We had a great time last week.  We flew into Denver last Tuesday, got the rental car and headed to our good friend Studio Robb's house in Colorado Springs.  On Wednesday we drove up to South Park to see the property one last time and say hi to our neighbors Betty and Dean.  On the way, a large stag decided to commit suicide using our rental car.  What fun that was!!  Luckily no one was hurt (except the stag, who is right now probably in somebody's freezer) and we got another rental car.  On take 2, we got up to our property, then went to HOB for our traditional lunch of buffalo burgers.

On Thursday we made the insane decision to drive up to the top of Pike's Peak.  Luckily, neither Steve or I were doing the driving, but poor Studio Robb had to deal with my screaming and crying (it was REALLY high and they don't believe in guardrails out there!) on the way up and back.  Scared the pants off me, but I'm still glad I did it.

Thursday through Friday was NanDesuKon in Denver, a great anime convention.  The bummer about this was our shipment of books didn't get there in time for us to sell any, and since both of us were there, we could have really distributed a lot of them.  Steve sold his personal copy to the Carpenter family, who all wanted to read it, but unfortunately all the other boxes are probably sitting on Studio Robb's front porch, if they arrived at all.

We got to see Uncle Steve & Aunt Doreen and went out with them to a great Italian restaurant called Chianti's, and we got to say goodbye to a lot of frineds that we probably won't see for a while once we get to Japan - Jan Frazier and Bob & Emily DeJesus, Stephanie, George and all the NDK staff, and of course our great friend Studio Robb.  We'll miss them, but hope everybody comes over to see us in Japan!!

Saying bye-bye to my little Stewie today!!  He, his mom, brother, and our old Arabian Jake, are moving to Mesa Vista Therapeutic Riding Center near Richmond.  Trooper is heading off to Richmond too, but my sister-in-law will keep him until we come back to the states.

Just found out there is a riding stable 20 minutes from the base at Iwakuni so I guess I won't go horse crazy after all when we move over there!!  That's a good thing.  But seeing all my horses go, especially Jake, who I've had for 13 years, and Sassy, who I've had for 10, is hard.  But they're going to a good home.

The dogs go next, down to my sister-in-laws, after we get Shatzi spayed.  They'll leave in a couple of weeks, right before my surgery.  Then, all we have left to do is finish packing and sell the house!! (or rent, if we decide to do that.)

Anyway, onto funner notes: we had an AWESOME time at OTR with all our caving buddies.  The weather was beautiful, the creek nice and cool, and we all got horribly sunburned, had hardly any sleep, and are all now sick with colds and flus, but it was well worth it!!  Woohoo!!  I guess it felt extra-special because we knew it might be our last for a couple of years.

Boy oh boy, when things change, they change fast.

Last week I got the incredible offer for a 36 month rotational stint in Iwakuni, Japan.  I took it.  Which means, in short, that I have to find homes for all the animals, sell the house, CLEAN OUT the house, get my surgery, recoup in the alloted time, and hop on a plane to Japan.  We plan to leave late November, early December.

So basically, everything else in my life is on hold.  We are still going out to Colorado early Sept., hope to sell some more books and see the property, but other than that, I am gung-ho on finding places for the horses and getting the house fixed up as best as I can before the surgery on the 23rd of September.  So any more book-writing, oil painting, what-have-you, is going to have to wait.

I'm scared and excited, but mostly excited.  It's a great opportunity.  We wanted to sell our house anyway and buy something else, and I kept saying I had no earthly right to have five horses when I barely rode even one, so now we have a chance to simplify our lives.  When we get to Japan, we plan to travel to as many countries as we have time for, and I plan to write a lot and paint.  It's gonna be cool.

Will write more later--right now I have some walls to paint!!

Fust wanted to give a quick shout out to our awesome caver buddies Allan Weberg and Meredith Hall Johnson (now Weberg, I guess!) who got married today.  What a wonderful wedding, and Allan's chorus was just amazing.  We had a great time! 

I decided to paint them a picture for their wedding with a cave in it, and have included a picture of it here.  Hopefully, they won't read this blog before they open it!!  But it has reinstilled the painting bug, and since I'm going to have surgery on my foot in September and will be laid up for a while, I figure now's a good time to start.  One of my goals before I die is to put some pictures in an art gallery, so I've gotta get a portfolio together.  And I think painting caves will be a challenge, and a nice little niche.  I hope to put a portfolio page on my website soon, but have to get cracking on some more pictures first!! :)

Anyway, a kind of blurry photo of the painting is above!!

Nikki

I am attending my first science fiction/fantasy writer's convention next weekend.   Of course, I'm more of a tagalong--Steve is the one that is actually invited as a guest since he's done all the artwork for Peter Prellwetz's ANGEL OF ST. THOMAS.  But, since he's a guest, that means he can promote the heck out of THE LOST KINGDOM while he's at it, and I can go sit at the table too.

We might not have the same amount of saleability here as Steve does at the anime conventions.  We sold out  of booksthe last two anime conventions.   Steve stuffs as many books as he can in his luggage and carry-on, and it doesn't seem to be enough!!  Which makes me feel good, although right now I think the book is getting bought mostly because Steve is an awesome sales person and he illustrated the book.  Hopefully, people will like the content of the book, and it'll start selling on the merit of the story as well as the awesome illustrations.

But we are very excited!!  It has been a fun endeavor so far.  I'm excited to attend this convention just to meet people and hopefully learn a thing or two.  Then, in September we're off to Colorado and I know the book will do well there too!

Had a really fun weekend with the BATS crew last weekend.  We went inner tubing down the Shennendoah, and it was an incredibly relaxing day, although now I'm sunburned like crazy!! :(  But it was well worth it.

Hot as Hades here in Virginia, so I haven't been doing much with the poor horses.  THey're all doing well though.  Stewie climbed up on the bridge on his own the other day (with just a little prompting from me, but I didn't have a halter or rope on him) and he walked all the way across it.  I was impressed.  I plan to start him in the halter soon.  He'll be three months old this Friday, I can't believe it!!

Nikki