Our Trip to Arizona

Hey everyone. I wanted to post some pictures of all of our friends that we visited in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. It was WONDERFUL seeing everyone and we even enjoyed the Arizona weather a little bit too! We drove around and saw some sights and then spent hours catching up with our friends the Gregg's on Friday night. We spent all of Saturday with each of our collective friends - Kitty with her writing group Imaginary Friends (who she insists are real,) and me with a whole bunch of my gaming friends. And then went to church and spent the afternoon with the Bonnell's.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great time!


Kitty's friends Andrea and Shonna.


The Gregg Family.


More of Kitty's friends - Heather and Stephanie.


One of our Godchildren - Jessdyn.


Two handsome guys - Jessie and Me.


Kitty and Jamie.


My friends (from the left) Jason, Ivan, Jon and me.


The gang.


John and Jessie with food.


Kitty and I about to fly to AZ.


Us and the Foster's (Heather in front is our other Godchild.)


Brad and Dawn Gregg and Us.

Mountain Biking Men

Dwight has been trying to get me to ride with him for a couple of weeks. I finally had some time open and was able to go riding with him on some fire roads on a beautiful Saturday morning. Dwight found a fire road that ended at an old Cold War era radar station (a couple pictures of us are actually at the station). I'm glad the thing that some of the pictures don't show is how utterly tired and winded both of us were after the ride.

An Easter Poem

Kitty: Happy Easter, everyone! I was shopping on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica last week and, among the "usual" street people there, I saw a man with a sign that said something like, "Will read poem for $1." I walked up to him smiling and said, "That's too unusual, I have to hear your poem."

After he read it to me, the man gave me a copy. He'd made copies to give to everyone who listened. I liked it so much, I asked him if I could share it with my friends and he agreed. So here is an Easter poem written by a very nice gentleman named Royce. God bless you, Royce!

I Know What I Think

by Royce Hummer

Easter time again
The candy companies love this time of year
Spring in the air
A new beginning
Summer around the bend
Don't forget to turn your clock ahead
And oh! How could we forget
That big pink bunnie
All the above are the things most people think about this time of year
Fine and dandy
Why is it we don't wanna think about the main event
I know some don't believe
But what if the story is true
Where will you be
Can't change in mid stream
I know what I think
A man named Jesus walked on this Earth
Song of God, who's to say
Is there a God at all
I know what I think
Was he raised from death
I have no problem with that
You think we came from nowhere
It all just happened
Thinking like that is like standing on a muddy slope
So go ahead and hug your make believe rabbit
I know what I think

Happy Feet on DVD!

Kitty - Hi guys! If you have little kids, you probably already know this, but Happy Feet just came out on DVD on Tuesday. (It's on sale at a Target near you for $15.99 this week!) I don't know if John can stand the thought of seeing it again so soon, but I'm going to watch it again soon. I love that movie! I listen to the soundtrack (one of my Christmas presents) a lot, too. Great stuff.

I'm spending this week catching up on things I have been neglecting - taxes, household chores, etc. Then I'll start working on book two on Monday - probably at the beach! I have to say, I really can't complain about my life! LOL! Oh, and if you're one of the 243 people whose email is still sitting in my Inbox, or one of the dozen or more people I promised to call and chat with - please be patient and forgive me! I'm getting to it all! Honest! Just got to get those prickly taxes done first! (grin)

Hope you're all having a great day and week!
Love and Hugs!
Kitty :)

Happy Birthday Kitty

March 24 was Kitty's Birthday! (Would have gotten this up sooner, but been a little busy.)
We went to our friend Doug's house where we kicked back, relaxed, and celebrated with a BBQ Kitty's and Doug's brother, David's, birthday.
Write Kitty and ask her how old she is if you want to know (I'm to scared of retribution to put it up on the blog.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANGEL!

KITTY FINISHED HER BOOK!!!

JOHN - Well, it's DONE!! Kitty finished and sent her book off to her agent Monday! She has been a little busy and hasn't had time to post, so I thought I would let everyone know! Her agent will read it in about two weeks due to all the other books that people submitted before Kitty. I asked her if she is going to take a break, and Kitty said that she would take a week or two off, but she would start outlining her second book soon.

