... And a Boat, Too

In the past few weeks, on our grand adventure, we traveled by airplane, bus, elevated train, cabs, Amtrak trains, Grand Canyon railway, shuttles... everything but a boat!

Until today.

Today we got to sail on the MV Kearsarge around Lake Sunapee in celebration of a new book by "Alex Ashe".  Death on the Water was inspired by the mysterious sinking of the MV Kearsarge. The boat was rescued and restored, obviously, or we would not have been sailing on it today!

This is the third book in the Mena Young Mysteries series.

It was relaxing and exciting to cruise around the lake looking at the beautiful homes and waving to the folks who were celebrating the last summer weekend before school starts.

Here is my daughter, Lilah (with her brother, Alex, weirdly growing out of her head!), with Daniela (aka "Alex Ashe"). The red nose helps to protect her true identity. Kind of like... Superman/Clark Kent with the eye glasses. (No one ever seems to have noticed the similarities).

Lilah is always happiest when she is being helpful. Daniela put her to work handing out souvenirs and bookmarks...

...And red clown noses!

Do you have any idea how hard it is to breathe with one of these stuck to your face? I'm pretty sure that's why Muppets talk so funny. I definitely felt more like a Muppet than a clown.
Hmmm... portrait of mother and child as Muppets? (hee hee)

She is multi-talented - Lilah also drove the boat!

Although they wouldn't let her park it.

These last four photos (us with the noses, Lilah steering, and the boat) were "borrowed" from Facebook - Daniela took the photos. But I did make the little girl! ;-)

When we got home, I wanted to take a snooze, but seems like this kid never runs out of energy! If I want to get anything done, I have to find a way to occupy her too. I have tables set up just for HER in my studio, but that's not good enough. She wants to be at the same drafting table using MY art toys. Here is a shot of my drawing table with Lilah working on the right half, on my light tablet, and me squished in on the left, working on my journal page.

It is a great tool and Lilah decided to draw her own mandalas. She was inspired by Judith Moffat's Mandala coloring book.Do notice how that elbow is sticking out at 90 degrees from her body? You see that, right? Yeh, that's MY space that is being stolen by the Elbow!

Ah, well, it's really no worse than trying to draw when the cat is sprawled across the table. And at least this time, I didn't have to work in my lap.

The cat gets her own revenge.  Minou can fit herself in anywhere, pretend that she is perfectly comfortable with her butt 12 inches higher than her head, or even prop her head on a stuffie while allowing her butt to be used as a reading pillow to support Lilah's rather heavy Harry Potter book.