This past week has flown by.  It’s hard to believe we’ve been on the boat for nine days now.  Even though it’s next to impossible to get things done on a boat when you have three kids, Marc and I have actually managed to get some items checked off the “to do” list.  And the kids have checked many things off their to do lists too, like going to the beach, playing lots of pretend on the boat, exploring the dock area and meeting new friends.

Here is a quick recap of our past week aboard Adagio.

We passed our first week of boatschooling with flying colors.  I think we all have been surprised at how much we all love it.  Many thanks to all my homseschool friends back in Indianapolis who encouraged me and told me we could do it no problem.

Here I am attempting to teach Joellen and Camden outside.  BIG MISTAKE!  Way too many distractions like lizards scurrying everywhere, people in their dinghies driving by on our canal, Honey the neighborhood cat, the pool 4 feet away from this outside table, and the list goes on.I learned my lesson, so we now have to conduct school below deck where there are less distractions.  (But note that the hermit crabs attend class.) 

The weather is beautiful in Fort Lauderdale in the winter.  70s and 80s every day, which makes for happy Konesco campers.  The kids have non-stop entertainment on and off the boat.  Their imaginations are going wild living on the boat and being surrounded by so much nature.  We also are expecting Joellen and Camden to help out a lot more than when we lived in a house.  They do the dishes, they sweep the floors, they shoo the birds away from the top of the mast (more on this later), they fill the water tanks with the hose, they play with Maria while Marc and I are cooking, they read to Maria, they check the weather forecast on the VHF radio in the morning, and the list will grow once we are living off the dock and out at sea.  We are so proud of them since they have not complained about helping and are eager to pitch in.

So how is Maria adjusting you may be wondering?  We’ve never seen her so active and talk so much.  She loves the boat and does not mind wearing her life jacket at all.  And she loves running around the pool that is right in front of our dock.  And of course she is obsessed with the local cat and runs around outside yelling, “HONEY, HONEY!”  I think it is a sure bet that when we eventually move back stateside, our family will be adopting a cat.  Maria has also taken a real shine to Mr. Ken, a boat worker originally from Dominica (a small island south of Antigua and Barbuda).  He has been helping Marc put up the child netting around the boat so our wee ones are less likely to fall in the big drink.  And of course Maria is loving having Marc around all the time.

The only negative has been the crazy birds that love to sit atop our mast and do their business on our deck.  Wow this is some powerful fecal matter!  If you don’t spray it off with the hose within 5 minutes, you have purple stains that is next to impossible to get off.  I feel like Wile E Coyote against the Roadrunner, never succeeding in killing these little thorns in my side.  Marc hoisted this “scary” eye ball up the mast, which is supposed to scare away the birds.  I hear them during the day mocking me as I hear ping after ping of their droppings explode against the white deck.  Luckily I love to clean so twice a day I’m up on deck spraying with the hose and squirting some toxic spray on the excrement in hopes of restoring our deck back to white again.

This past Friday we had our first visitors, Bill and Marilyn Stober from our church back home in Indianapolis.  We are good friends with their daughter and her husband, Laura and Kevin Klee.  We loved having them aboard!  Thanks for the visit Stobers!

One of my favorite pastimes this past week has been watching Marc out of the corner of my eye.  It’s like Father Time turned back 20 years and Marc is a young lad again.  For those of you that know Marc, you know that he is always young at heart, is carefree and is 99.9% of the time in a great mood. But this is like happy Marc on steroids.  I love my Marc but I love him even more on the water.

Update on the Jenster…I too feel years younger and can’t stop smiling.  Life is good and I thank God every day for this blessing of living aboard with my family.  They say one year on a boat with your family is like 10 years on land.  You are living in extremely close quarters where you are 25 feet or less away from each other at most times.  But I’m loving every minute of it.  I know we can’t do this forever, but I am just so grateful we can do it for a period of time.  God is good!