Watch for her soon on the New York Best Sellers list!

Dirty Bomb Diaries

JOHN - Our friend Eric Tozzi is directing a real riveting web series called The Dirty Bomb Diaries! It is the story of a lone woman who is in her apartment when a dirty bomb is detonated in the same city.
He has directed other things in the past, but this one has a lot of people hooked!

Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=dirtybombdiaries

Or the MySpace sight at: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1988348949

Cool Car

Here is another blast from the past thanks to my cousin Paul. This is of my dad and uncle (my Uncle Bob is on the left and my dad, Tom, on the right) standing in front of a 1955 or a 1956 Mercury Montclair. Not sure where the picture was taken, maybe Indiana, where they lived for a while.

The Cool Crew

I have to thank my cousin Paul for these great pictures. He has recently set to scanning in a bunch of old photos of us and our dads. This one shows Paul, David and I outside Paul's house when we were little tykes. David is on the left, Paul in the middle, I'm on the right. (When I was a kid, my mom always dressed me in green's and brown's so she could tell us apart.)

More photos will be posted later.

Going Hog Wild?

O.K., it's not a hog, but I did just buy a friend's motorcycle. I was looking at a Harley Davidson 883 Sportster from a local dealer. My friend Myk heard this and called to tell me that they are considering moving back up to San Francisco and offered to sell me his bike to help fund a possible move, and give his garage a little more space for a newer car for his wife. So I bought his Yamaha 650 V-Star Classic. I have been riding mostly on neighborhood streets and on a couple major traffic roads. Kitty seems very happy with my bike and wants me to practice a lot so I can get her on the back of the bike soon.

I have all the stuff needed: leather jacket - check, full bike helmet with the Hot Wheels logo on the side - check, and a new pair of motorcycle boots - check! Myk even sold me his gloves, chaps, a pair of extra helmets, and a small leather jacket that fits Kitty to a T. Had thought about getting an tattoos or growing myself a handlebar mustache, but Kitty quickly shot both those ideas down.

Thought for the Week

Kitty here. Thinking about the intersection of a lot of ideas in my head this past week. I've been in a new writing class, and started going to a new Bible study, and our church is doing a sermon series called "Hope: Seeing Through Tears" during Lent. Two things have really stuck with me regarding being a better writer, and a better/happier person.

Be grateful.

Enjoy what you do.

They really kind of relate to each other. If I'm focusing on what I can thank God for in my life, I can keep my mind on the positive things - things that make me happy in one way or another. When I'm focused like that, particularly when I'm working, I can relax and enjoy my work more. As a writer, when I relax and enjoy my work, I do a better job, too!

The great part about this is that if you're looking for things to be grateful for, you'll find some. Then when you tell God thank you for this and that, you feel more grateful and remember more things to be grateful for. Then you tell God, "Hey, and thanks for this, too!" and then you're feeling more grateful, and finding more things to be grateful for, etc., etc.

I suspect John would call this my butterfly theory. Why? Because when we pray together and I'm in a grateful frame of mind, I thank God for everything - including butterflies, green grass, blue sky, the beach, etc., etc! It makes John a little crazy sometimes, but I think God likes it. :)

What are you grateful for?

Hollywood Votes Happy Feet

HURRAY!! Happy Feet danced its way into Hollywood hearts and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Our Inboxes were flooded with messages from co-workers and friends all wishing congratulations.

For me, it's still hard to believe that I spent a year in Sydney, Australia, working with a bunch of incredibly talented people. I look at some of my past work that I did on other projects and realize that it was truly GOD Almighty that got me that job. There is no way any sane person would have hired me to work on a major motion picture with my old resume. It is a real honor to list Happy Feet on my resume and to tell people proudly that I was one of the artists entrusted to help make Mumble dance.

Thanks to ALL of our friends who showed us support and offered their congratulations. We know without you guys, we wouldn't have made it as far as we did.















This is a picture from the Sydney Daily Telegraph showing Animal Logic employees celebrating after the Oscar win.

