Happy Birthday Skylar!!!

We're wondering if Skylar could hear us from here when we sang Happy Birthday today! :)

So didn't get to take a lot of pics today.  Last night we woke up around 3am bc it was blazing hot in our room.  For some reason we didn't use the AC right last night, so needless to say we were tired when we woke up this AM.


Nelson went on his crazy long run this morning and I just relaxed on the beach and in our room.


Around 1ish, we went back to our chairs and bumped into our new friends from Phoenix, Matt and Katie.  We had a nice chat and Katie ended up coming with us to the nearby reef, about 1/2 mile away from our hotel.


It was pretty cool actually.  I took the underwater camera but unfortunately it fogged up! so no photos, boo! I do have a lot in my memory though.


Here's some fish that we saw:

there were a lot of these guys - Blue Tangs

parrot fish - we saw these guys eat algae off of the coral.  I could hear them chomping away!

After we were done snorkeling, we walked back to our resort and relaxed before the Manager's Cocktail hour at our place.  They had a lot of great hors d'oeuvres and free wine and rum punch.  What was even great was that we ate enough that we didn't have to go out to dinner, so saved about 100 bucks tonight, woohoo!

This is Joe, the Hospitality Manager aka The Mayor of The Alexandra Resort.   Nelson noticed that Joe was wearing a shirt that he brought to T&C so Nel decided to wear it to the cocktail party to have some fun :) Joe kept on saying that they were gonna play in a band later.

 Some people on line for punch and wine.

The pool view from the party

Matt and Katie were at the party so we had fun talking with them and then afterwards we went to watch the sunset.  We also had a mini fun photo shoot.

Katie and Matt from Arizona, very photogenic

 Katie was a great photographer

 Who needs a Beaches photographer, when you get it right at The Alexandra?

Another pretty shot

We are watching Finding Nemo right now to prepare us for our Scuba Trip tomorrow.  Hopefully we will have more photos/videos for our blog tomorrow. Have a great night!

A busy but relaxing day

Boy are we tired!

We woke up early to get our seats and we were lucky to get 2 with an umbrella.  At 8am we went for a run on the beach, Nelson ran about 5 miles, and I ran/walked about 3 miles.

Later in the morning was an orientation at our hotel about restaurants and such.  We went to that, especially since they had free pastries and watermelon! We met another young couple from Phoenix, both very nice, Katie and Matt.

Our view during the orientation

 We hung out on the beach for a few hours.  Nelson and I both took our turns in the water.   So here are some photos…

Hundreds of Minnows!

Ahhhh

Nelson enjoying baby conch hunting

There he goes

What a cute little girl

After the sun, we decided to go in the direction we went on our run today to find a dive shop and a small supermarket.  We walked another 3 miles in the sun!  Along our walk, we saw a Canadian man with a STAR FISH!

a huge starfish! Reminds me of the starfish in Finding Nemo 

Here's the starfish catcher.  Don't worry, he's putting the guy back.  Also apparently there's more starfish where that came from.  Nelson and I will be searching for them tomorrow.

Stopped to take a photo on our walk

On our walk back home to our hotel, we saw some monkeys…

And another wedding! Or maybe a renewal of vows? Either way, it made us smile

We got to our room and quickly got ready for our dinner at Hemingway's Restaurant, another restaurant just walking distance away.

 We just got our apps.

 Crab cake and..

Conch Salad - very light and refreshing

Dinner for me - Grouper Vera Cruz

Nelson got Thai Chicken Stir Fry

We figured out that the prime time to have dinner on the beach is about 6:45 ish bc you can see the sun set. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Our view from our dinner table

Another pretty lantern at our table

Not only is the sunset beautiful, but the moon is huge too so here are some pics…

Ok time for bed, I’m exhausted.  No excursions tomorrow, but waking up early again to work out, attack the chairs, and relax.  

Our 2nd Sunny Day

Good evening folks.  It’s 8:45pm here, same as in NY and CT.  So we are living by the motto: early to bed, early to rise here in Turks.  Not only because we are old farts, but also because this morning we realized that you have to claim your chairs and umbrellas at the crack of dawn.  We got down to the beach at around 10am, and all chairs and umbrellas were taken.  We just camped out on the sand like we would do in any of the North Atlantic beaches. 

One thing though that I didn’t account for was the amount of sun that we would be getting.  I know that sounds absurd, but honestly I didn’t think it would be that strong.  Luckily we have 4 bottles of SPF (30 and 50’s) and today we didn’t get burned.  I’m a real chicken when it comes to getting burned. It’s no joke people! :)

We brought our underwater casing for the camera and here are some pics:

Underwater sand pic

  

 Nelson diving down

Nelson loves discovering underwater stuff and today he was a proud baby conch shell hunter.  Here are some of his discoveries:

 Aren’t the baby ones so cute?

After hours of being in the sun we came back to our room to this surprise on our bed…

 How did they know that we are so in love with swans? :)

We got ready to go out to dinner again tonight.  The way you get to restaurants is just to walk on the beach to go to the restaurants nearby at other resorts/hotels.   There is a restaurant at our place, but we figured venturing out for the first few nights may be a good idea. 

On the way to the restaurant, I got so excited to see a wedding at the beach!!!  I made Nelson take out the camera to snap some.

It was very sweet.  Hmmm anyone changing their mind about getting married on the beach in Turks and Caicos? Tehehehe

We ate dinner at Bay Bistro, which is much closer than the restaurant that we went to last night and the food was delicious.  While we were eating dinner, the mother and daughter from Switzerland ended up passing us.  We were so surprised to see them again. This time they were with an older couple from the south.  They seemed a little, hmmm, rude bc the gentleman cut off the Switzerland woman to tell her that their table was ready for them.  Either way, it was nice to see some friendly faces.

Enjoying some Chilean Red Wine

I forgot to take pics of the entrée (herb crusted mahi mahi & some other seafood dish) but here are some pics of the appetizer and dessert.

Conch Wontons (#1 winner of some conch competition for years)

Flourless chocolate cake = Yummy

pretty lantern at our table

Side of Restaurant

The man that took this picture was really tan and I mean REALLY tan.  His wife was a little bit younger than him and they were both really nice.  I asked, "Where ya from?"  She said, "Oh we live here."  Must be nice! :)

After dinner, we walked by the wedding and noticed a huge bonfire.  It was nice and warm.  We tried to get close to the wedding, but didn’t want to seem like we were crashing.

So nice and toasty warm

You can't tell, but I'm dancing to the music that's playing at the wedding behind me 

 We will renew our vows here! 

Here’s a cool artsy photo that Nelson took of the moon.  Doesn’t it look like lightning?

BTW, if you ever come to Turks and Caicos, dinner will be around $100/pop and that’s with a glass of wine.  We will be planning on going to the supermarket to get some stuff for other nights bc it can be very pricey.  Also, the other downside is that the supermarket is not close by.  You have to take a taxi there and it’s about 10-15 per person.  Luckily I packed PB&J, bread, nature valley bars, cereal, and popcorn bags.  In our hotel, we don’t have a stove, but we do have a toaster, microwave, minifridge, and blender.  We’ve been eating our own bfast and lunch.  

Tomorrow, we’re gonna fight for our lives to get our chairs, work out in the AM, and then not sure.  We have a couple of excursions planned for later on in the week. 

We will now watch some Indiana Jones in our room and pass out! Night night!