Tour Day 5 - 9/9/12

We had another easy day this day.  After attending church with our host family we drove up through Michigan and stopped and saw my mom's cousins and aunt who she hasn't seen in a very long time.

All her aunt's children (My mom's cousins) and my aunt were nice (I had never met them before), and we spent some time talking. My mom's aunt is 92, but she still lives in her own home.

We stayed about 1 1/2 hours then headed for Canada.

We drove through a long tunnel, and I tried to get some pictures, but the camera was misbehaving.

Right before we entered.

This tunnel ends right at the border crossing of Canada and the US, that's why it was pretty backed up and the traffic was stop and go.

The GPS stopped working, too, since it couldn't talk to the satellites.

We arrived safely in Canada with no problems at the border crossing. The guard was nice and greeted us in English and French, and we gave him our business cards - he seemed interested that we were authors (They ask you all sorts of questions at the crossing).

When we arrived at the hotel there were 22 boxes of books waiting for us. The Canadian distributor of our books had shipped them ahead for us to pick up. And we had to unpack those boxes and repack them in a certain way that we like and then load them into the van. That took over an hour, but I didn't get any pictures taken because I was busy packing books!   It was an . . . adventure.

Tour Day 4 - 9-8-12

Tour Day 4 was a pretty easy day for us, and we were thankful for that because we didn't get in to our lodging until about 1 in the morning!


We stayed with my dad's friend from high school and his wife.   They're very nice and we've obviously known them for a long time.


They had this pretty fountain and garden out front that I thought picture worthy.

We just sort of chilled for a while at their house before going to the Baker Book House in Grand Rapids.  They had a very nice set up for us.

Don't mind my dad - he's just texting.  Don't worry, no customers were there at that point.

The store had these cool figurines made in Kenya. There was this lion and an elephant, ostrich, and Giraffe. They were made out of soda cans and telephone wire.

A fan who came out to see us. It was good to meet you, Jessi.

After we finished at our book signing we raced to the post office, packed up all our books and shipped them out to Washington state. We were going into Canada the next day and we can't take our books across the border without paying import taxes - so we shipped our books ahead of us to our next US destination - to a friend's house.  There they will stay until we arrive.


We barely made it to the post office in time, too. The post office closed at 3 and we arrived at 2:30 with about 12 boxes to ship. The postal workers weren't pleased, but they did their job quickly and efficiently, and the last box was paid for and labeled at 3:01!


Then we went back to our friend's house and hung out with them for a while.  A good day.


And so I don't forget - --  Here is a pretty accurate count of how many talks I've done (As of 9/11/2012)



 Number of Speaking Events Total: 114
 Number of Signings: 23
 Number of Interviews : 19

Places Spoken In:

Florida
Kansas
Texas
New Mexico
California
Washington
British Columbia
Montana
Colorado
Nebraska
Missouri
Indiana
Wisconsin
Michigan
Illinois
Georgia
North Carolina
Maryland
New York
New Jersey
Virginia
Ohio
Ontario


Places signed in:


Georgia
Texas
New Mexico
Oregon
Washington
British Columbia
Colorado
Nebraska
Wisconsin
Michigan
Florida
Maryland
 Ohio
Ontario

Tour Day 3 - 09-7-12

(Post Written by my sister Hannah)

We left our hotel at 7:30 to get to the Miami Christian Academy for Dad and Amanda’s next talk.


 Since most of the audience was little kids, the authors performed their sword duel for the amusement of the small folk. They all loved it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of that, but I’ll be sure to try and remember in the future.


After their talk, Dad and Amanda signed books, one boy with a broken arm even asked Dad to sign his cast. (He did, of course.) I should have gotten a picture of that. I will be more vigilant with the camera.

 

Dad signing books for a girl. She bought all of those books on the table next to him.

Amanda signing books and talking to kids

The teacher lined up the kids of the class that were not buying books and sat them against the wall

Book marks are always cool too. They must be signed.

Miles Drive Day 3 - 458

Tour Day 2 -- 9 - 6- 12

Tour Day Two - No Pictures, sorry. :(     My  sister took some on one camera, but I don't have them on my computer.



We arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio the night before and in the morning we got up and went to a homeschool group. They received us well and both my dad and I spoke.  We really enjoyed it and the audience was attentive.

One cool thing - some of the members of the homeschool group were hearing impaired and brought an interpreter with them, so this young man interpreted everything my dad and I said, and it was quite cool.


After we were done speaking we drove off to Columbus from Cincinnati and got to our hotel.


I'll have pictures tomorrow! :)

Tour Day 1 - 9 -5 - 12

And we're off!


 We got off to a late start - not leaving home until about 11AM, but since we had only a seven hour drive ahead of us, so we weren't too worried.

It was a nice and easy trip and we had no events scheduled.

My mom worked on an editing job and Hannah did some school work and reading.

And just chillin.

Hannah took a turn driving, too, and my dad did the rest.


 And as for me? I wrote. And wrote.  And then I slept.  And wrote some more. Unfortunately, my laptop went haywire after I wrote 1,200 words, otherwise I would have updated this blog last night.    But after hours of agonizing over the laptop and stumping the Geek Squad at Best Buy with my problems, I was finally able to get it working again with a lot of prayer and help from google searching.

More updates in a little while about Tour Day 2!

Heading Out!

We leave for Kentucky today.  After today each post will probably be at least 1 day behind because of travel and busy-ness. I'm sure you can understand that. I don't have time to post every day!



Clothes all laid out. I still need to find a garment bag for this stuff. Eep!

 

We're running short on time.  But at least I'm as packed as can be for now.  Duffel bag and garment bag, I think that's not too much for a 5 week long trip, do you? 

 

Road leading from home on a foggy morning.

We drive only 7 hours today, so it'll be an easy trip. We also have no events today. The first one is tomorrow.  I think my speaking is going to be really rusty at first, so if you come out to this event, please be kind. :)  I haven't spoken to a group in a long time!

Tour Preparations

We're all busy getting ready for tour over here. Running around like chickens with our heads attached.  We aren't at all headless. :)



First, there was a lot of mending to do.

And not only of the sewing kind, either.

My old laptop cord broke and I had to splice it back together.

And now it works like a charm. :)



I fixed this laptop because my sister wanted to use it on the tour, but now she wants to use a different computer, so in the end, this computer is staying home.


Now I have to pack and prepare.  It's going to be hard getting back into the swing of things speaking wise.