Crows and Cockatoos

Kitty - Yesterday I was sitting on my bed writing and my brain began to notice some loud noise outside. When I finally looked up and tried to place it, I laughed out loud! It was about 4:30 in the afternoon and some crows were making a really raucous racket! When we lived in Sydney, the same thing would happen about the same time. In the late afternoon, the cockatoos would fly past our apartment calling out in such a raucous tone that John dubbed them pterodactyls!

It kind of made me miss our old home there. Well, I miss everything except the cockroaches.

Strange Thoughts

I was listening to someone talk about the death of Anna Nicole Smith on the radio. The man prefaced his thought with, "I hate to speak ill of the dead, but..." And I wondered, why do people say that? What do they think that? It's okay to speak ill of the living apparently - people do it all the time. But someone dies and suddenly people get all pseudo-respectful.

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we tried to be respectful to each other now?

Just my thoughts. What do you think?
Kitty :)

New Yahoo Group

From Kitty - Hi everyone! We're trying to come up with great ways to stay in touch with all our friends and family without having our personal information on the Internet for all to see. So we created a Yahoo Group. If you join it, you'll get occasional emails from us with the latest news (not unlike what we post here), some pictures (again, not unlike here), our Christmas newsletter (which won't be posted here), and our updated contact information (which will never be posted here.) :)

Over the next week, we'll be sending invitations to all the email addresses we have for people we think might be interested. If you haven't gotten an invitation and want one, search the Yahoo Groups site for "johnandkittysfanclub" (John and Kitty's Fan Club) and click on the button that says, Join This Group. Be sure to put your full name in the comments section so we know who you are. And if you're a friend of old finding us on the web, be sure to remind us how we know you, especially if your name has changed. We won't want to add anyone we don't know, and we'll be on the lookout for spam. :)

If you're having problems figuring out how it works, just email us and we'll try to walk you through it. (I'll try to write up a how-to that I can send out to people.) Meanwhile, have a great weekend! We're off to see "Pan's Labyrinth" soon. Hope it's good.

Cheers! :)

P.S. Please forgive John for not posting much. He's working long hours again.

Spiritual Lessons From the Barenaked Ladies

From Kitty - Yeah, I know it's weird, but sometimes it's funny when you realize how many things remind you of God. So I was out walking this morning with my iPod going and "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies came on. I love that song - fast and quirky and makes me want to dance.

But as I was listening today, the song really reminded me of how amazing God's grace is! To paraphrase it, they sing:

It's been one week since you said, "I'm angry." Five days since you said, "Get it together, then come back and see me." Three days since I realized it's all my fault. Yesterday, you forgave me. But it'll still be two days till I say, "I'm sorry."

This is EXACTLY how God is with me! He lets me know through the Bible or a sermon or a friend or just in my heart that I've done something wrong. If I don't do anything about it, He moves me to feel like I should go think about it for a while, and He's always open for me to come back and talk to Him about it.

Then it usually takes even more time for me to realize He's right and I'm wrong. But - and this is the amazing grace part - He is ready to forgive me even before I'm ready to ask for forgiveness!! So when I do ask, He's ready to say, "Done! I forgive you." And then we can go back to being happy and close and together again.

It's funny how God really is in everything!

The Most Wonderful Place in the World

From Kitty - No, not Disney World. The LIBRARY. I just love that word. It reminds me of every wonderful place I've ever been. The musty smell of my childhood library lent atmosphere to the world Anne of Green Gables lives in. The dark basement of an old library makes a thriller even scarier. The high-tech look of a new one makes you want to go shopping at Best Buy. And the joys of finding a big one...ahhhh...thank you, God!!

Where did this come from? I finally got my Santa Monica library card yesterday! Hurray!!!! The library is SOO big and has a HUGE fiction section and a HUMONGOUS "New Fiction" section, as well as tables with outlets to plug in your laptop. Plus there are FOUR branches in the 12 sq mile city, so I'm walking distance from TWO of them! Ohhh, I'm in love!

