little at a time, and hopefully it will continue to do so.

Until then he continues to fish, and enjoy the beach on a daily basis.  He went to Coral Gardens the other day, a stretch of water known for being a really good scuba spot.  He saw some giant sea turtles and sting rays and brought me back some cool shells too.

The mosquito bites are still coming, and I'm not quite sure I will ever get used to this heat! but our evening strolls at the beach and this Island adventure we are living makes it all worth it.  

An exciting few days!

So the other day Byron sat out on our dock for around 4 docks with not even a single bite.  Yesterday was a whole other story! He had only cast his line into the canal for about 10 seconds when he caught his first fish, and they just kept on coming after that! Here he is doing his triumphant pose:

What I also should probably fill you in on is the fact that I was recruited for my job alongside another behavioural therapist.  She has moved down her with her husband too and he is a pro chef! So he helped Byron clean the fish up that he caught and we have a little pot of them in the freezer right now that are ready to be cooked up into fish tacos or something…that’s how they do it down here!

Now the excitement did not stop there! I got called this morning from an unknown number on my mobile (that I just picked up from the LIME shop on Monday) only to be told by LIME that I had won on Ipad in their 100 days of summer competition!! I wasn’t too excited about it at the time as it seemed to good to be true but they told me to come down to the store to pick it up.  On the way over there we heard an advertisement on the radio all about the 100 days of summer competition and how you could win an Ipad, so the excitement was building!! I just cannot believe it, I’ve only been on this Island 5 days and I’ve won an Ipad – how does that work?! It was so funny too because the competition claims the more you use your phone the better chance you have of winning, now no one uses their LIME phone more than my employer and I’ve literally made 2 calls since I’ve been here so I’m not sure how that works but I got presented with my free Ipad and they took a picture of me that will appear in their local paper and everything! Byron is beyond thrilled…he has been wanting one of these for sooo long! Here I am accepting my prize, no comments about the lack of tan please - I'm working on it! 

Yesterday we also spent most of the day at the beach, Provo is known for it's calm sea but since Hurricane Earl has been hanging around this week there's been crazy waves around so I got a good shot of the waves crashing over the rocks as By chilled out (check the turquoise water in the background...it is always that colour - how completely amazing is that!):

Also we found alot of conch just washed up right on the shore.  I'm starting my own little collection back at the house! 

We headed back to the beach just as the sun was setting and were surprised to see this little wooden umbrella, that had been upright a few days before, completely blown over and the waves were really coming in fast and hard against the rocks.  You can't see the outline of the waves here because Byron took it on a long exposure and I like the way it makes the sea look so smooth! 

Just so you don't hate on me completely, as most of the Islanders were doing when they found out about me winning the Ipad today, I now have a total of 13 mosquito bites and there's some pretty beastly ones too so it's not all free Ipads and amazing beaches!!

Welcome to Paradise

We have arrived...and I mean that in the sense of we've made it, we've hit the big time! I'm pretty sure life can't get any better right now...

and we're only on the 1st day of this amazing adventure!

The apartment we are living in is fantastic, we have a sea view from our balcony, the property backs on to it's own little private dock with a canal running alongside it, and it has a pool! 

We went down to the canal this evening for our first dip and it was so lovely and warm! and I can't believe it is literally on our doorstep, then seeing that the sun was setting in the sky we hopped on some bikes and cycled a couple of minutes down to the beach to experiment with our new SLR....oh yes it's mega exciting! I can now be a proper blogger...with proper photos! 

We had a 1 hour stopover on the plane yesterday at Nassau, Bahamas.  We weren't allowed off the plane so Byron put our time to good use and taught me how to use our camera on manual settings, there is nothing that frustrates Byron more than people who spend ridunculous amounts of money on snazzy SLR's only to use it in automatic mode...it's pointles - you might as well just buy a point and shoot, so now we finally managed to purchase another SLR I needed the pro to teach me how to use it! 

So here's a couple of shots I did tonight, I was pretty pleased with how they turned out! 

We found this amazing starfish washed up on the shore so I put my newly learnt skill of depth of field (which for those of you who don't know is focusing in on something in the foreground and leaving the background blurry) to good use.  I cannot wait to shoot some cupcake action on this camera, and I might not have to wait too long...I've been recruited to help bake some cupcakes on Thursday for a little boys birthday by a lady I just met today!

The weather is el scorchio all the time, and tonight our landlord whose name is Wally taught us how to button down the hatches incase a hurricane comes our way anytime soon! which is pretty exciting! but do you know what's even more exciting...we stopped by the grocery store this morning to pick up some breakfast and not only was I ecstatic to see that they sold root beer but it was priced at $6 for a whole 12 pack! That's 50 cents a can people, I'm lucky in the UK if I can pick any up for £1 a can! They also sell Lucky Charms, Ghiradelli chocolate and a whole host of other American delicacies...you should have seen the baking section! I was absolutely loving it, we just grabbed some fresh mango to eat but tomorrow we are going to do our full on shop and I cannot wait!!

We also had a little test drive earlier of the 4X4 we will have use of while we are here which was pretty fun.  It's crazy because all the road signs are literally exactly the same as they are in the UK, even down to the colours and fonts used so that makes it nice and familiar! It's an automatic, which shouldn't take any getting used to since it's so much easier than a manual, but somehow I still kept wanting to reach for the gears and it was feeling kind of strange driving it, I'm sure we'll get used to it though! 

The people here are super friendly.  Our flight came in 2 hours early so we needed to call the people who were picking us up, Byron asked an airport official where we could do this and he just grabbed his phone straight from his pocket and let us use it - when would that ever happen in England! or anywhere for that matter! 

The only thing I'm slightly sad about is my inexperience at living on a tropical island! This led to me putting my big block of fondant icing that I brought over with me in the kitchen cupboard last night, and when I awoke this morning it was infested with micro ants! How they got into a sealed packet I just don't know! but I've since learnt you literally keep everything in the fridge even all my jars of sprinkles and everything unless you want an ant covered cupcake which certainly doesn't sound appealing! but I will learn these things as I go along!

For now, we are just still pinching ourselves that we are really this lucky and are really going to be here for a whole year!