In September 2009 I attended the ACFW conference in Denver, CO.

The hotel we stayed at was amazing.	The hotel was so huge it had a waterfall in the main lobby	I attended a workshop led by Donald Maass, who is an amazing teacher.	I taught a couple of workshops in 2009, one on plotting and one on enhancing a story using the five senses.

And afer all that fun, there's the annual Chocolate Party. I brought chocolate Loonies.	There was also a dinner for the Abingdon Authors, which was a lot of fun.	I won an award for my story in the Novella anthology, A Connecticty Christmas, and here I am with agent, Tamela Hancock Muarry, holding my certificate.	Here is me and Loree Lough, whom I've known for years online, and this is the first time we met in person.

Cynthia Ruchti and Gail Sattler	Kim Sawyer and Gail Sattler	Gail Sattler and one of my editors, Rebecca Germany of Barbour Publishing	Author Sandra D. Bricker, one of my editors Barbara Scott of Abingdon Press, and Gail Sattler

Gail Sattler and my favorite author, Debbie Macomber. Notice we are the same height.	The worship team for 2009 - that's me on the far right, with the bass guitar.

The dessert at the awards banquet was amazing, they had written ACFW (the name of the writers group) in dark chocolate on a white chocolate slab, and all 550 who attended got this.	The Denver airport felt as big as a small city.	And every washroom at the airport was also a Tornado Shelter. This is why my friends Annette Irby and Dawn Kinzer are posing outside the ladies room.(see the yellow sign?)	This is what a rainbow looks like from the air. We were all fascinated that it arced sideways from up at that altitude.