I can finally say that I managed to get enough sun to get some color.

I am now a slight shade of red.  :-(

Whilst yesterday was a pretty boring day, involving very little of note or interest, today was an entirely different matter.

The day started out with an early rise.  Okay so it was 7:30am, but that is the earliest we've been up all week.  We headed over to Reflections for breakfast, and then went over to the Island Tours booth in the main lobby to check-in for our for our catamaran cruise.  Apparently we were too eager to go, since when we arrived at 9:00am, we were told to come back at 9:30am.

Oh well...by 10:00am we were embarking on the 3+ hour catamaran cruise, which started off with a short jaunt over to one of the reefs, were most of the guests on the boat (approxiamtely 30+) disembarked in full snorkel gear to check out the reef.

Talk about friggin' amazing.  I am so glad I decided to wear my contacts today!  Amazingly colorful fish of all sizes.  Lots of caves to wonder at.  Tons of pretty vegetation of all shapes and sizes.  I now think I understand the allure of scuba diving.

We re-embarked, had some beverages (to wash out the interest and yet still nasty taste of saltwater), and continued on to our second destination: Iguana Island.

We didn't see any iguanas, since we didn't go looking for them, (but apparently there are many on the island), but did get to see one of the catamaran crew trying to 'empty' a King Conch of it's resident.  He said, he's lived in the area 30 years, and he'd never seen one so big, which he apparently had to dive to the bottom of the reef to collect.

We then walked along the shore collecting seashells (Arianna is real good a collecting pretty, albeit broken shells).  After heading back to the catamaran, we were treated to some photo ops of a massive sting ray, that I can only guess had a 5-6 foot 'wingspan'.  We then had a bite to eat as we headed back to the resort.

Later in the afternoon we, went for some pizza at Gordon's outdoor grill, and while we waited for our pizzas to be baked, we stopped in at the Cultural Market, located right next door to the resort.  Lots of gimmicky things that could be purchased at a dollar store for a lot cheaper, but they did have a number of unique looking hand-made items that we picked up as souvenirs for ourselves, our friends and family.

After picking up our pizzas, we went back to our room, showered, had a nap, and prepared to leave at 6:15 to meet one of the resort's photographers who offered to do a family photo shoot, which turns out to be a free service to the resort guests.  We'll get to look at the images tomorrow morning, where I imagine we'll pay an arm and a leg to have the digitals burned to disc.

We later stopped in at at Bobby D's for a light bite to eat.

Before heading to bed, we packed up all of our luggage and carry on bags, since the resort wants to pick up all the luggage for the day's flights at 8am.  Yikes!

On one hand, it's been a great week away from home, and there's probably more things we could spend our money on.  But on the other hand, I'm kinda thinking it'd be nice to be home, even though that does mean mosquitoes and going back to work on Monday.

The stingey staff at the hotel finally came through with the complimentary honeymoon package this morning, and we had breakfast delivered to our room.  Food was so-so.

After breakfast, we got into our swimming suits and took Arianna to the water park.  We must have spent 2 and a half hours there, watching Arianna run up to the top of the slides and slide down, only to need bailing out at the bottom because the currents were too strong.  :-)

On our way to the beach, we got some ice cream and pizza.  I don't know what it is about water/swimming.  Any food, no matter how good or bad, tastes awesome!

Once at the beach, we stopped in at the "water sports booth" and picked up some snorkeling gear for Arianna, since she'd been bugging us for 3 days now to go snorkeling.  Let's just say that that is an experience best told in pictures, and...well...er...we didn't have a camera with us.

Today was something of a lazy day.  I slept in until 10am (or something like that), and we took so long to get rolling this morning, that we missed breakfast.  That was okay with me though, since that meant we could go to Sydney's Grill for burgers!

Mmmmm...Burgers for breakfast!!!

We all spent a few hours in the ocean.  Got a bunch of really nice photos of ourselves, as well as some wildlife and some massive vessels in the ocean.

Overall, today seemed to be hotter than the last few days, but that could be the result of the wind shifting (come across the island as opposed to coming off the ocean), or perhaps the humidity was simply higher.  Either way, we spent a few late afternoon hours in our room, since we've all started to show signs of minor sun burns, none of which seem to need the aloe treatment!  (thank goodness).

For dinner, we stopped at Giuseppe's, a mediteranian buffet.  Their "focus" for today was greek dishes.  I think I may have eaten too much.  hehe.

