Steak, Starfish, Scuba, Shakes and Sunset S'mores!

It's been a busy few days! and the boys have been growing tired with my constant need to photograph EVERYthing! so instead of a nice posed shot of Steak Night at Tiki Hut on Friday you have one of them attacking each other with their knives instead! What can I say...I tried! 

I stuck to a burger instead, being the non steak lover I am...but I think the steak was pretty well received all round.  Why is 'Steak Night' so special? well we found out once we got there you get a free bottle of wine with your steak! so we indulged in some fruit punch instead!

On Saturday we headed to Pirate's Cove, and stopped at By's fave spot on the beach to skim stones! The water was amazingly calm...perfect skimming condition!

We have decided to rename Bonefish Point 'Starfish Point', we saw at least 15 different starfish while we were there, and they were all pretty big ones like in the picture above!

After that we headed to Turtle Cove where Cam and Kevin took to the pool to undergo their scuba training! Here they are getting suited up! 

It took a little getting used to at first but afterwards they were swimming underwater like pro's ready for their day out at sea.

We made a quick stop at JoJo's on the way home, the thoughts of freshly baked cookies and shakes worked in my favour and the boys were actually willing to pose for a shot!

By got a chocolate shake, made with chocolate unlike last time! Check out the awesome glass sided pool behind him...you can watch people as they swim by but somehow their heads above water don't link up with their bodies underneath the surface - it's a weird optical illusion! Unfortunately with it being a bit breezy none of us were up for a swim which By was greatly disappointed about! 

On Sunday we headed to Emerald Beach for a BBQ (or Braai as the South Africans would say) i

Sausages and steaks all round, and the conch shells on the beach made handy holders for our grill!

We got to watch a pretty cool sunset, although it was slightly hidden by some humungous clouds!

and then the boys started up the bonfire.

Then it was time to enjoy some s'mores, it was Cam and Kevin's first time trying them and they got thumbs up all round! Who knows the next time we will all find ourselves toasting s'mores on the beach, so we made the most of it!

A shot where, for once, I'm on the other side of the camera!

By got arty with the reflecting flames in Cam's shades!

This morning Cam and Kevin got to put their skills in to practice and went out on a dive excursion with the company By has been working for.  

By also got to dive with them, and managed to take lots of awesome shots down under!

Here's Cam as he starts to explore around...

and an awesome shot of the air bubbles

Everyone gathered around to take a closer look at...

two sharks swimming right past each other! As By snapped this he was told to turn around where he caught this shark headed straight for him! 

Here's Kevin happily posing for Byron! 

 They saw alot of cool stuff today including this Southern Sting Ray....

and a ton of yellow tail snappers, these were the ones hitting By in the face last time around!

Check out the electric blue on that Striped Grunt! 

and just to prove Byron was under there too! Today was his 16th dive, and after doing two more at the end of this week he will have completed his advanced open water certification...just in time to head back to the U.K, and believe it or not Bangor Uni even has a diving club which he can join when we head there in September.

and what do hungry divers in the Turks and Caicos eat for dinner?

Conch of course...at Da Conch Shack

The wind was blowing like crazy again this evening, so we actually ate inside 'the shack' for once! and I thought this little window was cute with the palm leaves blowing outside.

We also took the opportunity to buy some amazing conch shells from the sellers on the beach right outside.  From Left to Right: Regular conch, Queen conch, King Conch, Baby conch.  These are going to make great little souvenirs back in England!

Loaded plates! didn't stay loaded for long! and for once I was actually asked to take this photo...to document the conch fest!

I can't believe we only have 4 days left with By's family, the time has flown by! By only has 6 more days on the Island and I only have 10! The countdown is on!

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!

Cupcakes, Coral and Chicken 'n' Ribs...and it's only Day 1!!

Jade is finally here!!! She arrived safe and sound yesterday afternoon and after picking me up from work we headed straight for Coral Gardens.  This was Jade's first glimpse of the amazing beaches here on Provo and she was pretty impressed! 

So we wasted no time and got on with some snorkelling, we saw a baby baracuda, parrot fish, puffer fish, a pretty big snapper and even a lionfish.  It wasn't a bad day at sea!  

We went home to get changed and ready for dinner and Jade gave me this amazing array of cupcakes she had brought me at 'Crumbs' cupcakery in New York!!!!!!!! I was beyond excited! This is why she is my best friend! She knows me too well! Not only did she bring me cupcakes but also a ton of my fave English chocolate and baking supplies! She is the best!

It was happy sunny times with our cupcakes! 

The problem was which one to choose because they all looked amazing and I could have happily scoffed the whole lot! but I settled on a mint choc one...best cupcake ever!!! They were seriously the best I had ever tasted!

Even Sunny wanted to get invovled! 

We ended the night at Tiki Hut for their Chicken 'n' Ribs special! Jade was particularly impressed with the ribs and enjoyed the setting right on the Marina.  Of course after that it was home to eat more and more of those yummy cupcakes and catch up on all the goss!

It was a great first day! and we're so excited to have Jade here and hope the next 5 days go super slow so we can enjoy every minute of her trip! 

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!!