For me, it’s the team of gals I have helping me share the news of them. If you’ve been following my Launch Team posts, check THIS PAGE in case you’ve missed any. I’ve had a couple of days off from these posts, but It’s time to introduce you to Emily. Always good for a laugh or a fun quip, So, without further ado, let’s learn a bit about…

Emily!

She got the list of questions and went to town. She said:

What do I do in my spare time? I’m a wife and homeschooling mother of 3 teenagers. My 2 boys will be 11th and 10th graders and my daughter will be 8th grade. A lot of my life revolves around them and planning school (which I totally LOVE). Now that they are older, it’s a different busy. A lot more driving the kids places. 🙂

The rest of my spare time is taken up with reading books, photography, cooking meals, whining about not knowing what to make for dinner, and wasting time on the internet. I LOVE photography. I take nature photos and do portrait photography as well. You can see examples of my photography on my WEBSITE. It’s been slow this year, but I’m glad about that because life has been busy in other ways.

My husband, Eric, is my best friend and we’ve been married for 18.5 years. I’m so thankful for him! He has no idea how much I love and appreciate him, but I try to tell him and show him often.

Like me, Emily has a lot of interests:

Watercolor is something I’ve really enjoyed in recent years, but I am not an artist. It’s just fun to try and I also like to try my hand at sketching. The key word is TRY. 🙂

Gardening is another thing I love to try doing. I’m not a very good gardener, but I try. Eric and I have had gardens for a long time. We live in the woods, so it makes gardening harder because the shade from the trees. We’d starve to death if we had to live off our gardens.

We’ve had chickens since July 2010. We currently have 22 hens and 2 roosters. Our numbers have fluctuated over the years. Our oldest hen is named Popeye and she’ll be 7 this July. She’s the last one from our first flock. Our 2nd oldest will be 7, too. Her name is Pirate, but she won’t be 7 until September of this year.

Other than that, I couldn’t tell you much about the rest. There’s just something about those first couple of flocks that just make them extra special. A secret that I’ve had is that I want to write a children’s book about chickens. We have had some funny characters through the years and I think they’d make some great little stories/lessons for real life.

Well, I say write them!!

And like me, she likes to travel. Apparently not ALONE like me.

Family vacations have been great for traveling and adventure. We went to Canada when the kids were small. Houston Lake was our first big trip. It was a 12 hour drive and is way ay up in the middle of nowhere. It was wonderful!

In the last few years, we’ve taken some fun trips. Vacations are much more fun when the kids are older! Almost 3 years ago we did a big loop for our vacation. We started here in Pennsylvania, drove I80 to Colorado. It was an awesome place. My husband and I sat up on the summit of Mount Evans (14,265 feet).

We drove from Colorado to Dallas drove back east through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia and back to Pennsylvania. We saw a lot of sights along the way!

The year after we drove out to Yellowstone and it too was a wonderful trip. We loved both trips so much! Last year we stayed local and did a lot of kayaking and then we visited Gettysburg for a few days. The bad thing about vacations is that they are over so quickly.

In regards to reading and books, Emily says:

My love for reading began when I was about 13. I browsed our church library and checked out Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke. I was pretty much hooked and read that whole series and many of the other series the church library held. So Janette Oke holds a special place in my heart because I so loved her books when I was young.

Through the years, I’ve read so many different authors and book series. Chautona Havig entered my radar in 2012 with my Kindle. I got Discovering Hope and then I started reading all of her books!

Other authors I have enjoyed through the years are Beverly Lewis, Judy Christie, Sandra Byrd, Diane Moody, Catherine Palmer, Vikki Kestell, Christy Barritt, Sandra D. Bricker, Melody Carlson, Tricia Goyer, Elizabeth Forkey, Sheila Gregoire, Loree Lough, Richard L. Mabry, MD., Joyce Magnin, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and probably more that I can’t think of at this time.

As far as my launch team/advance reader members go, Emily remembers exactly when she joined:

One day I got an email from Chautona Havig and there was a request for advanced readers, so I figured, why not?! I sent in my application…and to my delight was accepted into the Advanced Reader group. (YAY!!) I didn’t really become a Launch Team member until May or so of 2016. The first book I read in the advanced reader group was Carol & The Belles.

The other books in order are:

2. Jack (Ballads of the Hearth book 1)
3. Ante Up (and I became a Launch Team member here, it’s where my Instagram had quotes and things from the book)
4. Christmas Embers
5. New Year’s Revolutions
6. Christmas Stalkings
7. Such a Tease
(and now) 8. Will Not see

I’m not sure if I got them all, but that’s what I could find according to release dates and all. I need to write this information in my journal! 🙂

She is also encouraging, as you can see:

I’m most looking forward to Will Not See by Chautona Havig. I read None So Blind earlier this year and loved that story so much and can’t wait to see where the story goes.

Picking sides is hard, but here goes:

Alexa or Madeline: Madeline
Luke or Mac: Luke
Joe or Keith: Keith
I’m not sure about Cassie or Kaye…I haven’t read these books or know these characters very well.
Also, not sure about Wynnewood or Legends – I need to read these books! (I swear there’s a conspiracy. I blame Ashley.)

In her final words, Emily says:

The Rockland Chronicles are great! I love how you’ll see some characters from some books in others, even though the stories aren’t related. That was probably one of the neat things that I noticed about Chautona’s books when I first started reading them.

There you go!  Tomorrow, we’ll have Kelley!