Scenes from the Weekend and Awards Galore!!

Whew. Okay, traveling done for at least two weeks. But who am I to complain, right?

I know, I know.

Traveling is awesome. Meeting new people, seeing new places.

Getting stuck on the runway at the airport in a blizzard and being told the airport was going to close down and hopefully reopen soon.

Its great :)

But in all seriousness, this weekend in Arizona was wonderful.

Except for the having a fever part.

But, nothing a little (okay, a lot) of drugs and a little (okay, a lot) of wine can't cure!

And take a look at this venue!!

The ceremony was outside in this beautiful Spanish looking place.

Beautiful, beautiful ceremony. And Lindsay was just gorgeous. Josh didn't look half bad either ;)

And then just as it got cool we walked down to the reception. Wonderful music, great Mexican food, fantastic party.

Great way to celebrate a new life together.

And on Sunday, since we had some time to kill before heading back to Wisconsin, we hit up the Desert Botanical Gardens. Because, if you can imagine, we don't have one of those in Wisconsin...

Shocking, I know :)

And we haven't seen the sun for a while so something like this would never fly in Wisconsin...

I had to laugh after taking this picture. I think he's so cute. But then I realized he is just a ground squirrel (that's what the sign told me ;)) and that he is probably very common and no one in the south probably finds them cute. Just like nobody in the north finds our grey squirrels cute.

But oh well. I think he's cute :)






Now that we're caught up on that...time to catch up on: AWARDS!

I have been, so, SO lucky to have a number of awards bestowed on me. I think I managed to bookmark them all BUT, with all the traveling around lately, I very well could have forgotten one, so if I've been negligent in claiming an award from you feel free to give me a significant poke and I'll get off my rump and go get it :)

For this round of awards, instead of listening to the directions and passing them on, I'm going to promote the lovely writers who have bestowed these awards on me. (Otherwise I wouldn't be able to get to my laundry which as you can probably guessed hasn't been done in FOREVER.)

I got this beauty from Jen over at Jenny's Imaginary World AND from Hope over at Writing with Hope AND from Kyra over at Write Here, Write Now. Thanks so much ladies!!

Jen is a fantastic writer and an amazing CP. She tells me how it is and really gets my characters. I was so lucky to be able to read her manuscript and couldn't stop saying 'how does she come up with this stuff?? This is brilliant!' Thanks so much Jen!

Hope is another CP. Her descriptions in her work make my mouth hang open. For real. Whether its action, or tension or a love scene I'm like...yummy, give me more. Again, so lucky to have her eyes on my MS. Thanks Hope!

Kyra is a new writing/blog friend! I LOVE new friends. We 'met' during all the crazy blogfests last month and I just love her blog and the comments she makes on mine are always wonderful. So glad we found each other Kyra! Thanks for the award!

I got the Liebster Blog award from Danielle B. over at Entertaining Interests. I really love Danielle's blog and am very excited that she likes mine. I love her witty sense of humor and she also sprinkles in some things about her life which, while not easy to share, really help get to know her. Thank so much Danielle!

The Sunshine Award I got from three lovely writers. Hope over at Writing with Hope, Elizabeth at Use Your Words..., and from Kyra at Write Here, Write Now. This award comes with a little bit of work, which I will get to, promise. But first I want to say a little about Elizabeth (Hope and Kyra's praise is a little farther up.)

Elizabeth and I also met during the crazy month of blogfests. Her blog is SO funny and inspirational. I just love reading it. And the comments she leaves on my blog are great as well. Thanks Elizabeth!

As promised, here is the 'work' part. I must answer these questions:

1. Favorite color: Burnt Orange
2. Favorite animal: Dog (Especially mine :))
3. Favorite number: 21 (High school Varsity soccer number)
4. Favorite non-acoholic drink: Diet soda (Particularly Cherry Coke Zero)
5. Facebook or Twitter: Oh man, facebook. Though I'm pretty bad at keeping up with that too.
6. My passion: Hmmm....writing, singing, soccer, travel
7. Getting or giving presents: Giving, especially if you've nailed the perfect gift.
8. Favorite pattern: Um? No idea...haha
9. Favorite day of the week: I don't really have one. Most days are great.
10. Favorite flower: Yellow Roses. They were my grandmother's favorite.

And last, but certainly not least, I was tagged in the Lucky 7 Meme by Tracey Joseph. I don't follow many Middle Grade writers (something I definitely need to fix) but Tracey is one of them. And holy crap, can this girl write a southern voice to a 'T'. Actually all of her voices are spot on, which I think is incredibly hard to do for younger characters. She shares a lot of her work and I really enjoy reading it. So thanks Tracey for the tag!

To follow the rules for this one: 

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines - sentences or paragraphs - and post them as they're written. No cheating

             The words made his breath catch in his throat. Rydan was sure he’d heard wrong. He stared at the girl staring at him.

            “I’m sorry,” she said again. “He doesn’t seem like a bad person though. I think you’ll find he did it for your own good.”

            “Keeping my ancestry a secret was for my own good?”

            “What would you have done different if you knew?”

And that, my friends...

Is a lot to take in for a Monday so if you made it this far, you get a gold star. 

I'll be making my rounds, round the blogosphere. See you soon!