February 22nd, 2015

Sunday morning, Steve left for Florida again. We loaded up the kids and headed to Salt Lake. We talked and sang and headed home. The kids had colds and concussions, and I felt awful, so we stayed home. Everyone rested during the day, and then I made pork chops and stir fry for dinner that night. It was pretty good if I say so myself.

The kids didn't have school the next day because of President's Day.  Ashley did have a soccer game that day, and she was awesome! She played goalie and she was able to stop every ball that came near her. It was amazing. The ref dubbed her Octopus Arms because Ashley was just everywhere. Sadly, they still lost 3-7.

Ethan also had a game and his team won 10-3. They have a tough little team. Ethan is getting better all the time, so I'm really happy we put him on a team.

We went home afterward so I could get books formatted and ready to print. For dinner we went to Chick-Fil-A for our grade school. I liked it because that meant I didn't have to cook, and the kids liked it because they like the food. Afterward we watched Back to the Future. The kids loved it and begged to let us watch the second one the next night.

Tuesday the kids went back to school and Jakob tried school for the first time. He made it a few hours before I had to pick him up because of headaches. He went to scouts that night and one of the leaders made him dance. It made him worse, and caused headaches, dizziness, and emotional stress. It was maddening and heartbreaking at the same time.

Wednesday I took Jakob and Heidi to the doctor for a checkup for Jakob. We were able to do Heidi's shots so she could have them for kindergarten registration the next day. Dr. Lauret banned Jakob from everything again until he could get better. He wrote a note telling his teachers to let him out whenever needed. It was hugely helpful!

We grabbed dinner for the kids and then went home and watched the second Back to the Future. The kids thought it was hilarious that the movie thought we'd have hover boards and other cool things. If only, right?

Thursday I took Jakob to school and talked to a principal and his orchestra teacher to let them know what was going on. The teachers were awesome. Seriously. I've been so happy with how well they've treated him. They knew what he needed before he'd admit it himself.

Confident that he was getting the help he needed, Heidi and I left and headed for her school. To register my baby girl for kindergarten. *sniff* She was ecstatic, and I'm excited for her ... it's just that she's my baby. She grew up too fast!

Andy had a soccer game that night. He played hard, but they lost because the ref didn't call two goals. EVERYONE saw them go in, but he said he didn't see them so they didn't count. Seriously.

Here's the cool thing about that day though. It was supposed to be insane. I had a basketball game and two practices, followed by a soccer game and my arts council meeting. That morning the meeting was canceled. Next, the ride for Andy was canceled. Then Ashley and Gavin's ride canceled for their practice, and Andy's was also canceled. Jakob wasn't allowed to go to his game. So instead of five things, I ended up with only one. I know I'm watched out for all the time, but it seems like the Lord knows I especially need it when Steve is gone, and makes things just a little easier on me. I was very, very thankful for that.

That night I was up really late getting edits and formatting done for book 2. I had to get to bed quickly though so I could be okay for the airport the next night.

After running all over the place for the kids, I took Heidi to her ballet class for the first time. Jenna came with me so we could talk books. She helped with my cover while I worked on formatting my novella. Heidi did a great job with her class, and was so excited to go back the next week.

I got back from there and made pancakes for the kids and sent them off to bed. Around 10:45 I decided to take a quick nap so I could drive to pick up Steve. That quick nap ended being an hour and a half, and I woke up to the text saying Steve had landed! Oops!! I flew out of the house and drove to get him. It didn't help that it was rain/snowing on the way there.

We got back safely and got to bed so we could make it to basketball games the next day.

It was INSANE. We had pictures on top of basketball, so we had to drive all over to get it done. Ethan played well in his game and while I waited for him to get his pictures done, Steve went to pick up Andy and Jakob. He dropped Andy off, and then brought Jakob out to get his pictures done where Ethan and I were. After that, he dropped me off at Andy's game, took Jakob home, and took Ashley and Gavin to their game.

