After the completion of this blog, I will by fully caught up with all my blogging. Phew.
You see, after Australia, I was home for about two weeks before heading back to the airport to jump on a plane to San Antonio. Two weeks of make-up homework, tests, unpacking, packing, and sleeping. So by the time the weekend I’m about to tell you about was finished, I just had SO MUCH to blog about, and not enough time. The blogs just kept getting away from me as I did more events, until we end up here, ten months later. But at least we made it!
So, on Thanksgiving Day 2009, I, unaccompanied by my parents due to their work restrictions, started off towards San Antonio for the Distinguished Youth of Texas Pageants. I had a layover in Detroit, where I met up with Steffanie. I hadn’t seen Steffanie in TWO WHOLE WEEKS, so we were very glad to see each other again. She had brought along her finished Australia scrapbook (she’s a little more on the ball than I am, seeing as I finished the scrapbook two weeks ago) and we reminisced about our travels. The flight was a short one for us, and we were soon in San Antonio, meeting Sunny and Korie at the airport. San Antonio is a beautiful city. Sunny took a quick detour on our way to the hotel, passing by the Alamo Dome, which is where the Miss United States Pageant is held in “Miss Congeniality”.
Once I got settled into my hotel room, and Steffanie set up in the director’s suite, the four of us walked to a restaurant on the river. The river is almost like a canal in San Antonio, with a charming walkway on each side filled with restaurants. With Christmas approaching, it was filled with lights. It looked almost magical. At the restaurant, I had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of calamari. It was so nice being able to sit and relax with my favorite directors, before the craziness of the impending weekend ensued.
After dinner, we started to meet up with all our Distinguished Youth Family. I love all of them! Upon spotting Kim Tuttle, I ran at her full speed, and jumped her. I hadn’t seen her in a full year! Kim and I ended up sharing a room, so we spent the night gabbing and catching up.
In the morning, we had our first staff meeting. Everyone was assigned a job for that afternoon’s check-in of the 200-plus girls. I was a greeter. I stood on the second floor and directed the families to where they needed to be. I answered questions, calmed nerves, and took lots of pictures with the very, very excited girls…some who remembered me from last year’s pageant! I love getting to meet our bright, young achievers. Plus, Texas girls are so spunky!
After check-in and briefing session, I helped judged Little Miss Optional Events. I believe that night was talent and lip-synching, if I’m not mistaken. We had a lot of talented girls, a few of which I remembered from the year before.
Saturday morning began with a staff meeting and a breakfast of Chic-Fil-A! I love the southern half of the United States. From there, since I will never be coordinated enough to choreograph “When You’re Smilin’” or “All-America All the Way”, I made the rounds and checked in to see how things were doing. The girls are so silly, especially during their dance breaks. I stuck around to watch mini-sessions. Note to all our teen candidates: If you think you’re nervous about interviews or poise, imagine being a seven-year old.
Kim and I changed into our interview wear to run and have lunch with the judges in the hotel restaurant. We had a great time schmoozing and answering their questions, but we may have misjudged how much time we had for lunch before we had to emcee poise. This may be because we forgot about the huge lines for the elevator. Not wanting to be rude, we waited our turn to make it up to our room, where we quickly changed into formal wear. Let’s just say that by the time we made it to poise, Sunny wasn’t too thrilled to see us. Kim and I have been mindful of elevator wait times ever since.
Poise went smoothly from there on out, and after many pictures with candidates, we had another night of optional events waiting for us. Sportswear. Westernwear. You name it. Saturday night is always a late night, no matter what pageant it is. While our candidates were snug in their beds, visions of finals dancing in their heads, we were up doing final things on the to-do list and watching the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” literal video late into the night.
Sunday! Sunday morning means final dance rehearsals. And waiting. Lots of waiting for our two finals programs. Little Miss of Texas was up first, in which returning favorite Maddie Matlock won. I can’t wait until Maddie is on staff this year! She was such a help backstage for Young Miss of Texas, in which Shelby Bellah won.
After the many, many staff pictures taken, briefing sessions went underway and we started to sort through the mess that was headquarters. As soon as possible, we made our way to the best part of the weekend…staff dinner! Without a Cheesecake Factory close by, we made due with the Hard Rock Café. Our 30-plus person staff had to be split up at different tables, but it was okay, because we still took total control of that restaurant. The best part of dinner was celebrating the birthday of Tim (Sam) Kinnaird, one of the brothers on staff. Our waitress brought him up on the grand staircase, and shoved a whole whipped cream pie in his face! There was a whole set-up to it, but the look on his face was just hilarious!
From dinner, we walked to the Alamo. It was gorgeous and ethereal at night. All the banners caused quite a scene. It was so exciting because the Alamo is this huge symbol for an important moment in our nation’s history…and it was in “Miss Congeniality”. I had a lot of fun pretending to be Sandra Bullock, leaping into a crowd. All the moms put on their daughter’s banners for pictures. Kim and I took pictures with our “boyfriends”. It was so much fun.
At the hotel, we said goodnight to everyone. Kim, the directors, and I decided to go for a late night dip in the pool. As is DYA tradition, we had to jump in with our clothes on. We caused quite the spectacle, as usual.
In the morning, I had a nice goodbye breakfast with Kim and Rita Tuttle at Denny’s. I miss them! The rest of the day, my very sore throat and I helped Sunny and Steffanie pack everything up. The weekend had destroyed me. We were all kind of a wreck. We drove to the airport together and stayed with each other until the very last minute…right up until they had to call my name to get on board! I was sad to say goodbye. It would be a long time until we saw each other again.
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