Party Like It's 1999...

I'm not even going to attempt to describe how we feel about 10 years having passed since we graduated from high school. I'm going to skip all the psychological stuff and just get to the nitty gritty fun we had celebrating with all our friends!

Friday night was the "preunion" mixer at the Peppermill. We were out on the deck there (which no one told old so most of us were pretty chilly!) and had a pretty decent turn-out. But, most importantly, it was our first opportunity to hang out with our close friends, those we've kept in touch with and see every year or so when they come home for a visit. Hooray for catching up! Our friend Christina (and her two kids) are here from Texas and Rayna and Alaina are up from Portland. Matt and Janelle (though we didn't see them until Saturday) are up from Kenai with their kiddos (much to Sycely's delight). Friday night was pretty informal and just a fun time to catch up with those guys and a ton of other folks who were up for the occassion. We had some tasty appetizers and lots of fun conversation.

Rayna, me and Alaina

Saturday afternoon was the family event bbq at the school. The kids got the chance to hang and out and play together in a bouncy house, do some sidewalk chalk and bubbles, push cars, bikes, balls, etc while all us Alumni chowed down on bbq food and visited some more. The weather, amazingly, turned out to be awesome (followed two hours later by an unheard of thunderstorm!) and a good time was had by all. It was many of the same folks from Friday night but this event included family so we got to see everyone's kiddos too. Sycely made fast friends with a dog that was just her perfect size (though she did tell the owner she's allergic to dogs which is NOT true-neither did she "used to be allergic to worms when she was just a little girl" like she told Rayna!) Sycely had lots of fun playing with Ben and Emily. As I walked across the parking lot after leaving her playing ball with them, with Ben promising to walk her across safely is she wanted to come back over to us, I had one of those, WHOA! I guess it HAS been 10 years moments...it was the first time Matt's kids were "babysitting" our kids!

Saturday evening was the formal event at the Snow Goose theater which turned out to be a great locale for the event and where we had our best sampling of their food. This event drew a larger crowd and was pretty fun. It was still casual and informal in the way that it gave us lots of time to chat with people, eat and do a little dancing, win some prizes (like free tickets for the performing arts center) but with the added bonus that we got to dress up a little fancier, which Lem and I have both become a fan of these days.

Me and Christina

Janelle and me

Matt and Lem-some things NEVER change!

Sunday morning we had our crew-the Wilson's, and Rayna and Alaina-over for a tasty brunch after church. We madea huge batch of pancakes and waffles-with a variety of toppings, bacon, sausage and muffins, juices, etc. It was such a fun breakfast. The kids played, we stuffed ourselves to the gills and reflected on some of the craziness we observed in our classmates behavior the night before. All I can say is, I feel so blessed and accomplished by all the our lives have become over the last 10 years. We've finished our education, gotten established in careers, built a strong foundation for our marriage, are involved in the community, have found the perfect church home and have made a beautiful family (and I'm skinny again!) We're so fulfilled and our lives are complete-a far cry from what we heard from so many others this weekend when asked what they're up to, "oh, not much, you know, working, hanging out..." We are so richly blessed!

Anniversary Cele-br8-tion

Lem and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary last week. We got dressed up all fancy and headed off to dinner at Sullivan's. There we enjoyed a leisurely meal and pleastant conversation, WITHOUT our children! WE'd never been to Sullivan's before and had a positive first visit there.

After finishing up with dinner we went on a fancy dessert seeking adventure and after a few failed attempts at some "fine dining" establishments downtown we threw in the towel and ended up at Barnes and Noble (of all places!) for Starbucks and Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. Ironically we spent our extra anniversary date time at a bookstore last year too. Just goes to show that really, we don't care what we do, as long as it's together and involves us getting to hold a whole conversation without being interrupted by anyone under the age of 4! We picked out some books for Sycely for her birthday and a new fun kids snack/treat cookbook for me, that unbeknownst to me included the perfect birthday cake for Sycely! We headed home to get the girls to bed and rest up for the rest of our celebration weekend. We'd spend the next 3 days celebrating our 10 year high school reunion with friends...

The REST of June...

Seeing that it's summer, it's no surprise that things are busy, but June turned out to be a VERY eventful month for us. You've already read all about Sycely starting ballet school and the Mrs. Alaska pageant earlier in the month. For our family, there was much more excitement in store this month!

We've enjoyed some sunshine here and there and that's given us a chance to do some backyard cookouts, including some with friends and family. Nothing says summer like s'mores! The girls have been enjoying the backyard and I'm excited to see how this year's garden will fare-so far everything's coming in nicely.

