Write Integrity Press: Week 10: Where in the World is Magnificent Hope?

Magnificent Hope and I got busy publishing a couple more books, so the blog has been rather quiet. Today, we gear up again with a guest post from author Traci Hilton, and another installment of "Where in the World is Magnificent Hope?" The contest ends August 31st, so be sure and get your entries in now for your chance to win a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet, a $100 gift card, and a bunch of books!

When you live two thousand miles away from grandparents, it can be hard to make the kind of memories I shared about in Life Lessons from Mom. You can’t just pick a random afternoon to take a ramble with Grandma and hear stories about her childhood. Six month to a year’s worth of bonding have to be organized and scrunched into seven to nine days at a time.

We had the happy good fortune of having those nine days with the Grandparents in our town this summer, and so planning the life-long memory and lesson-building activities fell on me.

I wanted to balance time spent in the comfort of our little home, playing in our yard, eating around the family table, with going to big, exciting places. I live near Portland, Oregon and have to admit that big, exciting, places are hard to come by around here.

But we did our best. We bundled everyone off to our favorite beach along the Columbia River for a picnic. I’d say this little hideaway is my favorite place … on Earth. Yes, quite likely my favorite place on Earth. Silky sands, warm water (compared to the Pacific Ocean anyway!), wide beaches, quiet and secluded beauty. And since it is August it is even sunny and warm. With shovels in hand and the family dog in tow we spent an afternoon I can only call heavenly.

Whenever we go to the river I bombard the kids with stories from my childhood of camping along the river, riding in boats that bump bump over the wakes made my other boats, and the ship wreck we used to scramble over as kids. Since we don’t have a ski boat, (and the river I tell them stories about isn’t as clean as it used to be) we can’t camp on that island like I used to do. But they get a little taste of what it was like, and so far, they love it.

I said there were not many big and exciting places around these parts. No Disneyland or Six Flags type of fun anyway. But my area does have one very big and exciting feature. A place my family loves to visit. We don’t go that often because it’s about an hour and a half away. The Grandparent’s had driven over the Rocky Mountains to get to us, what was another little drive?

So with Magnificent Hope tucked into the pocket on the back of the passenger seat of the mini-van so that she wouldn’t get crumpled*, our family: (Dad, Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, and two little girls) drove off to the big, exciting, landmark. It’s a great place for a picnic, a hike, and a nerve wracking drive. It boasts fir trees, trillium, Indian paintbrush, Elk, death defying bridges, and a gift shop.

Can you guess where we took our family and Magnificent Hope to make memories? Check out the picture to see if you can recognize it!

(*Poor Magnificent Hope! I accidentally left her in the van. Also, pictures from our most recent trip managed to travel back to Kansas with the grandparents, so Maggie has found herself photoshopped into a picture at the same big, exciting, location, but last year and with my girls and their Great Grandma.)

So, readers, can you guess where Magnificent Hope is this week?

Answer the question correctly to be entered to win a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet.

Here's how to play:

Each week, we’ll post a photo of Magnificent Hope near a landmark. If you know “Where in the World is Magnificent Hope?” send us an e-mail with the subject line CONTEST WEEK 1, CONTEST WEEK 2, CONTEST WEEK 3, etc. The person with the MOST correct entries and bonus entries at the end of the contest will win their choice of either a Kindle Fire or a Nook Tablet, a $100 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card (depending on which reader your choose), and a copy of all our WIP and PNP books published any time during this year!

Bonus entries may be earned three ways:

By “liking” all three Facebook pages – Write Integrity, Pix-N-Pens, and Magnificent Hope – just be sure to let us know you liked us in your first contest entry, and we’ll add the bonus points.
Bonus entries will also be given for anyone submitting by e-mail one or more photos taken with Magnificent Hope AND at least one of our books anywhere on her journey. One photo per location, please. (For example, if you bump into Magnificent Hope at a Jennifer Fromke event in North Carolina and take ten photos with her at that same event, only one photo will count. But if you bump into Magnificent Hope at Jennifer’s event, and then again at an event with Dianne E. Butts, you can take photos both places and get two bonus entries!) Send your photos in .jpeg format, attached to an email, and we may use them in blog posts or perhaps even a book.
Telling your family and friends about Magnificent Hope, Hope Tour 2012, and our books and authors – through Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, interviews with our authors or Magnificent Hope, or other ways. One share per week gets you an extra entry, so send us your links by e-mail so we can tally your points.

(If you have trouble using the links, the e-mail address to send entries to is: magnificenthope [at] yahoo [dot] com.)

For those of you coming on board in the middle of the contest, you can go back and enter the previous weeks whenever you wish. Just find the "Where in the World is Magnificent Hope?" contest links in the list below and submit your best guess for each week.

Follow Magnificent Hope's Journey on the Hope Tour: