Prelim #1

Whew! Night one is done and we have an early morning coming. Tonight was amazing, particularly for someone like me who adores history and loves seeing pictures and videos of past Miss Oklahomas. It is incredibly special to see the talent, poise and genuine hearts of our Miss Oklahomas over the years and I am certain our new Miss O will carry each trait.

Congratulations to Veronica on her swimsuit win, Aly on her talent win, and Victoria on her rookie talent award! I met Victoria and her family while competing in National Teenager and have maintained contact with them so many years, so it was very exciting to cheer her on! Tomorrow will be a fun day with an appearance at Bounce U that I am ready to cut loose at! My poor feet are just regaining feeling, but it was a great evening with doughnuts after swimsuit. What could be better?!? I wish we had a bit more time at visitation, but I was so happy to chat with friends and family, furthering their encouragement during what has been a week of excitement and tragedy. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. I am blessed to be surrounded by women I love this week – even if we stay up too late making sure our tans are even. I have never had so much FUN at Miss Oklahoma and I almost don’t want the week to end.

Please pray for peace during my talent performance – I can only hope to do the very best I possibly can. My goal is not to win any category, but to be who I truly am and walk off the stage knowing it could not have been better. Talent – here I come!

Miss Oklahoma 2012 Contestant Groupings

Here is the line-up for Miss Oklahoma 2012!

Wardrobe in the Works

In December, I (and probably 42 other girls) was beyond elated to receive an e-mail from the Miss Oklahoma organization regarding wardrobe for the on-stage competition. In the past two years, information on the swimsuit/opening number/closing number requirements was not revealed until late February – but now we have an additional two months to search!!

I am so excited to have the list of swimsuit options already! They include cobalt, turquoise, magenta and purple. There’s no telling what Kent has up his sleeves, but these colors will look absolutely fabulous together!! Our ramp gown, or what we wear for awards, is white again – something which will save money for many contestants. We will be receiving more information about the opening number outfit soon, but it will be great to begin working towards locating these items in the mean time!

Day 2

Day 2 is complete! This morning was the Miss Oklahoma church service – a perfect way to begin our week! Corbi Winters delivered a wonderful and incredibly relevant message and we were fortunate to be led in worship by Lauren Nelson Faram. Emoly West, Heather Rasmussen and Lacey Russ also spoke. We closed with one of my favorite songs, which we also sing before each competition, “Surely the Presence.” The church service reminds us that the winner has already been chosen and a perfect plan made for her – now all we can do is our personal best and find out Saturday who He has provided the most amazing opportunity.

After church, we met our families and friends for brunch at the Hilton! I was able to sit with my mom, dad, sister, “Grand MaMa,” (a nice French accent makes it all the better) and Selby. “Graaaaaaaaaaand MaaaaMa” is Selby’s mom, Margie, and my adopted grandmother. Margie is a handful – loads of personality and a heart deeper than the South! Since two of my biggest supporters live in Lawton and Houston (Selbs and Margie), I love to soak up every minute I get with them. At the brunch, I was so thrilled for a very worthy winner, Sarah Klein, to receive the Esther Scholarship! Ad sales were also applauded, and after avoiding the seemingly delicious muffins (talk about self-control!), we headed off to rehearsal.

First, I would like to say that I thought last year was the year to “expect the unexpected!” Kent, while keeping everything fresh, likes to keep us on our toes…literally! Not only will we be performing two opening numbers, but we also learned the swimsuit production (yes that’s right – dancing IN bikinis on-stage!), along with introductions and the closing ceremonies. After several hours of rehearsal, we were given roughly 20-30 minutes to put on as much make up as possible and make our hair Victoria’s Secret sexy for our swimsuit video. After that, I think it’s safe to say any of the 43 contestants could get ready at Miss America on time for a live pageant! Remember how I don’t know how to curl hair? I was determined to get the luscious curls Kent had requested. Having a limited amount of time, I received a 60 second demo from Talia (thank goodness for her) about how to curl your hair with a straightening iron! Hopefully it wasn’t beginner’s luck, but her trick was fantastic! Larry would fall over if he could have seen my wavy hair!!!

The red coats then rushed us over to Schlotzsky’s for a great dinner, and headed to North Tulsa for the video taping. Kristen is my red coat chauffeur this year and I LOOOOOOVE her!!! Kent prepared an awesome swimsuit video and after it was complete, we went back for more rehearsals. During our practice, a few very important guests were introduced to us…THE JUDGES!

Did your heart just stop? Mine totally did. Expect the Unexpected – 2.0! We were all floored to see them walk in, introduce themselves, and provide a few words about what they were looking for in the next Miss Oklahoma. THEN Kent asked us to perform our second dance in front of our judges. After that dance, we were all so exhausted that all personality had left us! Guess we need to have another 6 hours of rehearsals tomorrow if we intend to do this dance that well (or better!) every night! 🙂

I’m sure Kent could tell we were beyond surprised and worn out, because he let us out of rehearsal an hour early AND gave us an extra hour to sleep in tomorrow. Good thing, since I can’t seem to close my eyes! Tomorrow is another full day of interviews, the Kiwanis lunch and more rehearsals. I can’t believe it’s already the Monday of Miss Oklahoma week…wasn’t I just crowned yesterday?!

