Tessa celebrated her 9th birthday today!  It started out a little rocky.  We all did a quick walk downtown, and I was going to make her birthday cake when we got back to the boat.  I already had the mix and frosting, but no decorations.  After walking around for awhile, I started to not feel well.   The grocery store is not close in town, and it was too far to walk so I started looking for a backup plan of an icecream cake.  We checked at Baskin Robbins but no luck.  I was going to have to make the cake.  Tessa, knowing I wasn’t feeling well, said she didn’t need a cake.  That was sweet of her, but no one in my family has a birthday without a cake.  Tessa joked she could just have a donut from Dunkin’ Donuts, (there are about 3 Dunkin’ Donuts in Aruba!).  That gave me an idea.  I bought a half dozen Dunkin Donuts.  Back at the boat, I assembled them into something resembling a multilevel cake, complete with whipped cream decorations.  I put 9 candles on top and it was perfect.  She loved it.  While I assembled the cake, Dan and Tristan decorated her room and the boat with Happy Birthday streamers and balloons.  That made her very happy.  I had bought her birthday gifts back at Christmas time and they had been hidden.  It took me awhile to find a few of them.  She also had a few from Grandma and Grandpa.  We spent the rest of the afternoon, playing games and having fun. Later, the guy from the French boat Josie came over to see if we had any charts on Colombia.  Dan gave him what information we had.  We found out he was sailing with his wife and 3 kids.  I told him it was Tessa’s birthday.  He went back to his boat and brought back his wife, 5 month old son, 2 year old son and 5 year old daughter Noel.   They brought a present for Tessa, a DVD, and some hair bows.  What  a nice surprise!  Noel stayed on our boat for awile and played with Tessa.   They had a great time.  Come to find out, they know  our friends on Toucan.  They met them in Curacao.  Unfortunately for us, they will be leaving for Cartegna before we do, but we should catch up to them there.