Happy Holidays a bit late

I hope you've had a wonderful holiday season. My family decided to get away this year, for a much-needed vacation and some sun. It was glorious. I find the older I get, the less I want *things* and the more I want *experiences*. And I have to say, having very little holiday shopping to worry about was so, so nice. Maybe after a break from it this year, I'll be more excited about it next year. One can only hope.

If I'd had my way, we would have gone to Paris. But my sons wanted to go to Disney World, and since I'm not sure how much longer they'll want to vacation with their parents, granting that wish was our gift to them.

It was nice and warm the entire time we were there. A couple of thunder storms rolled through during the week, but that's normal for Florida. I got some time in the sun with a book, which was my one big wish for the trip. I know, I'm so demanding.

Will it surprise you to know I really liked the Dr. Suess ride at Magic Kingdom? (I get motion sickness really easily, so I'll never gush about any of the "big" rides.) The whole Suess area was really magical, all decked out for Christmas.

You can't go to Disney World during Christmas and not watch the Christmas parade. Well, I can't. I think my two teen sons wouldn't have minded a bit to have skipped that part.

So, now I'm back home, working away on three different manuscripts. While the world parties the night away New Year's Eve, I may be writing. Or sleeping. Probably sleeping, but I should be writing!

Next week I hope to do a recap of 2014 the way I've done every year for the past 4-5 years. It's so fun to look back and remember all the good things that happened.

Happy almost 2015!!! Hoping it's going to be a FANTASTIC year!

Disney and Vroman's Recap

Thought I'd share a few pictures from our trip last week. The weather was really nice - not too hot except the last day we were there it got pretty warm. I stood in line and got tickets to see the new World of Color show and that was really cool. If any of you have a trip planned to Disney this summer, here is my tip - get to California Adventure at 9:30 am, not 10:00, which is supposedly opening time for that park. They open the gates early, and you can get a good place in line for the fast pass tickets for World of Color. Some people waited 2+ hours to get tickets - crazy!



My 13 year old son, towering over me. When did THAT happen?




I don't know if you can see, but what they did is as the water sprayed up, they showed film clips ON the water. It was amazing.





My signing at Vroman's was really nice, and I couldn't have done it without the amazing and very sweet Shannon Messenger (whose blog you should check out because she is funny. And did I say sweet?) who got me there and back to my hotel. Driving in LA is quite the adventure, and I'm SO grateful to her for doing that for me. I took her out for margaritas and dinner and here is a picture of her in a very empty restaurant at that point. Don't worry, we behaved ourselves. Sort of.




When we arrived at the bookstore, we found this LOVELY display, complete with CUPCAKES!! LOTS OF CUPCAKES! A wonderful lady who owns a cupcake shop in Pasadena brought them down from her shop, called Polkatots Cupcake Shop. She even gave me a dozen to take home to my family. Can you say AWESOMESAUCE??? They were absolutely delicious.





Some very, VERY wonderful people came out to see me - the smart and wonderful khyrinthia of the Frenetic Reader blog, author extraordinaire and extremely nice human being Michael Reisman, educator and sweet twitter friend Alyson Beecher who runs a kidlit blog HERE and is giving away a signed copy of CHASING BROOKLYN if you're interested, and long-time LJ and Facebook friend, Christine Henderson, aka christine444.

Vroman's had me sign a LOT of stock, so if you've been wishing for your own signed copy of IT'S RAINING CUPCAKES, they have one! I mentioned to Connie, the events coordinator, that I knew Linda Urban, who used to work there, and she said, oh yes, Linda used to have my job!! Connie was so sweet, she actually had me sign a book for her and bought one to take home. Awwww. 

Okay, tomorrow I promise a bookish post in which I rave about two recent reads.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!