Andy did awesome in his game. I love watching their team play because they work well together. They lost because they couldn't get the shot in, and the other team hit everything. A lot of fouling was going on which I wasn't happy about, but it was still fun to watch.

Andy and Ethan both had soccer games that day and they both did very well. We took Ethan to get ice cream after his game because he worked so hard and won. And because Steve and I wanted smoothies ...

Jakob had his board of review at the Isaacsons the next morning so he could get his 1st and 2nd class for scouts. He was very happy to get to this point. He's been waiting for a couple years!

I taught Sunday School that day and loved it. Poor Steve caught a cold while he was in Florida and after two days he lost his voice, so he wasn't able to help with teaching. Poor guy! I taught the basics of indexing from the beginning and I really hope it helped those that were in there.

Afterward, we had a ward service committee that consisted of Steve, me, and one other person. Hopefully we get more attendance at the next one!

Sunday February 15th, 2015

Sunday (8th), I felt horrible. I'm guessing it was all the soda I'd had during the weekend. But I also had a couple sick kids to stay home with.  The indexing class I was going to teach got moved to the next week, and I rested. Steve took Andy to his board of review to have him ready for his Tenderfoot and Second class in scouts.

Monday changed Jakob's life for what I hope is just a little while. He had a game that night, and like several other games, this was packed full of fouls. Terrible, horrible fouls. The other team mocked our team, and it was rough game. Jakob came up to us at half time and told us he was having a hard time focusing. I should never have let him go back in. He'd been hit in the face four times with elbows during the first half.

The second half he had to focus really hard on anything and played a very good half. He had a couple great shots (one swished and no one was around him. It was beautiful) and awesome blocks all over the place.  Too bad he doesn't remember any of it. He remembers one shot, and that's it. When he argued all the way out to the car that he didn't make any baskets, I whipped around and headed back into the gym. I'd had it. I couldn't take the lack of calls that were made in the game. And I let the ref know that. It was more tears than anger, but I needed him to know what had happened.

The ref wanted to argue. I could tell he did. I could read it on his face. But he didn't. He took a step back, swallowed, and said he'd do better in the next game. From what I hear, a few of the games after resulted in a few technicals and our coach getting kicked out. Not what I wanted...

We didn't let Jakob go to bed for a couple hours that night until his headache was gone. When it was still there the next morning, I took him to the doctor. His balance was way off and his headache continued to come and go. He was banned from life. No, really.  No exertion, no school, no sports, no music. For over a week.

So he watched all the old movies he used to watch, ate, and hung out with Heidi every day. He was bored, but he felt awful and didn't move. School wasn't forgotten, but it wasn't anything he could help, so he just let it go. The other kids stepped in to help with chores and just let him rest. Teenager's dream, right? Kind of. He misses sports and most of the other things they kept him from.

Jakob stayed home that night while we went to the Blue and Gold Banquet for scouts. There was a mix-up for the gym, so we were all crowded into the primary room to eat tacos.  The food was great and Gavin got his Bobcat award that night.

Wednesday was spent getting everything done that needed to be done before I left for the weekend. I had to order awards for city sports, edit one book, format book two (which went way faster on the kids' computer), taxes from the weekend before, pay for other edits, and advertise for a few launches. Easy peasy right? I got it done! Not sure how with all the driving to get kids, but I did it.

Thursday morning, Jenna picked me up bright and early to head off to LTUE. I helped her set up and then waited for Rachelle to get there so I could help her as well. We got her art all set up and headed downstairs.

My friend, Lindzee, showed up just then and I was thrilled. We sat down to decide what class to go to next, and stayed there. For hours. It wasn't that we weren't doing anything. We had great chats with many, many people. It was so much fun. I love writing conferences because I get to see all my writing friends again. We had fun catching up and joking about us just sitting there, and meeting new friends, and just lots of awesome.

We went to lunch at a pizza place where I grabbed some pizza for Rachelle and then we headed back to the conference. Rachelle had to leave to pick up her kids for school, and Lindzee and I went back and sat down. We talked to more people, before finally going to a panel.

