An engineer by vocation, a writer by avocation, I enjoy the outdoors and taking walks through the woods and fields, where I get a lot of my inspiration. I love to cook and travel, and also just sit around a campfire with my family. Traveling brings new experiences and fills my imagination with stories and anecdotes to use in my writing. Cooking allows me to combine the scientist/engineer aspect of my personality with the creative side; I find it is a perfect union, plus my family gets to eat! Music is also a big part of my life, either by playing various instruments or creating orchestrations and lyrics. Family life is important too, with my wife Mandolin and our big brood of children. There is always something going on. My wife and I consider ourselves blessed to have been foster parents for nearly twenty years. Being surrounded by children of various ages was the inspiration for writing this particular story. I often used my children as a captive audience to read first draft chapters to. I found I enjoyed this way of sharing my love and gift of writing with them very fulfilling. With that in mind, I especially dedicate this story to all 26 of our children and pray God continues to bless them daily.