We did it! The Rhew 2 Rhew Tour!

We did it! The Rhew 2 Rhew tour is complete and was a smashing success! Deek and I wrote posts for over 50 blogs each, and we got the word out about us and our books. We'd like to thank all the amazing bloggers who participated. Your support means the world to us! <big round of applause for the bloggers>

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Thank you as well to all the readers, fans, and friends who read our posts and promoted us on social media! We wouldn't be anywhere without our readers! <big round of applause for readers, fans, and friends>

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Deek and I are just stoked with how well the tour and the local signing went. And for the icing on the cake, a magazine editor (who will feature us next month) called us a "writing power couple." OMG! <jumps around and flails>

In other big news, I FINISHED MY HISTORICAL FICTION NOVEL! This beast has been 7 (yes, 7!!!) years in the making. I spent 4 year researching and the other 3 writing and rewriting. Now, it's in the hands of my beta readers, critique partners, and the lovely and talented Anya Kagan. I'm going to try for agents on this one, folks. Eep!!! Regardless of whether or not I get one, I feel a great sense of accomplishment to have this story completed. 

Since I posted last, I've turned another year older. And boy did Deek make the day SO special! I awoke to notes covering our bedroom, telling me things he loves about me. Then, he came home for lunch and cooked me a special birthday meal. That evening, he took me to dinner at one of my favorite spots and presented me with one of the most thoughtful and awesome gifts ever. In other words, he spoiled me rotten. He said he wanted me to know how much he loves me, but I told him he already shows me that every single day! 

One of the notes. <heart eyes>

Men who cook = smexy

Getting silly when we try to do a birthday selfie. 

This weekend, Deek and I headed to Portland to support our friend who's been featured in a children's book! Since the book is about a therapy llama, the event took place at a pet fair! We got to see all kinds of fun things like a pet fashion show!

Rojo the Llama and his adorable sidekick, Napoleon the Alpaca!

Our friend Becky is FEATURED in the book! 

She signed our copy! WOOT! 

Then, we decided to go explore some of the sites featured in the show Portlandia. We haven't watched it yet, but we plan to once we move. Kind of a reminiscing about our old home thing. But we wanted to be able to point to things in the show and say we'd been there.

We already have a pic under the main sign, so we thought we'd take a pic underneath the sign on the side of the building. Plus, I wanted to snoop and get a peak at the Prince doughnuts they'd been making.

Keep Portland Weird-- 'nuff said

The famous Portland food carts (well, one set of them). 

You have to look REALLY hard to see the tiny dots that are us in front of them.

Gorgeous tree-lined streets.

City Hall. We've got our coffee too. So Portland.

Here's the tiniest garden in the world. I'm not even kidding. It's the Guinness Book of World Records! And yes, it's practically in the road! Eep! 

We're still getting prepared for the big move coming up this summer. I moved to the Pacific Northwest during this same week two years ago, and it's been fun looking at pics of our first cross-country trip on Facebook's "On This Day." While I'm sad to leave this area, I'm excited to go on another cross-country adventure. We've almost officially decided to take the Southern route this time and explore places we've never seen but have always wanted to! 

Here are some pics from our last cross-country-by-car adventure: 

My friend decorated my vehicle. While I'll miss the Pacific Northwest--all its beauty and our friends and family here--I'm excited to see my friends and family back in the South too! And go to a WARM beach. I can't get used to the cold beaches here. 

What even are these?

Beautiful bridge

Yes, we went all the way to the top!

Nothing like going three hours of our your way to see the future birthplace of Captain Kirk. LOL!

Colorado

Utah had some dinosaurs.

Snow covered mountains! 

Rhewvians, stay tuned for a message from our fearless leader, Trinity! She's been on more adventures and is anxious to tell you about them! If you're not a member of Rhewination, you can sign up on the site www.rhewination.com. You'll receive secret messages from Trinity and be privy to information the rest of the world isn't! 

Until next time, live out loud!

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Crazy Good Times in Rhewville!

