My Birthday and trip to Grand Turk

I really got spoiled this year for my birthday! I spent the day at the beach with my folks and the kids while Kyle was at work.

 He came home early and made me my favorite cupcakes from scratch. In the words of my father "Kyle is just too good to be true!" - Agreed!

My favorite cupcakes. TO DIE FOR!

That night I got to go out with Kyle to Opus and have Lobster (YUM!).

If you look closely you can see the ocean from our room!

Then two days later I got to go to Grand Turk - which is another island here in Turks and Caicos. Kyle had been working there so he would have to take the 1/2 hr flight every day, but had the option of staying overnight, so I went and met him! We again got to eat an amzing dinner - a fish fry by the pool on the beach.




I woke up early and went for a little jog and then went and rented a bike to explore the island with.  Even though I would have loved to spend the day with Kyle, he had to work, so I really enjoyed spending the whole day alone. Never thought I would say that!

Grand Turk is completely different from Providenciales. It is a much smaller island in size (7x1.5 miles) with a population the same as Raymond.  It is such a cute little island with a ton of character! It's home the TCI's Capitol - Cockburn Town. From 1600-1900's it was a huge player in the salt industry. Around 1940 fridges became houshold items and salt wasn't needed to preserve food. See how much I learned?

Don't you wish this was your classic car parked at your house on the beach?  I do.

Are you tempted?

"Main Street" The post office and church below face onto the ocean.

Columbus may have first hit land in Grand Turk - that's what they're claiming anyways.

On my bike ride to the lighthouse.

This is not what Providenciales (the island we live on) looks like. It almost made me feel like I was back in Canada to see so far!

Grand Turk was the landing place of this astronaut who landed in the ocean nearby in 1962 after the first succesful manned  orbit of the earth. It's hard to believe some guy fell from outerspace in this little thing and actually lived.

Grand Turk lighthouse

I fell in love with all the beautiful old homes there. Apparently it's Bermudian architecture from the Salt and Colonial Era.  The one at the top is my favorite, but I couldn't figure out how to write under it.

I went to a couple beaches and the sand here isn't nearly as fine as it is in Providenciales. If you have a stop in Grand Turk on your cruise ship, don't waste all your time on the beach or shopping - take a cab over to old Cockburn town! If your planning a trip to TCI I would almost say skip Provodenciales and go straight to Grand Turk, but the beach in Provo is just too good to pass up! 

After my day as Lance Armstrong I met up whith Kyle and one of the local guys gave us a ride to the airport. He knew I had been riding around all day and asked me how I liked it. I told him I loved it and that I felt like I saw all that there was to see. He smiled and said "are you sure?"  I told him how I had biked all the way up the the light house and all the way down to the cruise center. He was really suprized and told me that yes I had in fact seen everything! I was sooo exhausted after, it was 14 miles of biking or more (I got lost a few times) and the last time I rode a bike was 7 years ago. How sad is that?

So while I was galavanting around the kids were with my parents at Taylor Bay (see below) catching starfish and having a blast with Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Oh and Kyle was of course hard at work!

Day to day

So I've been thinking lately that I need to write a post about what life is like here. Just the random things and what we do in a week. So here goes:

MONDAY - Hazel school, Mom and Dekker play group and keep house. Kyle Work.
After school Hazel has soccer. Then there is the nightly make supper, eat, FHE and bedtime rush. Kyle could play floor Hockey on Monday nights, but it seems like he has to work in the evenings a lot.

TUESDAY - Hazel school. Dekker and I play (biking, swimming, walks, soccer, baseball, toys)
do errands and normal at home stuff. Kyle Work.  Most days we pick up Hazel at school at 3 and then we come back to our condo and play with 5-10 of the neighbor kids on the path along the golf course.  Riding bikes, scootering, playing with sticks, rocks, haing races, playing soccer, swimming, building forts etc.  The canadian guidline for amount of physical activity kids are supposed to have is 1 hr a day.  In Canada I found this imposible about 7 months of the year. I'm not a "lets go play in the -20 snow and wind" type person.  So my kids didn't get much physical activity unless you count walking around ikea or the mall randomly.  Here it has been the opposite. My kids get AT LEAST 2 hrs of physical activity a day. Hazel even started the "after school club" with the nighbor kids and they have scheduled activities like "do summersaults, and play with the big bouncy balls"  So ya I guess this is one of my favorite things here.