The best (worst? I don't have much time right now!) part was finding two books I've been wanting to read right in front of my face in the New Fiction area. I checked out Karen Marie Moning's DARKFEVER and Diana Peterfreund's SECRET SOCIETY GIRL. I was up till 3:20am putting all my data in Quicken as part of my goal to be more organized this year. But I couldn't help myself - I read Karen's book for another 20 minutes! (I'm going to wiped today!)

Monday looks to be a great day already - walking John to work and then walking to the library with my laptop to write until John gets out for lunch. Then we'll walk home together. Doesn't that sound almost blissful?! LOL!!!

Hope you're all having a great day, too! Oh, and forgive us for not writing recently. John is now working 9-7, and I've been crazy busy trying to get end-of-year-beginning-of-year "stuff" done. More posts - and pictures - soon!

Day 3 - The Next Step

From Kitty - I just read the dreams that two of our friends posted in the comments section. Wow! Big! HUGE! That is so great! I spoke to another friend on the phone today and we started brainstorming goals for our dreams, and steps to achieve the goals.

For one area, I have a 4-part to-do list. This is great because the to-do list for my life (which includes "fix the car door" and "mail package to Mom") is 50-60 items long. I can do 4 things. And I can do them before Stephanie and I talk again in two weeks. So I have a list, a timeline, and someone to hold me accountable. Excellent!

My goal of finishing my current novel by the end of February only has one item on the to-do list today. "Re-read the current draft." This is a little scary for me because I need to know what the second and third steps are as well. But as I said with a sigh to Stephanie today, "I guess I don't really need to know step 2 until I finish step 1 - so I better get to it!"

This reminded me of how our lives have been since God started us on our adventures. John and I joke to each other (though it's proving to be true!) that God must have the information on our future classified as "need to know" - and apparently we don't need to know! Often, particularly recently, we only know the next step when what we really want is to know the next ten steps! But if you don't do step 1, it doesn't matter.

Do you know what the next step is for you this year? Do it!

P.S. If you'd like to listen to the sermon on big dreams, click here or go to www.belairpres.org and click on recent sermons. It's the one from January 7, 2007.

Day 1 of the Rest of My Life

Thinking and planning about goals, resolutions and dreams takes up the brain-space of many a mortal this time of year. Not least of which is me, Kitty. Our pastor gave a brilliant sermon Sunday on dreams - big dreams! The kind that will never come to pass unless God is involved.

So I'm writing down goals and thinking about what kind of big dreams I have, the kind that are impossible without God's help. John already has his big dream figured out - he's sent out his updated demo reel to Weta Digital in New Zealand, and now only God can do any more to get John a job there next month.

I spent the day taking my current #1 goal - finishing this book and getting it to my agent - and breaking it down into pieces. As I read in one goal-planning article last week, the more pieces you can break your goal into, the more items get crossed off as completed, and the better you feel about yourself. This in turn lends additional motivation and courage to continuing on to the end. So...I'm off to cross another piece off my goal list.

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking about what my big dream is... Do you have one?

What's Your Goal for the New Year?

Hi friends! Kitty here with all kinds of smiles because she's met her goals for the day! I've spent a good part of the day reading articles on goal-setting. Mostly, it's because I've got to finish that book! But also, I need to get my life in order so that the important things get done and I can let the unimportant and un-done things slip away without guilt. Too much feeling guilty about unfinished to-do lists in years past!

Today my goal was to read over the goal-setting articles, begin setting some goals, and say hello to you here on our blog! Done, done and done! Hurray!

So tell us - what are some of your goals for 2007? Watch more James Bond movies? (Seems like a good year to do it.) Lose some weight and/or exercise more? (We're in that boat this year. The goodbye dinners in Sydney, the welcome home dinners in Los Angeles, as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's put us up about 10 lbs (4 kg) each. Eeek!) Or maybe you want to stay in touch with your friends and family better. That's us, too - and the reason why we're going to try harder to write you here and say hi at least twice a week.

Comment here and let us know your goals this year. Writing it down adds power and conviction - at least more than not writing it down at all! Good luck and God bless you!!