Utah Booksigning, Friends, and a Giveaway!

This past weekend, I flew to Utah to attend my friend Heather Justesen's very first book signing. I'm so excited for her. Keep reading to win a copy of her awesome book, The Ball's in Her Court - which I reviewed here.

While in Utah, I had the opportunity to meet with my Utah critique group. We had a blast!!! This was the first time I had been able to meet with them in person. Normally I edit their stuff online since I'm the only one who lives out of state. We had such a blast, Heather and I didn't get to her house until 1:30 am! Such fun!

After sleeping in on Friday, Heather and I had even more fun out and about town while I photographed her for her upcoming author pictures. I took over 500 pictures and got a huge variety of gorgeous shots. I'm just getting into editing them today, but here are a few samples . . .

Doesn't Heather look awesome?

Friday night, we prepared for her book signing while watching Pride and Prejudice (the Colin Firth version, of course!). Once again, we didn't get to bed until after midnight . . . I believe it was pretty close to 1 am.

Finally, the day Heather had been anticipating for months had arrived! Here are a variety of pictures from her book signing at the Fillmore Public Library.

Heather signing my book.

The dish with Romance Author Heather Justesen was my gift to her.

Isn't her book cover awesome?

Giveaway: To enter to win a signed copy of The Ball's in Her Court by Heather Justesen, simply leave a comment on this post by Friday, October 30th at 12 noon (CT). I'll announce the winner Friday afternoon.

This group of fans came up from Las Vegas!

Heather's gag gift from fellow author, Tristi Pinkston - a drawer full of money!

Heather surrounded by some of her fans!

Some of our fellow AuthorsIncognito friends - (left to right)
Mary Greathouse, Nichole Giles, Heather Justesen, Keith Fisher, Danyelle Ferguson, Tristi Pinkston)

We're Valor Girls!
Karen Hoover & I with our awesome Senior Editor at Valor Publishing, Tristi Pinkston.

Another fun group shot!

Me & Jelly Bean.

Jelly is Heather's Chihuahua & Pomeranian mix puppy. She and I bonded immediately. It was so sad to leave her. She felt the same way. She stood on the window ledge barking like mad after I said goodbye. I miss her dreadfully. Maybe I'll have to fly her out for a visit.

After the booksigning & luncheon, I went back to Utah County in Nichole's awesome red Mustang Convertible. So very cool! That evening, I went out to dinner with reps from my publishing company - Tristi Pinkston and BJ Rowley. Silly me - I forgot both my notebook full of questions from my co-author AND to take a picture of the three of us having dinner at Olive Garden. Sigh. Not to worry though, after an awesome dinner discussing tons of stuff that will happen for my book, we returned to where I stashed my stuff, then continued our conversation with my notebook on hand. It was a very fun, informative, and incredible four hour meeting. Can I just say that I have an AWESOME publisher?

Tristi and I at 11 pm, after the meeting when I finally remembered to pull out my camera.

A few things changed at the last minute on Saturday, so after dinner, I went to my friend Robin's house for the night. We attended church together Sunday morning, then she took me to the airport. I was grateful for the opportunity to spend time with Robin and her family. I just love them!

Robin & me.
Below is her awesome family.

All in all, I had one of the best trips to Utah. I'm so glad I could be with Heather and share her exciting weekend. The icing on the cake was seeing some of my other awesome friends, too. I realized again just how blessed I am to have such wonderful friends in my life. I thought a lot about friendships on my plane ride home. I'm very grateful that our relationships here on Earth are eternal and will continue on forever.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway for Heather's awesome book! You can also check out her awesome book trailer below!