JULY IS FULL OF SUMMER FUN ...

So far this month I had the pleasure of seeing two of my blogger friends. You can not imagine how cool it is to visit with cyber friends IN PERSON. This year I had decided to meet as many of you wonderful people as I could.

A few weekends ago Abby Minard trained it into Chicago all the way from St. Louis. After nine hours on a train she arrived with her family in tow. Hubby, daughter, and even mom and dad accompanied her. What a great present for her six-year-old daughter: a weekend in Chicago.

We met around seven-ish. After playing text-tag for almost an hour we finally met on this balmy summer's evening. The cafe was cool and inviting. We ordered iced lattes and gelato. Yummm.

The most exciting part of the evening for me is when I discovered that she also wrote Y/A fantasy. How did I not know this? We've chatted for months! We talked about our perspective novels and found out we had a common thread that wove between both. HOW FUN!

As the sun dropped into the west, a very tired family and I trained it north, there's was the first stop. The magic ended so quickly, but we had a great time. Here's a pic of the sparkling Abby and yours truly.

This past weekend I traveled out of the big city into Wisconsin to visit another blogger pal. Christy, of erica and christy blog, and I met for the first time in Orlando this past April. We had planned to get together again some time this summer and we finally did. I arrived Neenah in close to a hundred degree heat. I though Wisconsin would be cooler than the city... HA! No such luck. Well the hotel was ice cold and so was the iced tea that I inhaled.

After checking in, I gave Christy a call to let her know I was on the way. With so many rights and lefts, I was sure I would get lost. But the directions were perfect. I pulled up to a lovely large home on a hill.

A radiant Christy, now four months pregnant, greeted me at the door. I was escorted into the kitchen and her husband Nathan greeted me with a warm handshake and smile. Only her younger son raced into the room, buzzing about; his older brother to shy to make himself known. An hour or so later he finally came out of hiding.

Immediately we began to chat about our writing. Hours of chat later we sat down to a great bbq feast. Before the sun disappeared, it was time to go. I didn't want to get lost in her development. You know how it is pitch blackness and not able to read the street signs. I forgot my camera and with all the chatter we both forgot to take pics.

So July proved to be a wonderful month for blogger meetings. Next month I plan to spend the afternoon with non other than Hart "the Tart" Johnson in her home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan. I'm venturing into Canada and Hart luckily is along the way. I don't have a blogger meeting in Toronto, but in Montreal I hope to meet up with Deniz Bevan at a charming cafe.

So more summer surprises and delights for me.... YAY! How are you spending your summer? Any fun and unusual happenings for you? I'd love to hear about it.