Sunny days...sweeping the clouds away!

“Thorns may hurt you, men desert you, 

sunlight turn to fog; but you’re never friendless ever, if you have a dog.”

I love this quote, it has been so applicable to my life over the past 7 months.  Things here on the Island haven't always been as exotic and exciting as I make out on the blog! and one thing's for sure Sunny has made my days brighter regardless of everything that's been going on, and it's hard for me to imagine life without him going forward (cue the 8th time I have cried today!)

On Monday night we went for our last sunset walk on the beach together at our local beach. 

Look at those cute little paw prints!

and here's my footsteps along with his.

When we first got Sunny he hated the car and never wanted to go in it.  He would run a mile if he thought you wanted him to get in.  The times when he needed to go to the vet, we would have to coax him in with pieces of ham and even then he wasn't happy! In the past month or so all that has changed and he hops in the car as soon as you open the door, even if you weren't necessarily planning on taking him! Last night I had to run some last minute errands and he of course wanted to come, I managed to snap this pic of us quick.

I had decided I wanted to make one last visit to my favourite beach on the Island, Taylor Bay.  We passed this street sign, and I've always wanted to take a picture of it with the lovely turquoise hues of Chalk Sound in the background, Picturesque Lane is certainly apt! 

We arrived at Taylor Bay and Sunny headed straight for the water, it had been a pretty warm car ride... 

 and as soon as he's out of the water his favourite thing to do is roll in the sand, I don't think he likes to feel wet! 

This afternoon we took our final walk on the beach and then we headed home to hand him over to his new family.

It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to him, I know he will be well loved - the two little boys he will be living with just adore him and have been so excited all week about being able to come and take him to their home....

but that still doesn't make it any less sad.  He has been a part of our family and he will certainly be missed, but we know we helped to save his life and that we were able to give him lots of love whilst in our care and we hope he will always remember us :) maybe one day in the future we will even return and get to pay him a visit! 

It was very sad to return to an empty house tonight, after having a delicious conch curry at the Behlmaier's!, and to not have Sunny's happy face and wagging tail there to greet me but I know Eden (above) will be taking good care of him for us and I know that we have made enough memories with him to last a lifetime! 

The boys are back in town...

So the Braithwaite boys were finally reunited yesterday (minus Ja who will be hitting up the slopes of Andorra next week) and doing what they do best they headed straight to the beach.

There's no denying that they are South African through and through with their love of the sea and the sun!

Not even the choppy water could keep them away, here is Kevin diving straight in for a swim!

By and Cam were picking the best wave spot to ride the boogie board! 

When we got home it was time to open up all the prezzies that were sent over for us! You can see the pure excitement on my face...check out all that English chocolate! and my cupcake tee my mom sent for me.

By's dad also had a few hours to kill in NYC on a layover and went to M&M world to buy us that bottle full! The awesome lipglosses and polka dot pumps are from my mom as are all the malteser bunnies...which are fading fast right now! 

By's mom, Kathy, sent me these amazing cupcake earrings! and plenty of dairy milk to go around and By even got some little rubber duck earphones since he has a bit of a duck collection going on back home!

This morning, the wind was still going pretty strong, but it was perfect kite flying weather! So we headed to The Point with a kite By's dad had brought over from England.

By holds it in the ready position...

and all it needed was a gust of wind to send it soaring...

it kept them all entertained for about 15 minutes until unfortunately the wind got a bit too strong and it broke!

Here is Sunny and his new best friend, Cam, as I write this he is licking Cam's ear off on the sofa right now! 

After that we headed to Taylor Bay for some calmer water, and some swimming and sunbathing time.

This evening, despite the wind still blowing strong, there was no better place to watch the sunset go down then 'Somewhere' our fave Mexican restaurant.

Here are the boys with their fruit punches, and By snapped this sneaky shot of me...too bad you can't see I'm wearing my polka dot pumps here too! 

You have to love eating quesadilla's, listening to Gwen and watching the sun set! It was a great evening...

and I think the fact that we devoured our food within about 10 minutes proved how much we all enjoyed it! 

After the sun goes down, they light up the tiki torches and turn on all the terrace lights.

How we love being able to share all these cool places with our family, it's going to be an awesome two weeks!

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!!