Slowly but Surely

Between the cardio, weights, dancing, packing, preparing pre-institute work, packing, organizing, school appearances, and trying to maintain my sanity – things are MOVING around here! I leave a week from today for Tulsa and still cannot believe the time has come. Whether I’m more excited about soon competing or eating a cheeseburger (or real, flavorful coffee, or french toast, or croissant, or cinnamon roll, or….well…you understand) I’m not sure! There is still so much to do, and not as much time as I wish I had allotted!

Yesterday I picked up my talent costume and today I picked up my opening number dress, white ramp gown, and swimsuit from alterations. That talent costume is like wearing a trash bag – it’s SUPER hot, but talent is first so I should be able to sweat out a few pounds before swimsuit! (That is, if the red coats can peel it off my body!)I also dropped off my interview dress (after FINALLY finding a pair of heels which somewhat matched!) for alterations as well. It won’t be ready until Wednesday – let’s hope it fits! Sunday I will have a fitting for my evening gown (props to Kayne for making it in just under two weeks!) and could not be more excited to see what it looks like! My sarong and silver swimsuit/opening number shoes are in the mail, and I have started sorting through clothes which I will be taking to Tulsa and Phoenix. Around the Mills house we are Keeping Calm and Carrying On!

Now, if that sounds like a lot of clothing for one week, I’ll be the first to agree with you! These are all items which must be packed before the week begins (complete with checklist):

Talent: Talent costume, tap shoes.

Swimsuit: Swimsuit, sarong, silver heels. 

Evening gown: Gown, gown heels, jewelry.

Interview: Interview dress, interview heels, jewelry (in hand, but undecided!)

Ramp gown: White gown, gown heels, jewelry. 

Opening number: Opening number dress, silver heels, jewelry.

Red Carpet Premiere: Dress, heels, jewelry. (that’s right, none of that is crossed off!)

Various: bedding, room decorations, secret pal gift, four “nice” dinner outfits, Kiwanis luncheon outfit, Family brunch outfit, rehearsal clothes, Black pants/bright top for CMN hospital visit, college t-shirt, local title t-shirt, every color of shorts since you don’t know what color the shirts are, additional “just in case” clothing, robe, shoes and jewelry for all of the above, necessities (pajamas, curling irons, straighteners, rollers, bath mats, etc.), and oh so very much more…

To be perfectly honest, I will probably pack the same amount (if not more!) for one week at Miss Oklahoma than six weeks in Phoenix! It’s all coming together, it’s just taking a bit of time!

 

P.S. Watch for me on KSBI 52 Tuesday at 10 am – I’ll be co-hosting All About You!

Getting RESULTS

Early Saturday morning (we’re not talkin’ 11:30 am, I mean NINE AM!), I took a bold step towards achieving a huge goal – I met with a personal trainer. Swimsuit is an area which I’ve always been about average in. Typically, I can’t accept average – but when it is the difference between eating a cinnamon roll or a celery, I have gladly selected the cinnamon roll.

Until the later years of college recently, I hadn’t even stepped foot on a treadmill, elliptical, or that scary high stepper machine. After dancing for years, my body had always been in shape and I was very fit and healthy (aside from the fact that I ate absolutely no greens). As my body has matured (and I stopped dancing daily), it has taken a more womanly shape. Sure, I’ve always had a small waist and hips that are larger (yet proportionate) in comparison, but when you’re 5’2″ gravity (or the cinnamon rolls) has to set in at some point!

One of the goals I set for myself this year is to win swimsuit. At Miss Oklahoma, that’s quite a feat! This year one of the swimsuit winners went on to become Miss Oklahoma and win swimsuit at the national level. Needless to say, the competition is pretty thick (not literally, they’re all quite thin, muscular, and ripped!). In order to achieve that goal, I decided to work with someone who not only pushed his clients, but set feasible and realistic standards.

Brian Attebery and I met on Saturday morning, which was an hour drive from my hometown, Shawnee. If I’m waking up before 7:30 am to be somewhere, you know it’s a big deal! Brian was exactly what I expected and more. He is intelligent and seriously knows what he is talking about. Somewhere he lost me in the explanation of how blood sugar, glucose and other scientific words work, but in the end it all made sense and I was ready to take off the body fat and put on muscle!

While Brian is super smart (he’s a Sooner alum – need I say more?), he is also very concerned about teaching his “girls” how to maintain a healthy, manageable lifestyle. He doesn’t believe in crash diets or three hours of cardio a day – lucky for me! Brian’s plan is very realistic and he understands that college students have a lot on their plate and a packed schedule. He worked with me to create a meal plan revolving around foods I will actually eat, and provided options as well so I won’t get burnt out.

After typing up a healthy, balanced diet, he created a workout regimen with various forms of weightlifting and cardio. I have scoliosis, causing a lot of back pain, but Brian was very knowledgable about working with a spine curvature. He took that, and my bum ankle, into consideration when designing my plan, giving me a safe work out to follow. Another pro about Brian is that he actually cares about the people he works with. I felt like I actually got to know Brian. He learned about my family, school and we even found a few commonalities!

Now that the initial meeting is complete, I just have to do what he says. I’m determined to lead a healthier lifestyle and develop positive work out habits. Though easier said than done – in the long run my body will thank me!