back in Tennessee

We got home tonight and are pretty sad that we're no longer in our Caribbean paradise. Where do I even start with this trip? We had such a wonderful time. I first fell in love with the Caribbean when I was about Tekia's age and began going on mission trips to Jamaica with my parents. The scenery was beautiful and the people were friendly. Turks and Caicos was no different. This island actually reminded us a lot of Jamaica, though it's much, much smaller (and probably much safer). When driving down the main road, there are times when you can see the water on both sides of the island - and this was one of the largest islands!

Our resort, Beaches, was wonderful and huge, which at times was a pain, but we needed the extra walking to work off all the calories that come with an all-inclusive vacation! The kids loved it, of course. There were five pools, a few hot tubs, and more restaurants than we had time to visit. We were lucky enough to have a room that was close to the beach and one of the pools. Most of the resort employees were from Provo or other nearby islands, which we loved. The people of the Caribbean are so happy and kind (more on that later).

We were there with about 65 other Edward Jones families from all over North America, so we made lots of new friends. We didn't get a chance to talk to everyone there, but, interestingly, they all seemed to know us . . . our family tends to stand out in a crowd. Tekia was especially sad to leave her "best friends" - three sisters from New Hampshire. E-mail addresses were exchanged, so hopefully we'll keep in touch and maybe see each other on future trips.

A few pictures, and then I must crash. I'll be back in the coming days with more stories and pictures and videos.

the ridiculously blue water. It looked like a big swimming pool.

Tekia and her new friend Shreya. They loved getting virgin pina coladas at the swim-up bars. Can't you just see Kia swimming up to a bar and announcing, "I'd like a pina colada, please"?