Cookout with the Gibsons

Sycely made her first banana split last week, and it sure seemed like she spent more time (and enjoyment) making it than eating it, but that's fine by me! She's of course, still loving ballet class and I've started planning her ballerina birthday party. No surprise that's her theme of choice this year. As always, Sycely's spening alot of her time dressing up and role playing and you never quite know which character you're going to encounter. Sycely sure loves being Mommy's helper. She enjoys folding and putting away laundry (Ella likes emptying the dryer-and the laundry basket!), loading and unloading the dishwasher, wiping down the table, vacuuming and mopping and of course her favorite "chore" is still baking with me-muffins, cookies, cupcakes, whatever!

Sycely's first banana split

Sleeping Beauty

Ella is quite the chatterbox these days. She's waving, and saying "bye bye" and playing patty cake and peek a boo now. She also now says, "gentle," "moo," "baa," "meow" and 'bow wow wow" a host of animal-sound associations she's working on mastering. She's crusing along pretty much any surface and seems to be working on getting brave enough to take the "leap of faith." Sometimes she forgets to hand on and will turn and reach for something and do a little wobble before she remembers to hold on. She's eating up a storm now that she has so many more food choices and I expect she'll make a weight jump at her next check up. She still thinks her sister is the funniest thing around and half the time I don't even know what they're doing but it sure does send them both into uncontrollable hysterics-no complaints there.

Ella's 11 month picture

Lem's off at summer school, teaching two sections of Economics and playing softball. I'm teaching skating lessons, wrapping up planning for the Governor's picnic and working on getting both the girls' birthday parties organized. I've been posting alot of stuff on Craigslist, unloading lots of baby stuff and clothes of mine and the girls, etc. We've been turning a pretty good profit so far, plus there's more room in the house and the garage!


We took the girls out to Kincaid last week to show them where we got married and followed that up with dessert at Tastee Freeze. We've been enjoying some dates, including our anniversary and 10 year high school reunion (more on those in separate postings) and are looking forward to a long 4th of July weekend, a visit from grandpa and nanny Kate, a family reunion in two weeks and a visit from Aunti Eris.

Mrs Alaska 2009 Pageant Pics

Here are the much awaited pageant photos from the professional photographer. They were all taken during the onstage portion of the competition (except for the interview suit pictures which were taken in the morning during our panel interview)
Hope you all enjoy them!

Interview Suit

On-Stage Question in cocktail dress

Swimsuit (obviously)

My handsome hubby escorting me on stage during the evening gown portion

Evening Gown

More evening gown

LOVE my evening gown

(I SO need an excuse to wear it again!)

Receiving my awards from Mrs Alaska 2008 (and friend) Erin Lynn gray


Queen's Court

Mrs. Alaska 2009

Months of planning and preparing culminated at this weekend's Mrs. Alaska United States pageant. What an amazing, life changing experience! Less than 24 hours ago I was strutting my stuff on stage with 13 other beautiful and accomplished Alaskan women and I'm not sure I've even had enough time to process what it all has meant to me or what the right words are to describe all that I encountered in this new endeavor, but as everyone is anxious for pictures, I'm posting a least a minimally detailed account of the big day out of obligation to all my supporters :) The weekend started with a picnic with the contestants and their families, where I received the most interesting job(s) award. I'm so blessed to be surrounded by so many friends in this endeavor. I'm so grateful for my friend, Danielle who ran with me, my other friend Erin Lynn, the reigning Mrs Alaksa and my pageant mentor and friend, Jeannene, the pageant co-director.

Pageant day dawned early for me as interviews started at 9am at the Marriott downtown. Being the first contestant, I was up bright and early primping to impress the judges first thing in the morning. My dedicated hair dress made the hour drive in from Wasilla to be at our house by 7:30 to start work on my hair. My make-up artist followed not too far behind, and by 8:30 I was haired, make-uped, suited and out the door. I'd made a special mix CD of all my favorite (christian) pageant inspiration songs so I felt the Spirit in me and upon me throughout the morning. The interview, like every other stage, went soooo quickly! We had a five minute, five judge panel style interview. The judges asked me three questions, all related to my bio, related to how I could serve as an example and encourage other married women, how I discovered and maintained a balance in my life of professionalism, family, beauty and fitness, and community involvement, and about what I felt my greatest accomplishment was. Time expired as they asked my my fourth question, about my involvement on the campaign in 06 (dang! I had such a great story to tell there!)

After the interviews we had some group photos and then a short break during which I ran home, nursed Ella and finished the final packing for both of the girls and Lem and I for the evening. We had a three hour rehearsal to run through each portion of the onstage competition, practicing our walks for each portion and mapping out the layout, etc.

After our rehearsal concluded we had two hours to get ourselves ready for the stage portion of the competition. So, my beauty team arrived at my hotel room and spent some time getting me as pageant ready as possible. We had another contestant photo session on stage before the stage portion started.

