My kids and I have found a new author to love!
Serpent Tide and Widow's Revenge
She is a local author who used to be a journalist. K.L. Fogg (K stands for Karen) and she made the brilliant marketing move of sending these books into the schools to get the kids hooked on them. It worked because my daughter came home and told me about them and I went out and bought them. I've only read the first one so far because son wanted me to read him the first one out loud before I went on to the 2nd one. I really enjoyed the story and I'm excited to move on to book 2. There is a book 3 coming out in January of 2008 and that will finish off this series. She wanted it to be a trilogy.
This author came to my daughter's school the other day and and I noticed that she was coming to a local Barnes and Noble for a book signing on Saturday the 21st. We all thought it would be neat to go so the kids and I took of for the bookstore Saturday morning. When we first walked in we found the author and told her how much we love her books. She was so nice and wrote neat notes to the kids in our books.
we got posters and a little plastic snake and spider. We were on our way to the back of the store to hear her address the crowd when we ran into this guy...
sorry it is blurry, a store employee took this.
Do you know who that is? He certainly is the TALLEST person I have ever met!
Yes, it is Shawn Bradley! and he is 7 feet 6 inches tall - wow! He signed a poster for us and shook our hands. I couldn't figure out why he was there but I thought it was cool that he posed for this photo with us.
Then we went back to hear the author and it turns out we got to hear Shawn speak and also listen to a cowboy poet. Who knew that we would get to do all of that?! The whole thing was part of a special event for this school Westridge Academy which is a residential treatment center for at risk teens. Turns out Shawn is the Vice President of the place and this is what he has chosen to do with his time now that he is retired from the NBA. There were several of the students there and we got to have a Q&A session with him and K.L. Fogg.
I asked him what city/arena was his favorite to visit and he said that he always loved to go to Boston and New York because of the history there. He said that he loved to go to Indiana the best though because they had his favorite Steakhouse Restaurant. LOL!
He grew up in a very rural area of Southern Utah and the 2nd NBA game he ever went to was the first NBA game he played in! Isn't that wild?
It was neat to hear him talk about playing against centers like Shaq, Hakeem, David Robinson, etc. and by the way, he is taller than all of those guys.
I took a picture of K.L Fogg talking to us
notice where her height level is compared to the bookcase in back of her.
Now look at Shawn
I just can't imagine how you could have an "ordinary" life if you were that tall. I have to say though that he was just the nicest guy. I was really impressed with him and he obviously cares a lot about those teenagers who need some extra help.
What a cool day!
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