Hello, friends! I've been a bit MIA lately, mostly for good reason! I was sick for 10 days, so that's the not-so-good part. But the good reasons are: The Rhew 2 Rhew Tour and Deek's book release!

So, here's the rundown: Deek's publisher set his release date for April 5, 2016, and my publisher decided to spotlight feature my trilogy for the month of April! Wut? Yep! So, Deek and I decided to make a thing of it and do a tour together. We love doing all things together, so this situation was perfect.

We love to be together!

Deek and I love Faith Hill and Tim McGraw. In fact, one of their songs is "our song," so we decided to pay homage to their Soul 2 Soul tour by doing a Rhew 2 Rhew tour. Our friend, Heather, set us up with her friend, Nancy, and Nancy made beautiful tour banners for us!

I love how she blended our two very different stories together with this graphic!

Of course, I love this one because it has our wedding photo on it. This picture is so "us." We're always goofing off and having fun with one another.

Deek and I have set up an amazing blog tour! SO many wonderful bloggers have open their blog homes to us. You can expect fun interviews, guest posts on a wide variety of topics, and Top 10s. We can't wait to share this epic event with you!

While we were preparing for everything, I got sick with a terrible cough. I didn't sleep for 8 days!! OMG, talk about exhausting. But Deek--being the loving, handy MacGuyver that he is--built an incline for me, and I finally slept. I'm on the the mend now, thankfully, but I had a rough go of it there for a while. Still, even as sick as I was, I worked on the blog tour. So, if some of the posts are a little loopy, you'll know why! Haha! 

I was too sick to celebrate our engagement day on the actual day, so we celebrated a few days later. Deek took me to a restaurant he's always wanted to take me to. The food was amazing, but the company was even more amazing. Later, we grabbed some coffee and headed to the local bike/walking trail where we walked hand-in-hand, drank our coffee, and talked. Such a lovely time!

This is the actual day we got engaged.

 Here we are celebrating a little late at the restaurant he wanted to show me.

Here we are on our lovely walk. Our picture software makes collages, so that's totally fun!!

Finally, April 5 rolled around. After years and years of working and waiting, Deek's book 122 Rules released!!! It's a monumental moment to because we began talking in the margins of that book. So, it's a full circle moment for us relationally too. Critique partners, friends, dating, and now married. Kinda crazy how time flies when you're having the time of your life!

I'm SO proud of Deek. He definitely embodies the word "tenacious." He put his nose to the grindstone and spend years working on this book. When the time came to receive edits, he did so with an open mind and learned many tools of the trade. And during his edits with Anya, his content editor, he learned even more. PS. Anya is a genius, so if you're looking for edits, go to her. In addition to working for publishers, she has a freelance business, so contact her if you're looking for a top-notch editor! Through it all, Deek worked hard and believed in his work. And today, it's published!!! I must tell you, friends, my husband is a BRILLIANT writer. His slew of 5 star reviews attest to the natural genius and storytelling ability he possesses. He's always willing to give credit to me and Anya, but you should know he's the real deal all by himself--a rare, raw talent.

The box-o-books we got in the mail! If you're impressed by the amazing cover (as we all are), props for that go to the supremely talented Anita at Race-point!

Happy Deek!

So cool!

Our book babies all in a row!

And, of course, we celebrated!!

I hung up Deek's reviews all over the house (with pictures of people he'd selected as cast members for his dream cast)

And he got coffee with balloons attached! CONGRATS, DEEK!

If you want to pick up your copy of 122 Rules (and I highly recommend you do!), you can get it here: 122 RULES by Deek Rhew!

In the meantime, I'd been working with Ellie Siplia at my publishing house to get the insides of my books revamped. She did an AMAZING job! I got the proofs of my books in the mail, and I may have petted them all "my precious" style. In addition to working for a publishing house, Ellie has a freelance business where she can make you incredible book layouts. Totally check her out! Ellie at Move To The Write! Also, if you're a writer of quirky books and are looking for a different kind of publisher, Ellie's started a house called Common Deer Press! 

