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!

California

The flight to California was another blessed, peaceful experience. Despite the change in plans and the rigamarole to change our tickets yet again, all the swapping gave us the chance to see my Mom and my sister. We hadn't seen my sister in over 3 years so it was a nice treat. We arrived in Sacramento and headed to my mom's about a half hour away. We had dinner with Far Nanny and Papa Scott and spent the night at their house that night.

We had breakfast with my Mom the next morning at a super tasty local cafe and then picked up a few necessities at the store and headed back to the house to get Ella down for a nap. While Ella napped at home with Nanny, Sycely, Lem and I took a trip to the mall to the Build-A-Bear store to make a Hello Kitty with Aunti Mahcoya.

When we finished up Ella was still napping so we headed over to a local park so us girls could spend some time, swinging, sliding, and most importantly, GIGGLING!

We swung by the house and got Ella and headed to have lunch at Chevy's. After lunch we just spent some time tootling around another mall, making fun memories and giving the girls a chance to be "out" as much as possible before our drive to Fairfield that evening. Though it was only one day, I'm thankful that the girls and I got to spend some time with my sister being silly and building bonds.

We got the car loaded up (again!) and hit the road to Farifield where we'd spend the night so as to avoid a long drive to the service in the morning. We stopped in Davis at Papa Scott's work for a short visit (and picked up an ice cream cone for Sycely) then made the rest of the drive. We checked into our FABULOUS suite for the night and got the girls to bed. We had two rooms, each with their own bathroom (one with 2 queens, one with a king) and a living room. So, my Mom and Sycely had the queens room and Lem and I had the kind and Ella had the living room. It was the perfect set-up and everyone had a good rest that night.

The next morning my Mom stayed at the hotel with the girls while Lem and I went to the graveside service. Lem had the honor of being a pallbearer and did his job well, considering he ended up at the front, leading the pack, rather than following everyone else like he thought he'd positioned himself to do! We said good-bye to my family at the cemetary, headed back to the hotel, packed up (AGAIN!!!) and picked up my Mom and the girls for lunch at Red Lobster. After a terrifically tasty lunch we headed back to Sacramento to the airport. Mom helped get us all checked in, return the rental car, etc then we said good-bye and headed home.

One of these days Lem and I are going to take a trip to Napa when we're NOT burrying someone so we can enjoy that beautiful winecountry. We did get to enjoy a blessed time with my Mom and my sister and I'm thankful for that opportunity, no matter how short our visit.

The trip home was uneventful-pretty unbelievable huh? We had some dinner in Seattle, got the girls into their jammies and back on the plane and they both slept most of the rest of the way home. Astoundingly, in the end, Ella slept on EVERY plane we flew on! In the end, we were thankful to be back home 6 planes and 5 airports later. The girls did amazingly well the whole trip and I'm so thankful that God heard our pleas for a peaceful, blessed trip, even with all the surprises and changes we encountered.

Idaho

We'd originally planned to go down to Idaho at the end of May to visit my Grandpa, but his failing health led us to change our travel plans (no easy feat!) Fortunately, Lem was able to use sick leave to get a few days off school so that we could get down there ASAP. My dad was already in Idaho so we got the added bonus of the girls getting to visit with their Grandpa while we were there, too.

From the first moments of our travels, God's hand was truly resting on our trip. Despite the added leg from Anchorage to Juneau that changing our tickets created, it was about the smoothest flying we've ever done since having kids. Adding that extra leg broke the trip up into roughly three two hour segments which worked really well for the girls, giving them a chance to get their wiggles out before they were totally "done" with being cooped up on the plane. And, every leg of our flight down benefited from a nice boosting tail wind that got us to all three airports ahead of schedule. To top all that off, BOTH of the girls slept on the plane, even overlapping their naps about an hour on one leg of our flight down! We certainly did enjoy the blessings of God's traveling mercies upon our family.

We spent much of our time at my uncle's house visitng with my Grandpa and other family. The first day we were there was really the only day my Grandpa was really awake and able to talk. I got one good day of visiting in with him, and he was able to see both the girls and know we were there, but after that first day, he pretty much started to fade-sleeping and not really waking up all the way again after that.

The girls in Mommy's very special chair at Popper's house

(someday soon this chair will come to our house)

Sycely got to go to the neighborhood park (actually this same park was the first park she ever went to when she was just 6 months old!) and enjoyed time on the slides and swings. We did some outlet shopping (Mommy's fave) and took a trip to the Boise zoo with my dad. We also got to enjoy all our favorite eateries: Olive Garden, SONIC-yum!, and Texas Road House.

