May The Fourth Be With You

Or at least the fourth can be nicer to me--at least that's what I'm hoping.
As some of you know, I've had a rough few weeks:

Three weeks ago, my six-year-old step-nephew was beaten to death by his biological father. It was a horrible tragedy and we drove to Primary Children's Medical Center in SLC to say goodbye before he was taken off life support. His father claimed he only hit him once, but I saw the numerous bruises all over his little body and that's bull. He's charged with 1st degree murder and I hope justice is served. I've never experienced such anger inside as I have with this experience. I'm working through it.

Two weeks ago, my Grandma Barr died. This is my mother's mother. I was extremely close to her. She was brilliant, selfless, loving, and wonderful--everything I aspire to be when I "grow up." We knew it was coming, but it's still hard.

Last Saturday was her funeral. I sang with my cousins a medley of Coming Home, and we celebrated her life. It comes in waves for me. I'll be fine, then suddenly be ticked about something random, and end up crying because I heard, saw, or smelled something that reminds me of her. This mourning cycle thing is the pits.

I'm sharing this with you because this next weekend is Storymakers writers conference. After three weeks of tears and sadness, I'm hoping against hope that this fourth weekend will be a good one.
Once again, I have a pitch session. This time, I'm pitching Colorless, my alternate history. So far, only my two cyber BFF's (Renee, & Rita) have read it, but with their comments and editorial catches, I think it's ready for queries.

In other news, Transcendent is doing really well and has a 4.33 stars on Goodreads with over 36 ratings. Woo! On Amazon, it has 19 ratings for an average of 4 stars. Either way, our little paranormal anthology is doing well!

I hope to be back next week with loads of happy, writerly good news for you all.

So, have you ever had something really bad happen to you that was followed by something really good?

The Happiest Place on Earth... and a Winner!

My 5 Kidlets with my parents.
Princess celebrated her birthday in
Disneyland!

Love all the faces, especially
my littlest one's. So funny.

I've been notably absent from the blog for a few weeks, but I've got a better than average reason why. I went to Disneyland! Yahoo! We packed up our five kids and my awesome parents (extreme good sports) and drove the 16 hours to the Magic Kingdom. Some people can make it there faster, but we drive a 12 seater old Ford van that protests mightily at anything over 65mph.

What made it especially fun is that the kids had NO IDEA it was coming until the day we left. I told them that their ailing great grandmother wanted them to wash every tombstone in the cemetary behind her house because she loved to walk there and wanted it clean. My awesome kids were not only willing to do this huge task, but kidlet #4 even packed pink washcloths so she could wash with her favorite color. They thought it would take the whole week. *Evil laughter*


4 of the 5 Kidlets used the force to fend off
Darth Vador and Darth Maul.
The Force is strong in our family.

Kidlet#3 cracks me up! And yes,
Splash Mountain is my favorite ride!



The answer to that age old question:
"Where did I come from?"
From the store of course.

So that morning, we drove to my parents for breakfast and told them we wanted a picture in the driveway with grandma's poster, but as they unrolled this long scroll, it said, "Swore Kids, You Are Not Going To Logan. You Are Going To . . . . " and then the garage door behind them opened to reveal a big poster "DISNEYLAND!" with fun little things and balloons that I got from the dollar store. They were so shocked they stood there dumbfounded. "What? Really? What?"

When it sunk in, Kidlet #4 started screaming and running all over the place while Kidlet #2 just hugged me and cried. It really took most of the trip there before they really could wrap their brains around the fact that they really, really were going. I'll post the video later.

We put the Disneyland poster in the back window of the van and wrote "Or Bust!" on it and all the way there, people honked and waved--some even hung out the window of their cars with their hands clasped together yelling, "Take me with you!" It was so much fun.

Anyway, I'm remiss on announcing the winner of my last giveaway!

And the winner is . . .

Sarah (AKA IdentitySeeker)

Congratulations! Let me know what book you'd like and it's yours!

I hope you've enjoyed these few glimpses of our fun.

What was the best vacation you've ever taken?