Home at Last!

My new friend. Photo courtesy Bill Bennett ASC

I am finally home from the crazy week of media last week.It feels like I've been gone for more like month than just a week, we covered sooo much in such a short period of time! But it's not over yet! Back home, yes, but also just as busy as before.

Both my little kitties are sitting in my lap all cuddled up and dozing off,

cutest little things ever, and seeing as there is no way I could get up right

now without waking them up, I've got a bit of time to write another blog.

Forgot where I left off in the last blog, but ill just start back with leaving New York.

I've got a bit of ground to cover in this blog here. After four days of whirlwind

media and little sleep, we were all looking forward to having one relatively

uneventful day. We packed our bags and headed over to the ABC Studio,

where we spent three hours doing 17 radio interviews! Pretty impressive, aye?

It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be, although by the last few I was having

trouble keeping track of what I had said in each interview and half way

through telling a story I would start to wonder if I had already talked

about it or if that was one of the other interviews...

Well, we got through all that and headed back to the hotel to get our bags and

head over to the airport. We flew out of NYC in a little puddle jumper plane, with a very talkative bunch of people on board, but managed to doze off for a bit. Woke up with a bit of a sore neck, but Virginia was gorgeous! It was warm and sunny out and we got picked up and driven over to a hotel right by the 700 Club.

Virginia Beach is probably one of the nicest places I have ever seen. Anyways, we spent the day swimming in the indoor pool and wandering around, then slept all night long. Next day we went over to the 700 Club studio. It was incredibly nice, much bigger than I had expected it to be. Everything there went well, and then we

were off to the airport again. We said good bye to Jason from Thomas Nelson there and headed to our separate flights.

We had such a great time working with Jason for the few days we were together.

It's a little weird to think that until I write another book, we'll probably not see him again.

After about an hour or two flight into Phoenix, I said good bye to Lisa Gizara. Lisa was heading home to LAX and I was going on to Houston. Lisa was great to travel with, looking forward to the next trip I get to go on with her!

On the plane heading to Houston, I shut my eyes for a second, and next thing I knew we were landing! Gotta love when flights go like that. Got to the hotel there in the marina pretty late, wandered around looking at the boats for a bit, then headed back to get some sleep. Next morning I headed over to the South West International Boat Show tomeet the people from Texas Coast Yachts who had sponsored me to come out there.

It was a lot of fun, met some great people, and got to see a little bit of Texas.

After about four hours of signing books and meeting people, I was off to the airport again. On to the Stricly Sail Pacific Boat Show in Oakland, California.

Hanging out with my brother Zac! Photo courtesy Bill Bennett ASC.

That was a lot of fun, I was a little dazed from meeting so many people by the end, but it was great to see my brother and a bunch of the guys from my team who had come up to check out some of the gear.

Jeff and his wife Gail are working on getting their boat ready to sail around the world again, so they were up there walking all around and even came to see me speak which was great! I had forgotten that I was going to be speaking there until the night before, so kinda ended up just winging it, but it went better then I thought it would! In fact, it went really well! Funny thing, I do better the less I prepare for these talks, and I even have more fun giving them if I prepare less!

Well, we decided it would be too late to fly home that night, since we were going to fly home in my friend's little plane. So we spent another night there and headed back home the next morning. It was a good flight home, though a bit of a blur. We landed in Burbank and headed off to meet up with my parents and friend who was visiting from Cape Town, South Africa.

From there I was finally headed home. It was a long but fun week. Good times and memories aren't so much created by what you do or where you go, but who you do it with. I'm lucky to have some of the best people ever around me, both helping and watching out for me.

Well, gotta run, going to my prom tonight! Bit of a shocking toss back into life as a teenage girl... but I suppose this is just one of those things that you have to do as a senior in high school.

Talk to you all soon!
Abby

Good Bye New York

Hey Guys!
Well, we survived New York! The TodayShow, Fox & Friends, CNN, The View, InsideEdition, and three hours straight of radio; 17 interviews in just three hours! I may besuffering a bit of trauma from that, but afterarriving in Virginia Beach this afternoonand spending a few amazing hours wandering around here, I'm glad to say I'm back happy and normal and not feeling like a robot so much any more.

Meeting all the girls from The View was

great. Back stage after I got off, I got to chat a bit with them all and while of course they didn't all agree with me and my trip, sevral did say that after having me on the show and talking to me they had changed their minds. I had never watched the view before, but it was a really fun show. New York was tons of fun. It was probably my best trip there so far and I definitely want to go back again sometime.

I've got the 700 Club tomorrow morning, and so I should probably get going. Dont want to be up too late again. I'll let you all know how things go tomorrow!
Abby

New York - Day 2

Hey everyone!One show down, five (or so) more to go! This Morning went really well.Of course it was pretty short, only about five minutes long but they did a really good job with the story. I think we're all happy with how things went. Just had breakfast and we're back in our hotel now. We're staying on the 46th floor. You know how you jump up when you're in an elevator sometimes? Well when you do that in these elevators,you've gotta be careful your head doesn'thit the roof!

