SHARK!!!!

Tim and Tanner went fishing last night and caught this shark. It is a reef shark. The shark is almost as big as Tanner is. We have been wanting to eat some shark for quite some time. We have seen shark out in the water, especially when Tim or Trevor have been out in a boat with friends. They've seen some pretty big sharks, Ugh!!! and we get in that same water and swim around. You just never know what is in the water close by!

Conch Farm

Today we also toured the Conch Farm. This was something that we have been wanting to do for awhile and just never got around to it. So today we did that also. This was interesting to us because Conch is a food that is native to here. And we have mentioned and showed pictures of Conch on here before. The tour guide told us how they hatch the conch from eggs and raise them to about four years old before selling them. He showed us the different sizes of shells as they grow, etc. the Conch farm sells around 1.5 million a year. That is a lot of conch, and he said that most of them go to Miami. Wow!


Here are some of the tanks where the conch are kept from different stages. The wire ones out in the ocean hold around 5,000 conch each. The tanks up close are the ones that hold the 1 year old conch. They were small, I know you can't see them, but they are in there.






Here are Tim and the kids. Tim and Tyler are looking at some of the boats out in the water and the younger kids are looking into a tank that has different kinds of fish.

This is Sally (the conch). We were told that she is a trained conch. She is use to being handled and so comes out of the shell. It was neat to see how big it is, and to see it come out of its shell. The ones we catch in the ocean will hide in the shells and not come out.

This is our tour guide showing us Sally.

Up Close and Personal

Today for family day we got up close to some the fish and birds that are here near the islands.

These pictures were all taken at a museum we visited. The kids enjoyed pushing some buttons that would make some lights light up and show them where the different islands we on a map, some info about the islands, etc. Here are all of the kids inside of the museum beside the map of all the islands and showing the depth of the ocean around the islands. Some are over 3000 meters.

Just some updates

Here is the picture of Tyler on the airplane sleeping that I said I would post. He was so very tired.








Alexis started school on Tuesday, July 22nd. She has been bugging me to start her in kindergarten. I kept telling her after I got back from the states we would start school and she didn't let me forget either. I wasn't even home a day and she was asking when she was starting school. So we have been learning the letter "i" and it's sound. She seems to enjoy it so far, but it has been only a couple of days. Here is a picture of her before starting school.

Tanner was wanting to start school also, I wasn't planning on starting the boys until August 5th, but needless to say Tanner started today. The older boys do not want to start school again so I know I won't have any problems having them wait until August. Please pray for us during this school year.

Home again

We are home once again. Tyler and I arrived safely back to the islands on Tuesday and have hit the road running so to speak. I have been busy with the every day things of life plus some. Tyler had a good time at youth camp. He enjoyed listening to the speaker and watching the skits, etc. He was also able to spend some time with family and friends.

I enjoyed Walmart and many other stores I was able to go to. I wish I would have thought about it while there, then i would have taken a picture of Walmart. Oh well, guess you all know what that store looks like.

We were also able to eat out. Tyler wanted McDonald's and I wanted Japanese. We were able to eat at both places. yum!! I even tried to bring some McDonalds' and Arby's home for Tim and the kids, but someone stole my small cooler with those items in it. So Tim and the kids were a little disappointed, they were looking forward to eating those.

I'm glad to be back home with my family. It was so nice to see them again. I have missed the ocean. Today we went across the road and did some fishing for awhile. A big shark (Tim thinks) broke his line, a very big line with leaders on it. Snapped in right in to, wish he could have caught that. Shark is so good!!!

I don't have any pictures of youth camp. Tyler did not take the digital camera, only a regular 35 millimeter one. I do have a picture of Tyler sleeping on the airplane. I will try to post that later on, he was very tired from many late nights.

Thank you to all for your prayers, God helped us during that time.

Headed to the states

Tyler and I are scheduled to fly to North Carolina tomorrow afternoon. While there he will be attending youth camp. Please pray for us as we travel, etc. So I will probably not be back on here until we get back in a couple of weeks.

Island Food

Today we made our first real island food. Tim brought some conch back from Grand Turk yesterday. So tonight we fried up some conch fritters. Very good!! (in case you don't know what a conch is, look at an earlier blog about conch). Just a word of caution - do not eat to many at once. It will make your stomach hurt, but they are so good!! It is like when you are frying up some zucchini and keep eating it and by the time you sit down at the table to eat you are no longer hungry, this is the same with conch fritters. We just keep eating them as soon as they are done cooking. We are hoping to get some more conch soon. Come and see us, maybe we will fry up some conch for you.