Well..........Hello!!!!

Hello!!!!  I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and weekend!!!  We sure had a terrific one!  We spent the entire week on the beautiful island of Turks & Caicos!!!!  We were surely thankful of that!!!

So......this post will be a bit of a vacation re-cap.   It will be a long post - so if you don't want to invest the time.......I suggest scrolling down and just get to the 'doggy' part because it's REALLY good!!!!

This is definitely when I WISH I knew more about my camera and could REALLY capture the true 'picture'.  There are a mix of my digital camera shots and my cell phone shots, so quality of the pictures will vary.

But......here is our view from our room.  We had  a three bedroom suite and this great patio where we ate breakfast and hung out:

This is the view from the lobby and in front of the pool.  SO BEAUTIFUL in real life because the water is just a tremendous blue!!

This is the view beyond the arches of the shot above and leads you to the beautiful water

And finally - AT the water!!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

We did a lot of laying around and eating..........but we also exercised - most days at 7am - if you can believe it!!!!  For some ODD reason, I could not sleep past 6:45am (which really stinks) - although I'm sure this Monday morning I'd be able to sleep until about 10am!

Thank goodness for technology!  We had our respective iPads, iPods, Kindles, Blackberries, iPhones in order to stay up on 'everything'

The area we stayed is up and coming for shopping - so we went to some shops and we kept passing this one store that had this big blond wig.........so I had to go in and try it on!!   Is it me??

Our friends Jim and Nick left early to celebrate Thanksgiving in Long Island

Jill, Cindy, Frank and I did the whole Pilgrim and Indian thing for Thanksgiving....and by that I mean we ate "Indian" food and it was YUMMY!!!!!  Don't we look happy??

Now...........what would a trip be with no dogs?  We wouldn't know!!  This is when our vacation turned into a rescue of sorts!  As with most places in the Carribean, there are stray dogs.  Stray dogs in T&C are called "Potcakes" and there is a rescue group called "Potcake Place", that rescues these dogs and provides spay/neuter.  Additionally, they try and adopt out their dogs to the States and Canada.  While people visit the island, they can take the Potcakes out to the beach and spend time with them, adopt a Potcake and/or agree to be a courier in order for the Potcake to meet their adoptive family at the airport.

This is what we decided to do!  Luckily, the Potcake Place was right across from our hotel, so we went in to chat with them and offer to bring a dog or two back with us to JFK if there were homes waiting for them in CT/NY/NJ.  We also took two siblings out to the beach to hang out.

Since Jim is allergic to dogs....we affectionately named them Benedryl and Allegra

Here's Cindy with Benedryl

Another lady, Robin, at our hotel took Charlie out daily.  Isn't he adorable?

Well, the best news is........Charlie had an adoptive home waiting for him in PA.  So we agreed to transport him with us on our flight home to JFK airport!  Additionally - "Allegra" got adopted by people who were visiting the island and she went home to live in Charlotte, NC!

So, the Potcake peeps met us at the airport and took care of all the paperwork and fees.  They gave us Charlie right before we went through security.  

We put him in his carrier and he hung out at my feet during the flight.  Thankfully the people I was sitting next to were dog-friendly, so mid-flight I put the carrier on my lap and he was able to chill out with his head out of the carrier.

When we landed, we went through Immigration and Customs........and then.........

Charlie met his new Mom & Dad!!!

They were actually from Philly, so they drove up to JFK to meet us and pick Charlie up!  It was so exciting to hand him over to them!!  He's a lucky boy!

So, our Thanksgiving trip took on a whole different focus and we were so thrilled to help out!!!

If you ever visit Turks and Caicos - you could offer to be a courier or maybe you'll fall in love with these special dogs and adopt yourself!!!  Take a look at their site: Potcake Place   They exist on donations alone, so if you're willing to make a donation (monetary or supplies) - I'm sure they'll appreciate it!!!

I hope your Thanksgiving was just as fulfilling as ours was!!!

Thanks for your visit!