Welcome Home: Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy - Blog Tour

Kimberley Woodhouse is a wife, mother, author, and musician with a quick wit and positive outlook despite difficult circumstances. A popular speaker, she’s shared at more than 600 venues across the country. Kimberley and her family's story have garnered national media attention for many years, but most recently her family was chosen for ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Montel Williams Show, and Discovery Health channel’s Mystery ER. Welcome Home: Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy, releases from Tyndale House Publishers September first. In addition to her non-fiction, she also writes romantic suspense and children’s books. Kimberley lives, writes, and homeschools in Colorado with her husband and two children in their truly “extreme” home. www.kimberleywoodhouse.com

Welcome Home: Our Family’s Journey to Extreme Joy

Overwhelming trials . . . met with overcoming joy.

Kayla Woodhouse is not your typical twelve-year-old. Due to a rare medical disorder, she feels no pain, doesn’t sweat, and needs protective cooling gear just to go outside. With her restrictive lifestyle; countless hospitalizations, including brain surgery; and the resulting mountain of hospital bills, what’s a family to do?

How the Woodhouse family has faced seemingly impossible challenges is a story that has captured the hearts of America. Millions of people have experienced glimpses of their lives on Discovery’s Mystery ER, The Montel Williams Show, and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (recently voted one of the show’s all-time best episodes!).

Now Kayla’s mom, Kimberley, takes readers behind the cameras to reveal their family’s journey as never before told. From medical sleuthing to cross-country moves, from freak fires to battles with insurance companies, Welcome Home proves that truth really is stranger than fiction. This candid life story reveals both success and failure and demonstrates how, even during tough circumstances, to shift your life from heartbreak to extreme joy.

Peek inside the Woodhouse family’s life (and their famous house) with a 16-page photo insert.

What would you like readers to take away from your book?

Hope – these are tough times that we are in, but we have hope for the future. And Joy – His joy cannot be taken away, no matter the trial or circumstance.

Why did you choose to write this book?

The publisher asked for it, but it was difficult to know how much of the story to put in. And it was hard to write and re-live a lot of the really tough circumstances.

Did you think your first book would be non-fiction? What type of books do you normally write?

I had no idea that my first book would be non-fiction. I’d had a lot of non-fiction articles published, but I also thought my first book would be fiction. God had other plans though, and I’m so glad He did.

What one thing about writing do you wish other non-writers would understand?

That once you are published, doesn’t mean you make millions of dollars. :)

What is the best lesson you have learned from another writer?

Keep writing.

What is the toughest test you've faced as a writer?

Waiting. Patiently.

What is something readers would be surprised you do?

I can’t think of anything, so many people have seen so much of our lives on TV. :)

How do you reach new readers?

They normally find my website because of TV appearances. And so, I try to reach people through that venue, or through my speaking engagements. I meet lots of new people through traveling.

If you could have dinner with 3 authors to talk with about their writing (living or deceased) who would you invite and why?

Jane Austen, the Apostle Paul, Tracie Peterson. Tracie is one of my favorite people (on top of being one of my very favorite authors), and so I just love to sit and talk with her whenever I get the chance. Paul’s letters are so real, confronting, uplifting, and challenging—I would love to pick his brain. And Jane’s books have stood through hundreds of years and they are still amazing writing. I’d love to talk to her to know her as an author behind the stories.

Can you give us one do and one don’t for those aspiring to be a writer?

Do – write. Write. Write.
Don’t – ever think that you’ve learned enough.

How can readers get in contact with you? (mail, email, website)

All contact can go through my website: http://www.kimberleywoodhouse.com/

I’m also on twitter and facebook:
www.twitter.com/kimwoodhouse
www.facebook.com/kimberley.woodhouse

Any advice for someone who wants to get on the show?

Well, I’ve heard the best thing to do is apply. We were nominated by thousands of people, and didn’t even know until they contacted us. But most families apply through EMHE’s website.

Can you give us a sneak peek of your next book?

Well, there are two in the works – a parenting encouragement (nonfiction), and a romantic suspense set in Alaska (fiction). Be watching my website for updates.