What a Launch!

Last night's launch party was perfect. It was everything I'd planned and more. Of course, when you start planning an event a year in advance, you have a better chance of it working out nicely.

We had the Club Room at Mediacom Ice Park. A gorgeous (and very delicious) cake that looked just like the cover of No Penalty for Love baked and decorated by Julie's Chewies. Flower arrangements to match the colors from the cover including a hockey stick decorated with flowers for the head table (thank you, Mom!). Most importantly, though, we had around 80 guests - friends from church, work, old friends, new friends, and lots of family.

The Missouri State Ice Bears won their game against Northern Illinois and about 50 of the 59 people who requested tickets for our event got to see their very first ice hockey game. I think we made a few new fans! The front row, mainly people from our church, began pounding on the glass by the second period! Others took ice skating vouchers and spent some time in the west rink under the disco ball.

There was only one surprise for me the whole evening and, though I'm a shy person and normally would have hated something like this, it turned out very well. The General Manager of the Ice Bears is Stan Melton. His wife, Cindy, was a substitute teacher in my high school classroom a few years ago and she noticed my Ice Bears memorabilia on the wall. She also did some long-term subbing across the hall from me, so we had lots of opportunities to talk hockey. Since then we've spoken at games. Last night she had me paged during the second period to come to the tunnel at center ice. I watched the second period from next to the penalty box and between the second and third periods went out to center ice (in slick shoes and praying not to fall) and was interviewed about No Penalty for Love. The announcer also mentioned my book and where it can be purchased three or four different times throughout the game. So, unexpected publicity!

At any rate, when you write your book I highly recommend doing a thematic launch party if you can. It was an experience I will always treasure. Thanks to Kelly for grabbing up my camera and taking so many great pictures for me (pictures to come soon); to my mother for the decorations; to Bruce for keeping me grounded and for being so protective of me so that there was nothing put a damper on the excitement; to Shawn for sneaking off to give them the initial announcement about my book and to Cindy for making me go out on the ice; to the Ice Bears for a well-played game and showing our guests how fun hockey is; to Trey and Megan and the others on staff at Mediacom Ice Park for the accommodations and all the attention; to the ladies at Julie's Chewies for working so hard to get the colors just right and for baking such a sinfully good cake, and to each of my guests for helping me celebrate!

Go Bears!

Shellie