Okay, not really, but almost. It moves pretty fast, and you have to yawn to unplug your ears at least once on the way up to the top. We have a pretty awesome view and are right next to Times Square. So far we have been having a pretty fun time, we have the rest of the day to mess around, so thinking of going to see a Broadway show.

Well, I'll write again soon, and try and get the link to this mornings show up soon!

Tomorrow morning, I will be on two shows, Fox and Friends and CNN American Morning.

Abby

New York

Hey guys,
So I'm over in New York right now.I was up at three this morning to get to the airport and fly over with good friend and photographer, Lisa Gizara. We had a good flight and a nice evening here with Lisa and Jason, the publicist for Thomas Nelson who is here to get me around town to my different interviews. We went and got dinner and talked over everything that's happening this week.

Jason keeps insisting that I "don't need to worry, its only going to be 20 million or so people watching you over the next few days." Not sure why, but somehow that wasn't the biggest help. Guess it's a good thing I'm not as scared of cameras as I used to be any more!!

The next four days are packed with interviews and shows, but there is an afternoon or two that we'll get to run around and have some fun here. Well, I'll be up around 5 tomorrow and on the today show sometime between 7-8 (local time in New York) so that should be fun, hopefully it all goes well.

Talk to you all again soon!
Abby

Lots of News!

Hey Everyone!

Lots has happened recently, and it seems like I haven't had a down moment in awhile now. Well, I have some good news, actually, there is quite a bit of good news, so I'll try and organize it in order of importance. Number one on the list - kittens!

Any of you that followed my trip from the start probably remember that I was contemplating picking up a kitten in Cape Town, South Africa, but in the end decided it would be best for the cat, and myself, if I just waited till I got home. Well, I got home, and still no kitten.... till about two weeks ago. Now this is where the flame thrower fights come in and the story starts to get interesting, no kidding, there was really a flame throwing fight involved in the discovery of the kittens, but maybe I should start from the beginning and try to make it a little more clear.

I actually spent the morning in jail because I was asked to speak to the workers at Lompoc Federal Prison. That went relatively well. I went from the prison on to a film set where I was working as the still photographer. It was amazing! It was one of the first somewhat big sets that I have worked on and it was so much fun! The short story they were filming was for Dolby, for the convention in Las Vegas. The story involved lots of fire, and some pretty crazy stunts, such as the girl dancing with her legs on fire, breathing fire, a fire heart, and yes the very second to last shot, but quite likely the most awesome, was the flame thrower fight.

Now in case your mind is starting to wonder, let me just reassure you that despite the talk floating around the room about if we could find a way to work the little kitties into the story, or set them on fire, they were not set on fire, they were in fact, found at the other end of the large wherehouse that we were shooting, in the corner in the bathroom. Of course, everyone was falling over the kittens the minute they were found. I got lucky and ended up getting to bring them both home. They are really the most adorable little kitties ever, two little girls, both black with white paws and blue eyes. We named them Dolly and Bebe, kinda like Dolby :)

Okay on to number two. Well, this actually kinda clumps a lot of stuff together, books and documentaries, Tennessee and tornadoes. The book is done!! You can buy it on Amazon now, but it will officially be out on April 12th along with the documentary. There has been a lot of hard work put in by so many people, its gonna be great to have it all completely finished.

My websites been updated with more info on both the book and the doc with links to buy both of them. Check that out if you want: www.abbysunderland.com.

Another exciting thing, I got to go to Nashville, Tennessee. Just got back last night. That's where Thomas Nelson, my publisher is, and it was great to finally meet everyone behind getting the book published. So much hard work was put into it by so many people there, it was great to be able to talk to them in person finally! I flew intoNashville Sunday, spent the night in a hotel, then started up with media training the next morning. After six hours of that we headed over to Thomas Nelson. Inside, all the lights were off and everyone was on the way to the basement. Okay, so the weather wasn't the best during my little visit, but I can now say I've been into the basement along with everyone else at Thomas Nelson Not sure that's anything to brag about, but I can also say that I know for a fact that tornadoes do exist.

After signing a hundred or so books I headed back to the airport. Waiting at the gate with the lights flickering on and off while watching as the flight departure time was pushed back further and further was slightly disconcerting. Needless to say, the flight was not canceled nor was it hit by a tornado and I am safely back in California where all we have to watch out for is earthquakes.

Now onto planes! I have decided to learn to fly. I had originally not been all that excited about the idea. I prefer being on a slow boat where when everything starts falling apart you get a good few minutes to try and sort things out, rather than in a plane where you're going 100kts or so, you wouldn't really have much of a chance at sorting anything out. I have to say I am having more and more fun with it. It will never by quite as amazing as sailing, but it does come scarily close. I've only had about two or three lessons, but I have a secret little hope that I might be able to get my pilots license before my driving license - how awesome would that be!

Well, there is so much more I could write about right now, but I'm off to New York in a few days and have so much going on between now and when I leave that I really have to pack today so I'm ready. I'll be in New York Sunday and am going to be a on a bunch of shows, The Today Show, Fox and Friends, CNN America and The View. If you want to watch, my Facebook page will be updated with the time that I am going to be on. I'll try and get a blog up with the exact times for anyone who doesn't have Facebook.

I've gotta run, I'll try and get another blog up soon!

Abby