WEDNESDAY - Hazel school. Dekker and I more of the same at home. Kyle Work.  Hazel had Glee club after school on Wednesdays and she really liked it. It just ended. More of the backyard gang. Kyle or I could go play indoor soccer, but i didn't bring my shoes (who knew indoor soccer would be available here?) and once again kyle is often busy with work.

THURSDAY -  Hazel school. Dekker school until noon. My favorite day of the week! I usually go for a run on the beach, read a book on the beach, go snorkling, etc. Kyle and I have gone on an earlys lunch date a few times and are trying to do this 1-2x per month.  After school is more playing with the neighbor kids.  The second reason I love thursdays is because I get to go play Rugby. It's co-ed and its flag rugby, but I LOVE IT. I don't know if it's because it's a totally new sport to me, or what. I guess it's always great to learn something new. They have Rugby for kids on Saturday's that I'm hoping to get Hazel into if we are here next year. I'm already plotting Hazel and Dekkers rugby superstardom.

FRIDAY - I try to go do a big bike ride with Dekker to the beach on friday mornings. We are also making having Dekkers friend Jack over on Friday afternoons a habit. After school on fridays Hazel has Ballet (she's only gone 4 times and she is already not sure if it's for her - I'm not gonna lie, that doesn't make me sad at all! I would way rather have her excited about something else than ballet. It does seem pretty boring. Now that she has had a chance with ballet I'm hoping to have her try jazz or hip hop or something.

SATURDAY -  I coach the 3 yr olds soccer on Saturday mornings here. It is a blast! Dekker really likes it and we mostly play shark/ pirate/ go score/ treasure hunt/ monster themed games that just so happen to involve kicking around a ball while your playing or hitting someone's legs with the ball (the monsters) or scoring on the coach etc. It's amazing how good their ball handling skills get so quick even when they are so young.  Hazel used to go to soccer at the same time with kyle, but most of the girls her age dropped out and so she doesn't want to go on saturdays because it's too competitive and all boys. Mondays it is a different coach who does games like I do and she is my friend and so she lets Hazel go in her group (5 yr olds) because there aren't any 6 yr old girls besides hazel. Lame.

After soccer we go to the church once a month to clean (how I miss the days when you got assigned to go clena the church once a year!).  Every week we try to do saturdays work, for the kids it involves spraying and wiping our big sliding doors and the mirrors and taking out the trash and cleaning their rooms. It's usually a struggle, but we try to hurry them along by reminding them that we get to go swim or to the beach after. We always try to get the kids to go to the beach (saturday is the only day kyle gets the chance to go) but for some reason our kids would way rather go to the pool. But if we do "make" them go to the beach they love it and never want to leave!

SUNDAY - Church is at 10.  I'm the 1st councillor in Primary and its just me and Sonya, the President running the whole thing.  It's goes pretty good most weeks, I love working with Sonya and we are both pretty laid back about the whole thing.  I try to take the younger ones to nursery the first hour and then I bring them in to the primary room the second hour and do sharing and singing time.  We have anywhere from 5-13 kids every week. Kyle just got called to the Branch Presidency (can't remember which councillor he is?)  He doesn't find much has chanced in what he was doing before I don't think. His first week of conducting was this week and besides almost skipping sacrament he did a great job!  We love our branch and although we do miss the well oiled machine of a large ward, we really enjoy all the experiences that come along with an almost brand new branch (the church has officially been in the country for 3 yrs). 
Sunday afternoons we go to the back yard and play, or watch a movie as a family or spend at church and the beach for a baptism (we have at least one a month).

So there you have it. Probably quite boring for most of you, but I know for me looking back I will wonder what we did when we lived in TCI.

Although I love it here and I am not ready to leave, I do miss some things about civilization. Of course topping that list is our Family and Friends. A few other things like Shopping (mainly value village (tear)and H&M) Having nice hair, Having my own house with my own stuff, Having disposable income, Sewing, Decorating, hmm I guess thats it!

What I don't miss is the hectic life. At the time I didn't think it was a rat race, but now that I look back it sort of was.  I don't think i was living any differently then any one else. I spent a lot of time wanting and buying things I didn't really need. I think I wasted a lot of time doing things that were basically distractions. I LOVE some of those distractions and miss them, but it's nice to have a break.  I don't wear makeup here, except sundays. Sometimes I miss looking cute, but no-one else wears makeup here so I almost feel over dressed if I even have mascara on!  Hair? Oh I gave up on that a LONG time ago. I either wear it down for that "bad perm" look or up in a bun. or in a braided pony tail. Yucky, but I just avoid looking in the mirror. I don't shop. a. I can't afford it   b. everyone else i know has been wearing the same 7 outfits for the last yr so why bother?  I'm not gonna lie, I miss having new cute clothes though! I DO read, a lot. I've read more books since moving here, then I probably did the whole rest of my life combined. One week I read 3. yup 3!!!

