Happy Birthday Conrad

Conrad turned seven this last week. For his birthday dinner, he had Indian food with lots of hot sauce. A few days later we got to celebrate with family in Cape Cod. Conrad got lots of new books and Lego to play with. Even better was getting to spend time with his cousin Charlie. Conrad was a very happy camper.

Conrad's boat

In Cuttyhunk we went to an Art Camp. We made wooden boats. I tried to make mine so that it would sail! The sail can actually catch the wind. I sawed the mast and nailed lots of stuff in. I worked on my boat the whole time. It was my birthday! We are going to celebrate on Saturday with my cousin Charlie.

Mark: I made a boat just like my brother.

After school activities

After school if the weather is warm, which it has been lately, we go swimming off the back of the boat. There is a life preserver tied to the back of the boat for safety. It is good exercise and fun but you can't see anything. In the Bahamas you can see everything.

Yesterday, we caught lizards and had pizza and a movie with our friends from Waterbug and our new friend from Spirit. We also got lots of goodies in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and Grandpa. Thank you and we miss you!

Beaches and festivals

We have been spending time in Ft. Lauderdale on the boat, the beach, and one day we went to a fun festival where we played with some new friends and won a lot of prizes.

 

 

Sea stars, Minecraft, and boat friends

Hi, it's Conrad again. My Dad found a sea star. I touched the sea star. The top was rough and kind of pokey. After that, my Dad told me to put the sea star back into the water carefully. This picture shows me putting it back in the water. I had a fun time at the beach.

Mark: First, we played Minecraft in the sand. I'll tell you how to do it. First you dig a hole. Then you make cave ins. We made zombies out of stone. Sometimes you can make booby traps if you want to capture the zombies. There's medical zombies too. They help people when they get hurt. They're not on any team though!

Conrad played soccer with friends from another boat. Mark played catch ball and made a sand city with our new friends.

Movie Night

Not movie night.

Conrad and Mark went to movie afternoon on another kid boat in the harbor. They saw "Megamind" again and had popcorn. The kids on that boat are 11 and 14 so they are a little older but everyone had a great time playing tag and racing on the dock afterwards.

Spring comes early to Florida. The lizards are doing funny dances. There were many flying termites the other day (we had to close up our boat while they were out so they didn't get in and eat our wood).

Treasure hunting with friends

Our friends who live nearby came to visit and introduced us to geocaching. We had heard about it but had never tried it before.  We had so much fun. We took the dinghy to the jungle-park across the way and found a cache with a travel bug that we will drop off in the Bahamas. Then we found two more really creative caches along the river. We look forward to finding more as we sail around.

Fun with friends

The Pirate Bar again (this time in a car instead of a dinghy). There
was a rubber ducky race in the river, across from the restaurant.
There were a few hundred duckies floating around.

Today is windy and chilly (54 degrees when we woke up). We had chocolate chip pancakes to help warm us up. I know we shouldn't complain when Chicago is only 11 degrees, but we are ready to go south. Hopefully we leave next week.

Yesterday, Conrad's best friend from 1st grade and his family came to visit us after the end of their Disney cruise. Nolan and Zoe, and Nolan's friend Kaylee who lives in Ft. Lauderdale, had a fun day with Mark and Conrad playing at the little jungle/beach across the river.  Then Matt took the kids back to the boat in the dinghy. The adults shared some coconut rum while the kids ran around the boat. It was nice to spend time with old friends.

Nolan brought a Valentine's Day card from Conrad's old class. Conrad was kind of bummed that he missed out on Valentine's Day at school so that was a good surprise. Thanks Nolan and Mrs. Madden's class!

Hang 10

There are some pictures on www.svperry.com of Mark and Conrad doing some surfing. They are already saving up for their own boards. We also saw our first Portuguese Man O' War carcasses, so we know what to look for but they didn't give us any trouble.

Goodbye to friends

A page from Mark's goodbye book. Conrad kind
 of looks like he's strangling  Mark, doesn't he?

Mark and Conrad's last day at school was Friday. The teachers at Mark's school put together the traditional goodbye book with drawings from his classmates. One example, "I will miss you Mark. I hope you come Wednesday and Tuesday for a visit." Others were also specific about what days he should come. It was very sweet.

Conrad brought goody bags for his classmates and Mom was the Secret Reader (the clue that gave her away was that she likes to eat spaghetti and pickles for breakfast; no, she is not expecting).

He will really miss his best friend Nolan. There will be trade-offs with this boat thing, for sure.