It wasn't long before the lights were dimmed, the music started and our MCs were announcing the contestants. Being contestant #1 I lead the pack onto stage for our intro. After our intros each contestant answered an on-stage question (in our cocktail dress) in front of the judges and audience. My question was about being appointed to Gov. Palin's transition team in 2006.

After the on-stage question came swimsuit. So it was a quick as could be wardrobe change and a lot of applying tape in awkward places (this is where the contestants become very fast friends!) and back to the stage to show off our "fitness." I have to say that it surprised me how comfortable I was in this portion-I guess it helps when there's 13 OTHER girls prancing around in swimwear in front of hundreds of people! I actually felt more confident stepping out there in my swimsuit than stepping up to the microphone to answer my question. I guess losing 35 pounds and toning up after 2 babies can do that for a gal.

Before I knew it I was already backstage squeezing myself into my amazing beautiful evening gown. It was so crazy how fast the whole day and especially the on-stage portion went. Months of planning, weeks of preparing and hours and hours of agonizing over details and in 40 seconds you're done in that outfit and slipping into another one for the next portion! Evening gown, was by far, the most exciting portion for me. My dress was indescribable and I was SOOOOOO anxious to get out there and show it off. For the evening gown portion, the ladies are escorted by their husbands, so it was Lem's pageant debut last night as well. He wore a super handsome tux with a fancy vest, tie and pocket square that was a sharp turquoise that matched my dress exactly. It was a fabulous look!

Evening gown concluded the scored part of the pageant and after an intermission and a farewell walk by reigning Mrs Alaska (and church friend) Erin Lynn Gray the results were announced. There were several new awards this year including business woman, spirit and online photogenic. Those were in addition to the standard awards for fitness, evening gown, civic, Mrs Congeniality and photogenic, and people's choice. When the results were awarded I was please and honored to make the Queen's Court, placing third runner up, earning myself a "sleeping beauty trophy", accordingly to Sycely. Though some of the placements were surprising, the overall title winner, was no surprise to me and in my opinion, very much deserved!

After all the awards were handed out I got Ella fed and to bed upstairs in our hotel room, Sycely headed off to Nanny's for a sleepover and Lem and I joined about 25 other friends from church for a later dinner downtown. Lem and I enjoyed some much deserved dessert at Simon's while enjoying breathtaking clear skies and a spectacular sunset over the water. The end of the evening brought the best, most blissful night of sleep I've had in over a month.

All in all, it was an amazing experience. I'm so glad for the experience and all the new things I've learned about womanhood, image, pageanting, and myself over the course of all that it entailed. If nothing else, I encountered all kinds of new things that I'm certain will influence me for a life time. I now wear heels, own pearls (a special and lovely, womanly gift from my husband) and have experienced nursing while getting my hair styled, in a cocktail dress (before the pageant) and in an evening gown (after the pageant). We did order photos from the official photographer which I promise to share with all of you once we get them. In the meantime, keep checking the Mrs Alaska website http://www.mrsak.com/ for the results to be posted with photos, etc. and enjoy these pics! Thanks to all my fans and supporters. I'm so very blessed by all the love, prayers and cheering and votes my friends and family provided me last night and over the last several month. And, yest I'm already thinking about next year.

Ballet Class

After months of anticipation, Sycely finally had her first ballet class last week. She's been looking forward to it so much and she was so excited when the big day arrived.


Ella stayed with Nanny and Papa so that Mommy and Daddy could both be fully "present" for Sycely's first ballet class, which turned out to be pretty entertaining even for the audience. When we arrived Sycely's teacher Miss Theresa got all the girls into their shoes and trimmed their strings to be the right length. Then she took them into the studio for a tour. Sycely waited about 2 and a half seconds before stating to her teacher, "Look at me, this is how you do a pirouette" (Mommy later apologized to Miss Theresa for being taught basic ballet skills by an untrained chatty 3 year old. Turns out Miss Theresa, like everyone else thought it was actually pretty cute.)

There were 6 girls in her class, all of which were 4 or 5, other than Sycely of course, so her usual tiny-ness was intensified by the fact that she was surrounded by girls a whole year to two years aolder than her. Skills like galloping, jumping and hopping hurdles sure can be a hoot to watch when your girls two heads shorter and two years younger than everyone else! They did one activitiy called "speed bumps" where they were hopping over foam tubes where the teacher actually used one tube instead of three for poor little Sycely-three tubes were almost as tall as her whole little self!
Sycely had a blast and LOVED every minute. She did a great job listening and following her teacher (sometimes serving as a miniature shadow). They did lots of different activities soem with crowns and long scarves, some with cat ears (Sycely's favorite- the tiger dance), "ballerina dolls" and one where they "turned into butterflies" and some good ol' favorites like "I'm a little teapot."