Next was mine! It was a panel on the Brothers Grimm and it was awesome. I loved chatting with the other authors and I hope that the people in the audience learned a lot while they were there. It was fun talking about fairy tales and twisting them. I thought the other people on the panel did a great job, and I was happy to be a part of it.

The next panel I was rather out of my element. It was on AA Milne and Beatrix Potter. I haven't read those books since I was little, so I had a hard time with answers at times. Dan Wells was worth being of the panel though. He writes horror, but listening to him quote the poetry was great. I loved it! You saw a softer side of him. Someone assured me that it was all wonderful after we were done, so I'll take her word for it. :)

We headed home after, and took a detour to dinner and then Walmart. Poor Jenna reacted to the perfume in one of the aisles. I'm pretty sure the guy dumped a whole bottle on himself. I could smell it three aisles over. Anyway, she had to have the windows open the whole way home and struggled with it the next day. Darn asthma!!

I finished edits that night, and got to bed so I could get up early the next morning.

Friday was another day of panels. I actually went to a few classes that morning, and I had a panel on Robin McKinley retellings. I loved it. I love her books, so it was fun to talk about Beauty, and her others stories.

I was hungry, so I headed up to the green room to get some lunch. I talked to one guy that recognized me from the panel the night before. His wife was the moderator. We talked TV and books for a while and then his wife came and talked with us as well. I had to leave quickly because I got a text saying Jenna was having a really hard time. I rushed downstairs, but she'd already been wheeled off to a room to get rest and a blessing.

I couldn't do anything for her, so I went with Lindzee, Rachelle, and Oscar to get a sandwich. Jenna let me know she was okay, so we sat and talked for a while. Rachelle and Oscar had to leave shortly after. Lindzee and I went to a few more panels.

Steve came to the hotel, and I sold two Stolen luck books before we caught up with several other authors. Twenty of us headed off to Bombay House for Valentine's Day dinner. We walked, thinking it was only a couple blocks away. It ended up being about five blocks away.  The food was amazing, and we had fun talking to everyone there. We kinda overwhelmed Bombay House with a few more than what I'd reserved, but we still had fun.

Lindzee and Jenna went ahead of us, K'Dee, Charlie, and I walked together, and Steve went with Oscar in the car. Charlie showed off his raptor impression for K'Dee again. It's so cool. I wish I could get it on video.

Steve grabbed my books and we set them up by Charlie at the signing. I sold a couple books and necklaces. It was so much fun talking to people and handing out bookmarks. One girl was there to pick up my book before I even had everything set up. It was awesome!

Afterward, we gathered up my stuff, and Tristi's stuff and headed home. I wanted to edit a bit that night, but I was so exhausted, I fell right to sleep.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast and headed to the last day of LTUE. I went to a few panels before my panel at noon.

I was scared to death for this panel. It was on space travel and warp drive vs. the tesseract. If you're saying "huh?" you'll know how I felt going into it. I had a crash course in learning more about space travel thanks to awesome friends and good ol' google. The panel was awesome. I was thrilled to death with the discussion and the questions. And I think I did a pretty good job with moderating. I just hope everyone else did too.

The next panel was Modern Fantasy and it's relation to Folklore. Or something like that. And it was insanity. I don't want to say rude things so I won't. Let's just say it could have gone a LOT better. And our moderator won't be moderating next year. Because, uh, yeah. It was bad. But hey, I got some followers on Twitter from it. That's good, right?

It was a relief to be done with both of those, so we celebrated with a waffle sandwich at Borge's Waffles and Frites. It's a Belgian place and it's amazing. I had a club sandwich, but I want to try the waffles with mousse on them next time. mmmm.

After the last couple panels, I said goodbye to my friends and headed home with Ashley and Steve. Ashley was supposed to have a soccer game, but because of Valentine's Day, they canceled it. We took her out to get food at Burger's Supreme, and then to get a smoothie from Roxberry before heading home.

February 8th 2015

Whoops. I missed a whole month. February was crazy busy!

