Taylor Bay Beach

I made my first "online" friend while researching moving to Providenciales, Turks and
CaicosIslands(aka Provo or TCI ). Her name is Gem and she lived here last year before moving back to the UK. I was really trying to figure out what the church was like here, but ended up e-mailing her a million times to find out stuff and also being able to read her blog and find out a bunch of fun places to go to.  Thanks Gem!!

The closest beach to us is Grace Bay Beach. It's amazing! It usually has quite a few tourists, which is fun because the kids usually can find someone to play with. I read about Taylor Bay Beach on Gem's Blog and had to go! It's about 20 min away from us on the other side of the Island, but Kyle has been auditing at the airport over there, so i picked him after work and we went straight to the beach. Well after we drove around for half an hour being lost that is.

 finally found it! no signs of course! it is surrounded by really nice beach homes.

 walking down to the beach

we did see a few other people at the beach. they had found this starfish and took a pic of us all together. they were accountants from San Diego!  they left after about 15 min and then we had the beach to ourselves. 

this is what makes Taylor Bay Beach so great for kids! look how far out they are and its still soo shallow! we walked for 10 min out and it was just up to my knees. dekker was talking about it for days he was so excited to go out far and still touch. 

just like having our own private beach!

 hazel had the best time running around. instead of collecting sea-shells she's collecting coral because we learned all about it!

 

 dekker and i enjoying the beach right before he had an accident that i had to scrape out with twigs and leaves. right infront of the only other people there. a couple on their honeymoon enjoying the sunset! sadly there was no were to hide so they were traumitized and so was i.

love this beach house!

we stayed to watch the sun set! and then got eaten alive because we forgot bug spray...

Baptism on the Beach!

We knew that going to church in TCI would be different and I think this is the most different thing so far. After church today they had a baptism at the beach!

I thought it was so amazing- the Raymond baptismal font pales in comparison!

But Hazel made an anouncement on the way home that she wants to move back to Canada before she turns 8.

She doesn't want salt water to get in her eyes at her baptism!



Turks and Caicos

We made it. Finally. Our last couple weeks in Calgary were a bit of a mess and we sure appreciate everyone who helped us get out of and clean up our house. We couldn't have done it without some pretty key help especially from Darla and Kristine.

The flights down weren't that bad. The kids were reasonably well behaved. Definitely better than expected. The two layovers weren't bad. We checked 10 peices of luggage and they were all dangerously close to the 50lb. limit, but didn't go over! We were pretty proud of that one. We all had our max allowable carryon too, so we checked 10 and carried 8. Luckily when we went to board our second plane they told us that there was no overhead space left and we had to check some of the luggage. So we ended up getting four peices checked for free. This meant that we only had to carry around 4 pieces. The miracle was that all this luggage plus people fit into my new bosses vehicle when we met at the airport.

Immigration was a breeze even though the guy thought that something was wrong with my paperwork. It would have gone alot quicker except that we had a little potty break that delayed us getting through. I think it was the guys end of his shift or something because he was pretty brief.

Our place is pretty nice. Its a two bedroom two story place. A townhouse in a row of I think four houses. Both rooms have ensuite bathrooms. The main floor has kitchen, dining, and family rooms as well as a sitting porch out the back that is covered with screens. Pictures of the house may come later. We had to go through the kitchen as it was pretty gross when we got here. I think we did four loads of dishes before we really ate here. Literally four steps from our back door and you are standing at the pool. The other side of the pool is the tee for I think the 18th hole at the golf course. It is amazing not to have about a hundred houses surrounding us. The view out the front is into some jungle. Beyond the jungle is the beach (though we can't see it even from upstairs). No, we can't just walk through the jungle to the beach. There is alot of jungle and a road and it is too thick to walk through. If you go to google maps and search "the enclave, turks and caicos" you will see the group of houses. We are a little south of in in the enclave II, but it is too new and isn't on the map. You'll see we aren't a great walk to the beach.

On Friday we went out for lunch with a couple of the guys from work and they took us to a place called Mango Reef which was on the beach. It was amazing. The area closest to the beach is declared a national treasure or is a national park or something like that so there is no development within 20-30 feet of the sand, so it was as close as possible to the beach anyway. I think it is a restaurant we would like to go to more often. Prices were pretty comparable to Calgary. Lunch items were anywhere from 12-16. The kids menu was 10 each though. For a grilled cheese sandwich and noodles with no sauce. Oh well.

So onto today then. Zoe has made a few friends as a result of her trying to get information on the island and get prepared. One of them is a girl from the US named Joelle. She has been here with her family for about two years and she invited us to the beach by her house. Yes, she lives on the beach (as close as she is allowed to anyway). The beach was easily the most beautiful nature-type thing I have ever seen. Not quite as majestic as the mountains, but definitely more inviting. Here are the pictures.

Keep in mind that these were taken by me with our camera. Don't be fooled. That awesomeness is not fake or off some website for super amazing beaches. It is emerald point and it is where we live.

No editing! It is this pretty!

You can see how clear the water is

Zoe has yet to get her tan, but we promise you it will come.

No one else within sight either side of the beach.

So soft and squishy.

We will keep the pictures coming as we continue our adventure. One of the guys from work said that he will take us to see the house that the artist formerly known as Prince bought after coming to the island last year. Stay tuned . . .

Kyle D Stone CA

After 3 years of INSANE work, Kyle is officially a Chartered Accountant. We got to celebrate this weekend with his Grad Ceremony and the CA Ball.

Saturday afternoon was the Grad Ceremony.  He had his good friend Jay introduce him to the CA President.  Basically it's a roast/toast.  He talked about how funny Kyle is and made fun of his mustache endevors.  Talked about how hard it was for Kyle to do this with a wife and kids.  Also read a long blurb about "Mr Awesome" aka Kyle.  Also gave Kyle a chance to thank those people who helped him through the process.  I thought it was cute that Kyle thanked our kids for distracting him from all the stress of it and "allowing" him to play with them.

