Sunday, June 21, 2009

Help!

My friends and I made another video for another competition. The video is for a charity event that some of the stars of Twilight are doing called Vampire Baseball, basically they are playing baseball in Portland to raise money for Make A Wish Foundation. The video with the most votes will get two tickets but more fun the video will be played at the game. You can go here to see all the entries but really I have to warn you not to bother they are very very painful to watch and if you do just remember I warned you. Here is our video please go HERE and vote for Never Bet Against a Vampire/TwilightMoms

Monday, June 15, 2009

Weekend Getaway

Debbie & I decided Thursday night to take a road trip to Utah for a few reasons but the main one for me was Shannon Hale's book signing. On her blog Shannon wrote,

Next Saturday, June 13, at 5 pm, is the release party for the actor and the
housewife! The King's English, of course, is hosting here in Salt Lake City,
Utah. There will be karaoke and pie. And books. What more could anyone
desire?

And in another post wrote...

I'll give a book to the awesome person who dons the most fabulous apron.


Some might wonder why I would want to drive to Utah for a book signing, well really what more could I desire than pie, aprons, & karaoke? I really don't ask for more out of life? Awhile back I saw pictures from Shannon's Austenland release party on her blog and I have always been sad that I missed it. Doesn't it just look like so much fun? I didn't want to have the same regret.

If you don't know Debbie let me just tell you she is amazingly talented with almost anything crafty. I knew she was going to want to make her own apron and that she would need it to be the best. The only thing she asked for help was an opinion so I went over and gave my opinion on fabric/color choices. When I picked Debbie up Friday morning I saw her apron and words can not describe the cuteness of her apron and the geniusness of Debbie.

I have always loved a good road trip and it was fun to have so much uninterrupted time to laugh, talk & sing with Debbie.

Highlights from the road...

While pulling out of a gas station in Panguitch Utah I started to freak out because this truck was driving and a dog was on the roof. We actually ended up following the truck and the dog got down on the tool box but would get back up on the roof. Nearly causing me to have a heart attack. Mimi maybe you should not look, but I did see the dog made it safely home.


Then in a few miles a cop was slowing traffic down as there was a cattle drive going on.

This guy wanted to take the easy road.
The signing was on Saturday at King's English book store.

Highlights from the signing...

Mr. Darcy wearing an apron
See how cute her apron is she made it the night before with out a pattern. Isn't she the cutest.

Shannon was a riot the whole time but I really loved the story about how some Nuns either emailed or wrote her I want to say emailed something along the lines of them being the wives of their lord but also having crushes on Mr. Darcy/Colin Firth & that they loved her book Austenland. They also gave The Actor and The Housewife a thumbs up! The funny thing is I saw the Nuns at Project Book Babe, Mimi even checked them in. Shannon had gotten them tickets. See my friends from Hobo Skate also got to meet them. (I stole this picture from facebook)

Debbie's apron was one of the finalist and she won a DVD of Nacho Libre signed by the the writers/director.
Then of course we had pie and sang karaoke after Shannon & her husband Dean sang Islands in the Stream. If you have read the book you will understand why. There was a pretty long line so we stayed and sang our heart or lungs out. We were having a lot of fun with the girl in charge who was Shannon's sister and just as nice as could be. Debbie & I had a lot of fun singing I will Survive with her.
After our lungs gave out we got in line to get our books signed. Where I met some lovely ladies who are also twilight fans and we tried to convince them to finish reading The Mortal Instruments series. They also know my good friend Jenny Whipple. It was fun to chat with them.
Then it was our turn to see Shannon, She got up from the table and came and gave us hugs calling us her Arizona friends. We talked about Project Book Babe, I asked her about why she picked the name Bellamy. It was so nice to see her again, I am glad we made the trip. Later that night when we got back I opened my books to see what she wrote...
How cute is she? I just love that Shannon Hale!!!


Highlights of the ride home...
We got stuck in traffic out of Flagstaff and while crawling up a hill Debbie said if she was a vampire she would just pick up the car and run us over the hills.
Speaking of Italy and things we stole...We were driving and Muse came on I can't remember which song but as we were saying how we are excited for New Moon a Yellow 911 Porsche went zooming by.

Edit...you can see picture of Debbie & I singing with Shannon's sister on her blog here.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

June 9th

It was around 7:30ish Monday night when I was wishing it could be Tuesday (June 9th) so I could read Shannon Hale's new book The Actor and the Housewife. Then the thought came to me...it probably got shelved early. I went down to Barnes & Noble and there it was sitting on the shelf, it was a beautiful sight to behold. I left the store with a spring in my step, and got about halfway through the book that night.

The next morning while checking my google reader (which is one of my favorite things, you can google it) I saw that it was Matt Bellamy's 31st birthday, the lead singer/guitar/piano player for the band Muse. That is when I noticed the date June 9th...and thought...hmmm why is that date important? It took me a moment to remember oh yeah that is the day I came home from my mission back in 2004 FIVE years ago.
As I said I have been sick and that morning while at work I had a coughing attack while on the phone I might add. I some how got off the phone with out throwing up and started breathing again. Needless to say I ended up going home around noon. I really did try and sleep but who can sleep when there are books to read.

In the book the main character Becky gets an email from someone who mentions getting Nielsen's Frozen Custard. Becky then mentions how good Nielsen's Frozen Custard really is. Pre-mission my friends and I spent a lot of good times at Nielsen's Frozen Custard (the one in Mesa). While on my mission my companion and I were at dinner and the father had made us sundae's for dessert. That got us talking about ice cream I mentioned how much I missed Nielsen's Frozen Custard. The mother than told me there was one just down the street and that they started in Utah her roommate from college was married to the owner of the chain. It ended up that just down the street was actually just outside our mission boundaries so another day the mother and daughter went and got us Nielsen's, how sweet were they.

Later in the book there is a boy named Bellamy who is associated with an Italian rock star. This character is about as minor as they come so no worries no spoilers in mentioning him. But come on Bellamy as in Matt Bellamy who is not Italian but he does live there. I have a feeling Stephenie Meyer had something to do with it. Does anyone else think it is crazy that these three very separate things that all fell on a single date all kind of merged into one. Well I thought it was funny and awesome and to celebrate I got some Nielsen's frozen custard and watched a couple songs off my Haarp (Muse) DVD.

Last night I kept thinking I should tell Shannon about the book magic and how much I loved the book so I wrote this really long email explaining what I explained to you and wrote my feeling on the book. I almost did not send it I mean like she has time to read my email and she will probably think I am crazy anyway. But I had spent so much time writing it I did not want it to be wasted so I sent it with out another thought. I was not expecting a response and definitely not a fast one. So can you imagine my surprise when I opened my email this morning to see an email from her. I just kind of stared at it. This is her email in it's entirety...

Ha! Given the whole coincidence/serendipity theme in the book, this is especially fun. I usually don't see emails for some time, but glad I happened to read this today. I needed your happy thoughts. You're a doll.
sh.

The point I would like to make with this post is, I know that God knows us and is very involved in our lives and makes small unimportant things happen just so we know he is there. Some people call it coincidence, serendipity, kismet or fate. I am not sure why we are scared to give credit where credit is due, I guess it is because we are scared people will think we are crazy. I am thankful for Shannon's book and her courage to acknowledge Gods hand even in fiction.