As expected, Sycely was happy as a clam, loved her teacher and enjoyed her first class immensely. Miss Theresa was as amazing in person as she was in recommendations from all those other moms. Sycely can't wait for this week's class.

In the merry, merry month of May...

As if the beginning of May wasn't crazy enough for us, the rest of May certainly brought no reprieve from the onslaught of perpetually activity. The end of the school year is always Lem's busiest time of the year and all my pageant preparations made for an extra active month for us. Lem participated in the usual end of year festivities for school: baccalaureate, graduation, staff BBQ, etc. This year he somehow amazingly managed to have all his grading done the second to last day and spent on part of his last morning tidying up his room so that he was able to leave school immediately after their staff party, and got summer started a few hours early with us girls. He's also had softball each week and just played his last hockey game for the season this Friday night.

I've had my usual schedule of skating lessons, Governor's picnic meetings and the like. I also coached some skaters for our spring show. We also had a sign making party for the pageant-a fun excuse for us girls to get crafty. I had my headshots done. Many of you know, they turned out BEAUTIFUL and it was beyond difficult trying to choose only ONE to submit! We also did some mock interviews with a panel of three judges. That went really well and I received high scores in all four judging areas-hair and makeup, wardrobe, introduction and response to questions. That's real encouraging for the real pageant which is now only 6 DAYS AWAY! AHHHHHHHH! On that note, I'm pretty much prepared and feeling pretty good about things. I'm spending some time practicing strutting around in my wardrobe to be ultra comfortable in each piece and I'm getting my hair done tomorrow, but other than that, it's just a matter of gathering up all my gear and being ready for pageant day! For those of you who might not know there is an online photogenic poll on the Mrs Alaska website. You're able to vote once a day (until this Friday) for your favorite contestant, so feel free to cast your vote if you get the chance. You can also see the pics of the other contestants. http://www.mrsak.com/2009_pageant.html I was also featured in a series of articles for an online journal last week. You can read about that here: http://www.examiner.com/x-7080-Anchorage-Family-Examiner~y2009m5d29-Introducing-the-contestants-to-the-Mrs-Alaska-United-States-pageant-2009-Part-2

Other than pageant prepping and wrapping up school we've been enjoying some sunshine and making good use of our deck and yard. We had a beautiful Memorial weekend and we were able to get our garden ready, do some flower planting and have our first cookout of the year. We had another family over last weekend for a cookout as well-nothing says summer like roasted a dog on the campfire and washing it down with s'mores! We've already been to Saturday market this season already as well. Lem and I enjoyed a fancy dress-up date to celebrate the end of the school year while Sycely got to have a sleepover at Nanny's.

Sycely's antics continue to keep us entertained daily. Between her and Ella (and the two of them together) they're rarely a laugh free moment around here. Since Lem's been off the last week we've had lots of time together as a family and been making some fun summer memories. Those with those two in the picture, EVERY occasion is memorable! Sycely starts "ballet school" tomorrow and couldn't be any more excited. I took her on a Mommy Date to get all her gear and it was so stinkin' fun-she's just tickled to be doing a real ballet class. I made the mistake of taking her to her ballet school's spring performance of Alice and Wonderland. As if it wasn't bad enough with her continually offering ballet instruction and performance, now it's "Mommy, NOW guess who I am on Alice and Wonderland...NOW guess which part of Alice and Wonderland I am doing?" I can't wait to see her with all the other pink-clad ballerinas tomorrow.

Ella is doing her thing-which pretty much mirrors just about anything her sister is doing. She's quite the jabberjaw these days (don't know WHERE she gets that!) and she's pretty entertaining in her own right. The other night she laughed hysterically for a full minute at a pea-apparently it was the funnies pea she'd ever seen. She's really expanded her diet in the last couple of weeks and she's now eating both wheat and dairy so far without any adverse reaction. That is not only encouraging allergy-wise but it certainly makes meal times A LOT easier on me! She pretty much refuses anything she can't feed herself though so our days spoon feeding rice cereal are coming to a close.

Ella's 10 month picture

This next week is busy with the Aces (our pro hockey team) in the Kelly Cup finals, Lem taking a class three days, Sycely starting ballet, and of course, the long awaited Mrs Alaska Pageant on Sunday. The rest of the month won't be wanting for excitement either, though. June will bring more softball, another skating competition, our 8 year wedding anniversary on the 25th and our 10 year high school reunion the following weekend. Hopefully, June will bring more sunshine as well-to our family and yours! We'll be seeing some of you at the reunion (we can't wait!) and wish all of you a happy summer!