The day started out in a lazy kind of way, primarily because we had and off-resort expedition to attend at 1pm.  We had breakfast at Reflections (the international buffet), where Arianna finally ate her fill. 

After getting ready for our expedition, we went over to the main lobby for 1pm and waited for the other guests who were attending the same tour.  The tour directors, a husband and wife team, then drove everybody to the Turtle Cove Marina, where we proceeded to jump onto their "semi-submersible" boat.  In effect the boat is much like any other, except that the passenger cabin, is 6 feet underwater and made primarily of glass, which is really handy for being able to see the Coral Reefs within the Princess Alexandria National Park.

On our tour, we got to see tons of Coral Reefs, dozens of species of fish, as well as a few Sea Turtles, and a Manta Ray.  We've got tons and tons of photos to go through and share!

Upon our return we headed to the water park so Arianna could get some swimming time in, and headed over to "Bobby D's Diner" for an early supper.  The food was fabulous, even though it was simply burgers, fries and shakes!

We later looked through the wedding photos that Mike and Tami had provided for us on CD, and realized we all had the munchies, so we headed over to the French Village and had some pastries and desserts at the "Paris Cafe".  Suffice to say, we'll not be going back.

On our return route to our room after the cafe, we stopped along the ocean front and watched the sunset.  What a sight!  I'm going to have to remember to take my camera and tripod for any trips that we do around the 7:00pm-8:00pm hour.

After Jan woke up from her nap, Arianna wanted to go swimming (again), but this time, she specifically wanted to go on the water slides.  Unfortunately, the water slides close at the same time as all the life guards go off duty at 4pm.

So, Jan and Arianna decided to float down the lazy river on inner tubes.  Fortunately, the current on the lazy river was (mostly) intact and they both got to enjoy the time together, as I snapped off a boat load of photos.

After swimming, we went for dinner at "Barefoot by the Sea", a fairly small upscale restaurant on the resort site, that served Caribbean seafood.  To say the least, there wasn't much for Arianna, and little that tickled Jan's fancy, so that had some roasted chicken.  I, on the other hand, opted for something I wouldn't normally have; Snapper Tempura.  Very Very Nice!

As we ate dinner, we got an opportunity to watch the sunset.  Apparently, this is about as late as sunset gets around these parts 8:00pm-8:30pm.  What a difference from back home; the 'land of perpetual twilight'.

As the sun set, the stars came out.  Holy smokes!  Talk about an almost complete lack of light pollution!

As we walked back to our room, I came to realize that a difference of nearly 30 degrees of latitude is huge!  I got to see the complete constellation of Scorpius for the first time ever.  Even in California last fall, we were missing the southern most stars.

I think I'm going to have to follow my buddy Mike's recommendation and get some sky time in this week, and try to find Omega Centauri.

Geez...we can't even sleep in while on vacation.  Today was another fabulous day, although Arianna was up at 6:00am, and Janessa and I were up at 7:00am. 

Walking out the front door of our hotel room was like a brick-wall; temperature and humidity were already starting to be stifling; and it wasn't even 9am yet.  Breakfast was at Schooner's Restaurant, an outdoor cafe style restaurant, maybe 50 metres from the ocean.  The best parts of the meal was the scenery and the breeze; as the food was only so so.

On the way back from breakfast to our hotel room we walked along the beach and took in teh beautiful sight of the ocean and sky meeting.  I still can't get over how blue both are.  I made a specific point of taking some pictures in anticipation of putting together a panoramic photo of Grace Bay (which is where the Beaches Resort is located).  I hope to splice these together soon.

After returning to our room, we proceeded to get changed into our swim suits and slather on the sunscreen.

On the way to the pool, we stopped in at the front desk, registered for one of the private tours that are offered (for a slightly more than nominal fee), and (having brought the laptop), sent off a couple of quick emails to friends and family, annoucing our safe arrival, since the internet has been (and remains) down in our room.

I know three of the pools were heated, but for crying out loud...why do you need to heat a pool when the ambient temperature) is 24+ degrees celsius?!  Te pool was disgustingly warm.  Kind of like the kiddies pool at the YMCA.  yuck.

I think Janessa and I lasted all of about 5 minutes, and decided the ocean would be better!  We were right.  The ocean was cool; the breeze was sweet; everything was awesome!  We must have spent 3 hours in the water!