She had her very first swing ride on this same swing 3 years ago

Always her favorite, the penguins REALLY loved her and showed off their swimming skills

Grandpa tries his hand at navigating the double stroller

The morning we were supposed to come home I got a phone call from my dad around 7:15. He told me they thought Grandpa was going to go real soon and if I wanted to be there I should head on over. I threw on some sweats and headed to my unlces (he lives just across the main road so it's a real short trip). Within 15 minutes of me getting there my beloved Grandpa took his last breath. I'm so blessed to have been holding his hand when he went home to be with Jesus and to be back with my Grandma again. I will never be able to express the importance of the influence this dear man had on my life. I truly would not be the Godly woman I am without the direction he gave me growing up and I'm so grateful for all the sacrifices he made for me.

That development, of course, changed our travel itenerary (AGAIN!). Kudos to Lem for handling all the dealing with the airline for me! Instead of flying home that day, we instead would be staying in Idaho another 4 days then flying to California for 2 days, then finallly flying home. We had a couple days before the funeral so we did some more shopping (we all needed something to wear to the funeral since we hadn't packed for that) and lots more eating. Why is it that when someone dies EVERYONE feels the appropriate thing to do is the bring the family COOKIES?!

We had a viewing the night before the funeral; by that time Nanny Kate had arrived so we had pizza night afterwards. The funeral went well and was a nice tribute to a very special man of God. The next day we flew to California so we could attend my Grandpa's burial/graveside service.

April Update

What a whirlwing things have been around here the last month or so! Pardon the chaos as I try my best to get you all up to speed...

April turned out to be a super busy month for all of us. I had my usual skating lessons, Governor's Picnic meetings, board meetings and the like. Additionally, I started my coaching session with the pageant director and have ALMOST mastered my pageant walk. I now have all four pieces for my pageant wardrobe as well.

April also brought Week of the Young Child. WOYC is a National Celebration that focuses on appreciating those who work with young children, the policies that support early learning and highlights the importance of the early years. I oversee Anchorage's local celebration and this year (again) AAEYC teamed up with our church to host a Family Fair with lots of free, fun, hands on activities for kids. This year we had a proclamation from the Governor's office (big surprise, huh?), the Mayor's office and a resolution from the Anchorage Assembly supporting WOYC. I even got to go the Assembly meeting, receive the resolution, and speak about WOYC, all on live TV! Our event went off without a hitch and hundreds of children were able to have some fun family time while their parents got ideas of simple ways to support their development.

The Mayor's under there somewhere...

Sycely and Scarlet had a great time enjoying all the activities

There's lots to report on the Ella front: she's now weighing in at a whopping 15 pounds 2 oz-just under 5th percentile, but she's over 27 inches. So she's still outweighed by her peers by about 4 pounds give or take and she's still a tiny little Roo Bug, but she seems to be maintaining her figure by being continually active. She's mastered pulling up to standing and she's pretty much always standing in her crib calling to me when she wakes up. She's saying some words now, "Mama" and occassional "Da Da," "more," "hi," and "mapp-o" (apple.) She's uses her little index finger to point at everything which is stinking cute and she's really gotten a knack for tactile books and knows all the spots to feel in each of them now. She's eating lots of new foods and is making her way to finger/table foods now. She LOVES peas and green beans, peaches and rice cakes and give her some freeze dried apples and she's happy as a clam for 30 minutes.

My morning alarm clock

Ella's 9 Month Photos

Sycely has been really developing her visual representation skills and has done some pretty spectauclar artwork or late. Last week she held up a finished painting to me and said, "Look Mommy, it's you and Daddy when you got married." She'd even given Mommy a veil. She's also still pretty stoked about the volcano and we're still working on her volcano project. She's still completely enamoured with her little sister and is quick to let anyone (even strangers) know that Ella is her little sister and that it's fun to be a big sister. She's even started helping feed Ella bites once in a while and her favorite is when Ella eats prunes-go figure!

Lem was only able to help with the nominating committe at State FFA Convention one night this year since rearranging our travels to Idaho (more on that later) had us flying out the second day of convention. At least he got to be there to get them started, and techinically he still hasn't missed a convention in like 15 years.

April also brought sad news regarding my Grandpa's health. After completing both chemo and radiation the doctors determined he was losing his battle with Lymphoma and that there really was no treatment left for him. So, they began working with a wonderful team of Hospice workers to keep him comfortable and cared for so he could stay home at my Uncle's and not spend his last weeks in the hospital. We made arrangements to go down to say Good-bye and, God willing, our travels and our timing were a perfect blessing.