Hey everybody!
We have so much going on! So many exciting things I want to tell you about!
First of all....we kicked off our Shine All Night tour in Moline, IL and it was an absolute blast! I can't explain how excited and pumped up we all were to do the first show. And, apparently, the audience was just as excited as we were because they gave 110%! It was an unforgettable night. Then it was on to St. Paul and Milwaukee where we continued the string of great shows and great crowds. Thanks to all of you who came out to support our first weekend.

We have a lot of fun things going on with the website. We've been keeping Becky Fluke very busy! First of all, we are posting pictures from each show/city in a photo gallery so that you can check out pics from your show...or just check in and see pics from the tour. It's kind of like a postcard from the road.

In searching for fan club exclusive content, we came up with the idea of having the band and crew use their flip cameras to capture a bit of their road experience to share with you. We call it the Band Cam/Crew Cam and our first installment is up now. My musical director and keyboard player, Jim Medlin, is our first Band Cam contributor and let's just say, he has an interesting view on the world! :) I thought this would be a great way for you guys in the fan club to see behind the scenes from a different perspective and also to get to know my band and crew. They are like my family and we've all been together for so many years. I think it's a cool idea and I hope you guys enjoy it!

We have also been hiding tickets for each show and giving clues via twitter. This is really fun and I love doing it! The tickets are great seats and sometimes it might even be front row. For those of you who don't know how it works: I hide tickets around the city, tweet clues, and then you go out and find the tickets. There will be a code on the envelope that I will need to you tweet to me to prove that you found the tickets. If you can, it would also be cool to tweet a photo of you with the tickets. Fun!

Hopefully most of you saw us this weekend on the GAC Top 20 Countdown with Trace Adkins. It was great that GAC and Nan came out on the road to shoot their Top 20. We loved having them. I have some more exciting news coming up about GAC but can't spill it yet, so stay tuned!

Now about the fan club. Thanks to all of you who have joined. We want to grow this into one of the biggest fanclubs out there. For me, it's a way for us to have fun offering exclusive content like videos, discounts in the store, exclusive merchandise, contests, your own blogspace, campaigns, presale tickets, etc. Do I appreciate my fans who don't join the fan club any less? Of course not! I know the economy might not allow for you to join the fan club right now. And believe me, at $20.00 it's not about making money. That covers the cost of providing the exclusive stuff and any extra costs we incur. My goal with this fan club is to make it FUN and EXCITING! So, we'd love to hear how you think we are doing and any suggestions you may have.

If you have time check out Loveisrespect.org. It's a great website for both teens and adults that talks about how to avoid teen dating abuse. If you want to show your support, buy one of our My Time To Shine t-shirts in our webstore. They are cool and the money goes to support the helpline so that kids have someone they can call or talk to 24/7.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We got to spend time with both my parents and John's parents as well as John's brother and his family. We all ate way too much and it was SO worth it! Now it need to think about decorating my house for Christmas!

I guess that's it for now. Take care until next time...

Love,
Martina

PS....Some books and movies I am loving right now.....I highly recommend Blindside...Tim is great in it and Sandra Bullock rocks too. It's funny and inspiring. I'm getting ready to read Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire. He wrote Wicked and Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister, both of which I loved. He takes stories we all know and reinvents them in a wonderful way. Mirror Mirror is about Snow White. I can't wait to see what he does with that one!