Ok now I am done. I need to do posts about our visitors we've had and christmas etc. one day.

Dekker is 3!

Dekker really looked forward to his birthday this year - he was excited for the presents, cake and most importantly to wear real underwear to bed (no more pull ups). We unknowingly started a new tradition with Hazel's birthday this year.  She opened her present from Dekker the night before her birthday so she insisted that Dekker open his present from her the night before - and viola - we will be opening presents from siblings forevermore the night before!  Dekker also didn't have a friends party this year! Kids parties here on the island are a bit differnet and we were'nt ready to commit to everything involved. First of all - at birthday parties aren't just for kids - parents come and stay the whole time. Which would be great, but the parents here are used to having the hosts provide alcohol at the kids party! A lady at the branch was telling me they couldn't afford to have a party for her son and I was so confused because I knew she could afford a cake (she brought one to church for him) and I figured what else do you need?  But that was before I knew she would have to have an open bar for all her non-member family and friends (her hubby is not a member as well). 

Anyways long story long - we decided to have a bonfire on the beach for Dekker and invite his little friend Dafka and her family.  His birthday was a school holiday so we got up and opened presents first thing before Kyle left for work and then we spent the day at the pool and preparing for the beach.

Once we got to the beach Kyle built a great fire and we roasted hot dogs.  Completely normal for us - but my friend Joelle had never heard of cooking hot dogs on the fire - the horror! Luckily her hubby had done it before so she didn't think we were crazy. We also had smores and a Spiderman birthday cake! Sidenote - Dekkers favorite food right now is hot dogs and he didn't like the marshmallows cooked - he ate them "raw".  It was a really lovely night out under the stars right on the beach with the fire blazing.  We couldn't believe we'd been here almost 4 months and hadn't done this yet!

Dekker first and formost is a goof - I have a million pictures of him pulling crazy faces. He loves nothing more than to get someone to laugh at him. He has a great smile. Dekker comes into our room every morning carrying his shirt, shorts and undies - he is so excited to get dressed for the day. He loves being a BIG BOY and will always correct me if I call him my little boy. When he grows up he wants to be "a pirate and then a Dada".  He is an amazing swimmer and loves to brag to people that he can swim under the water - he can swim in the deep end easily now. He loves riding his bike, playing swords, playing cars, playing with his sister, being mommy's helper in the kitchen, and playing with his superhero figurines. He's a bit shy with strangers. He loves to play fight. He definitly has some ladies wrapped around his finger and I've had quite a few moms tell me he should be a child model. He is so fun to be around and I love everything about him!

here is one of the many crazy faces!

watching a movie while waiting for the rain to go away so we can swim!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BIG BOY!

HAPPY BELATED 7TH ANNIVERSARY!

I  booked the kids and my flights back from Canada on August 28 and then realized after the fact that August 28 was our Anniversary - Isn't it the husband's job to forgot his anniversary?! oops.  So almost 2 months later we finally lined up a babysitter and went out to celebrate 7 years of marrieage.

We wanted to do something different this year and take advantage of where we are so we went scuba diving - which of course we have done a bit with in shallow water with the kids. But we went to Smith's Reef which is a really beautiful area and we felt like we were watching National Geographic because there were so many cool fish! I was scuba certified when I went to BYU Hawaii, but they must have taken us to not great areas when we went scuba diving - because I didn't see anything this cool!  TCI coral reef is second in size only to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia - so I guess it's an amazing place to scuba dive and snorkel.

We went straight from the beach to "Somewhere" a mexican restuarant I've been dying to go to. It was super yummy and had a great view of the beach. 

Then we went back down to the water and found that if you splash the water the famous glow worms light up! So that was fun, until I started to feel like they were biting/electricuiting me! So we headed home.

Don't you just love kyle's garage sale beach hat?

wouldn't it be great to live up in these hills on the ocean?

 The view from Somewhere





 

Seven years ago I made the best decision in my life and married this amazing man!

I'm glad we got a chance to celebrate!