The groundhog saw his shadow, promising another 6 weeks of winter. We all laughed when we heard, considering we'd had no winter before that. Ironically, that's exactly what's happening. We've had more snow in the last week than we did all winter. Anyway, back to the 2nd.

Jakob had a game that night and it was really frustrating. Fouls were abundant, but they weren't being called. The coach couldn't say anything without getting in trouble. And it was awful. Sometimes it's really really really hard to keep your mouth shut....

Much of my week was spent trying to get my books edited and formatted. I had never done it before, so it was a pretty big learning curve. During the day I would edit, and at night, I'd steal Steve's computer to format. The kids were busy with school and playing with friends. The weather was nice that week so they played basketball outside until it got dark.

On the 4th, we had several things happen throughout the day. Gavin had a field trip, and we had parent teacher conferences for the younger kids.

Ethan is doing very well, but he gets too shy to speak Chinese with his class (Not surprising since he won't speak Chinese to us either). I know he knows it, because he points things out to me.

Gavin is doing well, but forgets to turn in his homework. He still has As in all his subjects, and he's a great friend to everyone in his class. We just have to work on the homework part. :)

Ashley is above and beyond in everything in school. She did get a lower grade on a math test, but only because she rushed through. She was pulled down in the math groups, but got a 100% on the next test so she was moved back up. She's a great helper to the teacher, which I'm thrilled to hear.

Andy's meeting was the next day. He's doing well. He also has a homework problem, but he's doing great in class. His teacher was happy to show me how well Andy is progressing in writing and comprehension. I was thrilled.

We had to rush from Andy's meeting to Orem to FINALLY close on our house refinancing. They were really nice and even served us cookies. We had to keep watching the time because Jakob had a game. Jakob played well, but again, the reffing was horrible. Maybe I should just ref myself ...

Friday morning we dropped the kids off at school and Steve took me to the airport with two suitcases and a backpack. We got there just in time to get me on the train to Ogden. I was headed to a boutique in Ogden. The train ride was nice and quiet. I was able to read for a while, and had got a few compliments on my awesome pink boots. While I waited in Salt Lake for the next train, I bought my very first set of isbn numbers (for self-publishing instead of others publishing my books) and assigned them to my books.

Wendy picked me up in Ogden and we headed over to set up for the boutique. It was ... slow. As far as sales at least. We had a lot of fun talking to people and hanging out with fellow authors. Plus we got free refills on our drinks, so that was pretty awesome. Afterward, I went to Wendy's and worked on formatting until really, really, really late.

After sleeping for a couple hours, I got up and kept formatting. I kept having things mess up, but finally got it to upload. We headed back to the boutique for another day. I got a cute little jacket for Heidi's birthday, and sold a few books. It was a lot of fun. At the end, the lady in the aisle across from us (who made a killing on clips)gave me a huge Tupperware bowl. She sold both clips and tupperware. She had been eyeing our Atlantis series the whole time and wanted to do a trade, but we couldn't do it because of how our set is put together. So as a trade, I gave her my Atlantis book, and we both walked away happy.

Juli drove me to the station in Clearfield and we had a good chat on the way. I got there just in time to grab a ticket and jump on the station. The train had a lot more people on this time and it was interesting. It's the perfect place for people watching!

I was happy to get home in time for dinner that night and spend time with family.

February 1st, 2015

I almost wrote January. The month flew by!

This week, I was busy making sure I had everything I needed for FanX. AND I had to make sure that the kids had what they needed before I left.

Jakob stayed home from school on Monday, but he was doing well enough that we let him play that night. He hadn't had a fever for over 24 hours and his cough was much better. The game was INTENSE. They had a new player on their team and he helped the team win by 8 points after going into overtime. It was crazy!

The next morning, his fever came back, so I took him to the doctor. Again. We found out he had a sinus infection, something that runs in our family. yay... We went and picked up an iPad so that I could have it for FanX and then I took the kids home so we could pick up the other kiddos from school.

Our shirts got done that night, so I went to pick them up and then Steve took the boys to scouts and over to the family history center.