Saturday night was the CA Ball.  Kyle and I took full advantage of the chance to get gussied up and both bought ourselves new clothes.  Realisitcally it will probably be the only "Ball" we ever go to.  Except for the one I promised we would have for Hazel because she was sad she didn't get to come.

 Kyle and his mom and dad

My mom and dad and I

Honestly I just kept staring at kyle all night - he looked amazing in his suit!

What a good looking group!

Of course you can't go to a Ball in any old coat, so my mom brought up Grandma Ethel's fox fur coat.  You should have seen people stare at me!!  My mom's coat is a mink - so she actually looked good in hers!

Kyle has worked so hard to complete all the modules and to pass his UFE exam I still can't believe that he's done it!  He is such a good man and I am so very blessed to have him as my husband.

hayden blessing

normally i wouldn't post about my newest niece haydens blessing, but i was going through my pics and realized i haven't sent these to iv yet (sorry), so here ya go!

 cutest booties ever, i think iv's friend actually made them!

 

 

 hello gorgeous

honestly - what is cuter than this?

July 1

Is it possible to do a summer re-cap without july 1? i think not

 hazel and britton as the two headed monster at one of the many marshmallow roasts.

 auntie keelia with her "mini me's" at the magrath super slide

 hazel lovin the slide

parade day with cuzins boston everson and noah

 dash eying dekker's sucker

 hazel with cuzins jesse jane and hunter

 hazel and i at the fire works

 what is know as "THE cuzins party".  rained out this year, so off to the movies!

july 1 is always a highlight, second to christmas only. if your from raymond, you know what i mean.

OH NO! face

Dekker really likes to hit things. a lot. but he also has a soft side and gets scared easily. and when he does he does something that i thought only happened in the movies...

he holds his cheeks! why? i don't know, but it is dang cute!

HAPPY LATE 29TH!

Kyle is 2 1/2 years my junior, so it's always a bit hard for me as a math challenged person to actually figure out how old he is, i wouldn't bet money on it, but i'm thinking 29. Anyways I'm trying to catch up on a few highlights of the summer and obviously can't skip Kyle's b-day.
Not because we did anything spectacular, but because Kyle is spectacular! (i just made that up right now)

I am constantly telling him he is "a man to ride the river with".  And am I ever glad that he is my man!

The worst day of my whole life!

Dekker is already turning into a pesky little brother.  He loves to throw and kick and poke and hit everything (including his sister). He never does it meanly, hitting is just a fun game to him. It's strange, I know at some piont this will bug me, but right now it makes me smile because he is just such a boy!

A couple of weeks ago he was poking Hazel right before supper and she came to me bawling uncontrollably.  She kept saying "this is the worst day of my whole life."  Of course I had to give her a real tight hug so she wouldn't see my smiling.  She was right -it may have been the worst day in her 4 1/2 years of life.  But how great is that?  We are very blessed to have a very plain, normal, lovely life.  We always have food, we have a nice little house, and we love each other.  I know life isn't always gonna be this uncomplicated, so I am enjoying every second of it!

my 1/2

There is something about being pregnant for 9 months and then nursing for 13 months that makes you really appreciate your body.  I'm very happy to "share" it with my kids, but after I was done nursing Dekker I was dying to use my body for something just for me. So I decided to run a half marathon this spring. I really lucked out cuz the weather was amazing during my training in jan, feb, march and april!  I only ran on a treadmill twice.  Most of my runs were at 9 or 9:30 at night when Kyle got home from work. It was busy season so he would get home and work from home till midnight and I would go run.  I'm a night hawk so I loved running at night, you can even see a few stars here in calgary.


It's no secret that I despise the cold in canada.  While I was running I would often make up "awesome" things about winter running. here are a few ...
- never getting too hot
- being so cold that your speed increases because you are in such a hurry to get inside again
- if your muscles are frozen, you can't feel how tired they are
- avoiding ice patches and snow totally helps agility
- if you close your eyes while running on snow, it feels just like sand on a beach

I ran the Salt Lake City half, so we made a little family vacation out of it.  The only downside to that was everyone but me being sick, and I slept horribly the night before my race, 3 hours of actual sleep.  But I still actually ran my whole race and had an awesome time! My only regret is not pushing myself harder.

It's been 7 years since I ran my full marathon in ogden and when people would ask me if I was a runner, I would hesitate, was I?  This week I had a patient ask me if I was a runner and I said yes.

this reminds me of those cheesy "chocolate" emails with black men in them.

i would never choose chocolate over the "white chocolate" picture above!!

sorry Kyle i just couldn't resist.

Hazel had a blast swimming

Dekker had fun too, but isn't quite the water baby that Hazel was at his age.

my fave pic of the whole trip!

We went to visit Payton in Provo. We went out to eat and then went back to his apartment to help him clean and move. I helped him clean the bathroom and it took us 45 min to scrub it down - it was NASTY! It was fun spending time with him, even if it was one of the grossest experiences of my life (and I clean teeth for a living!)  


Keelia was busy making national news this weekend with her BYU rugby team.  They made it to Nationals and due to a scheduling error they were supposed to play Sunday.  They refused and ended up in newspapers all over the country, including the New York Times.


Oh I forgot to mention that while I ran a gruelling 13.1 mile race, Payton escaped his slum, and Keelia made national news, never to be outdone, my sister Ivory went through a speedy labour and gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.  It was totally easy for her cuz it was so fast and she didnt' even NEED pain medication (right iv?).  Welcome to the family Hayden!