They're so beautiful! I can hardly handle it!

Meanwhile, I got my purple re-purpled in preparation for our upcoming book signing. My stylist usually flat irons it, but this time, she decided to curl it. I'm all up for different! 

Deek and I can't help but sing "Purple Hair" to the tune of "Purple Rain" every time we talk about my purple hair! 

We hope you'll join us for the Rhew 2 Rhew tour starting on Monday (April 11)! Deek's up first, so I can guarantee humorous posts! I mean, he made this picture for his launch day, so you know his posts will be good...

See you around the internet! ((HUGS))

Rhews on Tour--Birth of an American Gigolo

Hello, friends! If you're part of the Rhewination, you got the newsletter telling you that Deek and I are going to be on tour several times in the upcoming months--for Birth, The Fulfillment Series, and 122 Rules. You can "Join the Rhewination" for inside information and special prizes. You can also follow along on our blog tours for other prizes and detail about us and our books that we hope you'll enjoy!

Join the Rhewination! 

Become a Rhewvian in the Rhewvolution. 

So, first up is Deek's book Birth of an American Gigolo! He's on tour for it from February 29-March 7. We've lined up kick butt bloggers (thank you to all who've participated) with the amazing, Jess Calla.

You can follow him to the different blog sites to read about the birth of Birth and enter the rafflecopter drawing for awesome prizes! But...since you're so sweet to be here reading my blog, I'll post the drawing here too!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We have a semi-official release date for Deek's 122 Rules, so we can't promote it just yet. BUT I can tell you 122 Rules has a cover! We're hoping to reveal it to our Rhewvian before the rest of the world, so yet another reason to join the Rhewination! ;) 

122 Rules, coming soon!

There are also ARCs if you're a blogger or thriller author and want to give it a read. Just contact us for more info! 

An aside: I am SO incredibly proud of Deek. He's been working his behind off getting ready for two blog tours at once while holding down a full time job. In the midst of it all, he always, always makes time just for me. He sets everything aside and comes into the "bubble" with me--where the whole world fades, and it's just the two of us. I love this man in a way that defies the constructs of this world, this universe even. He's the hardest work person I know, and he's got the biggest heart and brightest soul. I'm honored to even know him, and blessed beyond measure to be his wife! 

And in April, The Fulfillment Series will be BookFish Book's featured work, so I'll be on blog tour too. It's my birthday month, so we're planning to have a big hub-bub my tour. Stay tuned! 

Me and Deek at a book signing this summer

So, what else is new in Rhewville? Well, last Wednesday, I texted Deek and said I felt like going to Portland that weekend. He texted back and said, "Let's do it." I love how my man is up for all adventures. So, we went. And I didn't want to do anything special or expensive, just walk around the city we both love and will miss when we move. 

First, we went to the Sellwood celebration. The original Sellwood Bridge was constructed in 1925, and it was one of the first bridges for cars in the city. However, over time, it's gotten older and more unsafe, so they decided to build a new bridge. We walked along the new one and said goodbye to the old one. 

Sellwood selfie booth

Views from the new bridge

Random aside: The Sellwood Bridge opened ahead of schedule yesterday...but not without some hiccups. See how a truck mistook the pedestrian/bike sidewalk for the road here! 

Then, we took a walk in the John's Landing area. It's one of my most favorite areas in Portland. There are lush green walkways, chairs made from unusual materials, driftwood arts, and a walkway down to the river. Deek tried to show me how to skip rocks down by the river, and though I succeeded three times, there were many more flops than successes. But no matter...I got to spend time with the love of my life in our city. 

 Our smack down faces. LOL!

Sneaking a kiss. 

Dude, I love this man and my purple hair!!

Usually, our antics end up with us laughing like crazy! LOL! 

I hope you'll Join the Rhewination and follow along with our blog tour. Thanks for your constant support! It means more to us than we can ever express!

Until next time! Life, laugh, and learn...always! <3