Wednesday morning, Heidi woke up with a cold and she kept walking around saying "I'm so slow because I don't feel good." She was content laying on the couch and watching TV. I picked out Frozen for her and then hurried over to get my hair cut.

I ordered posters for my booth and finished packing up everything so I could leave as soon as the kids were home from school. I had to wait a bit for Steve to get off the phone and then we headed out. We stopped by a couple places on our way to the salt Palace and got everything set up at our booth. It was almost time!!

That night we got back and had yummy dinner.  Steve made a pork roast and it was fantastic.  I finished another edit and headed to bed after coloring my hair with burgundy and auburn.

Thursday, we got the kids to school (well, Steve did), and I got a few things done around the house until it was time to leave. Steve and Heidi took me to the hotel and got me checked into the hotel and then headed back home for him to get back on a call (Heidi was doing much better by then).

I checked in at the booth and got everything set up and ready to go. The other authors got there as well and we started handing out bookmarks. We had a pretty good day and I sold a few books and two necklaces right off. We saw a couple famous people, and Nichole took me up to the green room for dinner. We took pictures with people (Thor, Hagrid, Spock, and several others) and talked writing. It was fun! The time passed quickly, and soon it was time to head to the hotel.

Steve kept in touch and let me know what was going on at home. Jakob had played and their poor team got creamed. Apparently shots wouldn't go in, no one passed well, and the other team was physical without fouls being called.

Since I'd already eaten, I sat in bed and got the cash, etc, settled for the day. I finally slept well in a hotel and woke prompt at 7:21 the next morning. After grabbing a couple snacks, I went over to the convention center for another day. We saw many friends that day and had more fun in the green room. I had to walk around here and there so my feet and back wouldn't get too bad.

Jakob and Nicolas showed up halfway through the day and wandered around the convention looking for fun things to do. They sat in on a few panels and walked around looking at the different stores. When we were done for the evening, I met them at Ray Park's panel(and had to take all of our bags because they'd left them) and watched the last 15 minutes or so.

We headed back to the hotel to eat dinner. I had a burger, Nicolas had a chicken sandwich, and Jakob had chicken and beans. The food was really good. We hung out and I did the money stuff (and stressed out because the signal wasn't working on my iPad) while they watched TV.

Saturday morning Steve had to get up early to get Andy and the two youngest to Andy's soccer game. He did really well in his game, and then they had to rush back to Ashley and Gavin's game. They did well, but lost. The other team was physical, and nothing was done about it. Ethan's game was after that and did pretty well.

Meanwhile, I woke up at the same time Steve did and couldn't go back to sleep, even though my body really wanted to. I got ready and made sure I had all my bags packed before heading off to get breakfast. The two restaurants in the hotel were closed, so we headed over to JBs. The kids had fun enjoying the buffet and went with a breakfast of eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast. They headed back to the hotel for an hour, and I headed over to the convention.

Saturday was slower as far as sales go for me. I sold a couple, but that was about it. BUT I did get to meet Tom Felton and get a picture with the boys and with Katy. And I DID get to go get a picture with the tardis thanks to the awesome guy that built I also saw Studio C in the green room and talked to Stacy for a bit. And I bought souvenirs for the kids. I got a tiara, a stocking Tardis cap for Steve, T-shirt for Jakob, and bobble heads for the rest of the kids. Andy got Heimdall, Ashley got Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy), Gavin got Rocket Raccoon (same movie), Ethan got Groot(same movie), and Heidi got Captain America.

It was a very busy, very exciting, very tiring day, and we were all ready to go home when it was done. We missed it, but we were exhausted.  I enjoyed sitting on my couch when we got home.

This morning I didn't want to get out of bed, but Andy grabbed all of my clothes to wear for church and made sure I got ready. What a good boy! And church was wonderful. The lessons were beautiful, and I'm so glad I went.

We had beef and broccoli for dinner and Steve made quark while everything else made cupcakes. Both were delicious. Now it's time for me put this poor body to bed!