We proceeded to Sidney's Grill, an outdoor bbq and smoker walk-up buffet.  The burgers were excellent!  The smoked Chicken was fantastic!  The jerk pork was awesome!

After lunch, we got changed out of our (still wet) bathing/swimming gear, and went for a walk around the resort, snapping photos, checking out the on-resort mall, ate some ice cream, played some video games at the XBOX garage and finally picked up some souvenirs at the shop.

Got back to our room, and Jan fell asleep, exhausted.  I guess the heat, humidity and pregnancy are getting to her.

So after a fitful 3 hours of sleep, everyone in the house was finally awake (not that it took much), and were ready to roll. Everybody was raring to go on our Caribbean holiday/honeymoon.

As expected the drive to the airport was, well, dark. The James Richardson International Airport was empty. And nothing (or anybody), including the Tim Horton's in the airport, were fully functional.

Check-in with Air Canada was smooth. Clearing through Security was simple and straight-forward. Embarcation onto the airplane was smooth and efficient. Arianna, who was also awake since 1am, was raring to go for her first plane trip.

Apart from landings, where Arianna's ears were hurting from the pressure changes, both flights were smooth. The airport at Providiciales, was a small, single runway airport, where not one, but three narrow body planes had landed (Air Canada, Delta-Northwest and American). The ariport was so small, we had to actually disembark onto th tarmac and walk to the terminal. The Turks & Caicos Immigration was very busy, and there were throngs of people patiently waiting their turns to clear through.

Luggage finally in hand, we cleared through customs (a very simple process in comparison to Canada). Proceeded outside into the hot sun, where we waited for a taxi to take us to the hotel.

I don't think I'll ever get over driving on the left-side of the road, especially with all them crazy drivers. I think our taxi driver was the craziest of the bunch!

Once at the hotel, we checked in, proceeded to our room and lounged in the coolness of our air conditioned room for about an hour. The only cold drinks in the room was booze; but none of us were drinking.

We later got into our bathing suits and proceeded to the ocean (which is short 1 minute walk from our room). Booya! Man...I do love the ocean!!!

We took arianna to the water park, where she proceeded to yell and scream (with joy and amusement) on the two fastest water slides for a paltry two hours.

Headed back to the hotel, got changed into some dry clothes and went for dinner at Reflections; an "international buffet". Holy smokes...what a spread of food. Serving staff were awesome!

Got back to our room about 7:00pm, watched TV for about 15 minutes as Arianna wrote in her "Travel Journal", a homework assignment from her teacher....and conked out for the night, at 7:15pm.

Today was a travel day for us, as we headed southbound to Fargo, North Dakota in advance of this weekend's MinnKota cat show; a two-day "spectacle" during which both Jan and Arianna will be participating as exhibitors.

For the most part the travel was pretty normal.  Normal that is, except for all the bloody water.  The red River has risen to levels, which although lower than last year's record flood, are still sufficiently high to require that many towns and homes are still required to close off their dikes and sandbag their homes.

Even the water levels was pretty, well, ho-hum.  We've seen this before and we'll invariably see this again.

As much as i don't really want to see families struggle with the rising waters each year, there is one site, that I've seen (now twice) during the high-water season that makes up our Manitoba annual flooding.

As we were travelling southward on the I-29 (after waiting 65 minutes inline at the Pembina Border Crossing), against the incredible dull gray skies that beckoned coming rains, I saw a small flock of birds, a flock of roughly 15-20 individuals.  Having seen a number of seagulls squawking around the waters, I had initially assumed these to be seagulls.  But then I thought to myself that I have never before seen seagulls flying in flocks.  I looked more closely, and realized that these birds had the whitest feathers that I had ever seen.

As we drove closer I quickly realized that these birds, were most definitely not seagulls.  Heck, they had long necks.

Pure white birds.  Long Necks.  Small black marking near the head.

Holy Crap!  These were swans.

A Soaring Score of Swans!

Ok...so the aliteration is a bit much.  But I must say that I've never seen anything as beautiful as a flock of swans.

I've been told by numerous people that I'm a tough person to shop for. So with that in mind, I'm starting to put together this list of items that would be useful as gift giving ideas.

Movies on Blu-Ray

Movies on DVD

Camera & Accessories

Telescopes & Accessories

Other Misc Items

Music