Back again!

Oh my goodness - 3 weeks since my last post?  It's not as if nothing has happened.  We went to CT for a weekend to celebrate Zane's eighth birthday. A treasure hunt proved very successful as the kids found hats, compasses, and goodies in a big trunk Mandi had found. Now we have ages 5, 6, 8 and 8.

Look at these cute guys!  It's a shame that the camera just doesn't show the details.  The bead work and embroidery is extraordinary and I have to find out how to do a doll face like Monika - the face on her little earth gnome on the right is just darling.  I want to be able to do that too :)

Gypsy is back in the water and we finally took her out to Middle Brewster Island and stayed overnight a couple of weeks ago.  We stopped for lunch at Lovell's Island and Derek took a quick nap.  He has been working hard on the boat and the table top has been redone with a new blue formica.  The counter matches and he has used a new beautiful warm rose wood, Paducet? as trim.  It looks stunning.

Middle Brewster has a great big sand cliff.  When we first came to Boston you could walk along the top but now it's forbidden as the cliff is gradually falling into the sea.  All the seagulls gather here and if you look carefully at this picture you will see that what looks like white stones is actually gulls clinging to the cliffside.  They made a wonderful racket during the day and at night you can hear them chatting to one and other.

There goes the sun, setting over Boston.  It was a beautiful clear night and we sat and watched the firework displays all along the coast .  There must have been 5 towns at one point sending up fireworks.  Good fun.







Off in the distance we can see Graves Light and right behind our mooring at Middle Brewster is Boston Light.  At night we have a great display of the lights zooming by as they warn off shipping.  Boston Light by the way is the only lighthouse in the USA that is still manned.  All the others are run by computers I suppose.




We are holding a Prayer Flag swap at Milliande's Art Community for Women.  I am running this swap and I made up a quick flag to show the people in the Paper Doll group how easy they are to make.  Most of this is glued with a glue stick :)










Because I am helping with the Paper Doll group I tried my hand at a mermaid.  I love the water color pencils I used.  They are called Inktense and are great to work with.

July 4th and all that

What a great weekend we have had.  Now we are all exhausted, even the little ones! Saturday the Town of Duxbury had it's traditional bonfire on the beach.  It's a spit of land that curves out 2 miles into the sea.  You drive up one side and park the other - it's only 80ft wide a beautiful sandy beach.  The kids had a ball!

Granddad had a nice nap!


And when it got chilly Vicky and Jay got silly.

 Here it is 8:30 pm and the crowd is ready for the bonfire.  You can see it for miles.

On Sunday we went to the Yacht Club and spent the night on the boat.  The club is in Weymouth and they had their firework display for the 4th.  We had front row seats and the joy of it all - when the fireworks were over we crawled into bed.  No
lines of traffic to go through on the way home.

On Monday we went to a friend's cottage on the lake and had a cookout and more fireworks.  Dave has taken courses in firework handling and he set up a barge and with a little help from Jay and their Dads they gave us a wonderful show.

You can see what a lovely location it is.  The beach area is right next door  and they set up a bouncing house for the kids, and a dunk tank.  There were about 200 people there so it was quite a party.

Isabel is the sleepy head this time - after swimming for 4 hours! She slept for a good 2 hours and was awake for the fireworks so that worked well. She is wrapped in her security blanket - a piece of material I bought to make PJ's for Dominic when he was into Winnie the Pooh.
Now it's Isabel's Tiger Pooh and wearing very thin!







Here is the barge full of fireworks ready to go.

So it was a busy, busy weekend. However,  I did manage to get a bit of work done in my Journal

Zentangle

Dreamer

This collage was rather fun.  I used my new Inktense watercolor pencils.  They are great on the boat where I don't have a lot of room for
regular paints.