Home Sweet Home

Just a few days ago I arrived home from a long trip to L.A. I joined the other 51 Miss America contestants for three weeks to film our reality show "Miss America: Countdown to the Crown."

The trip began with an unfortunate case of strep throat! The antibiotics that I took while I was still home did not take care of it. I was not feeling well for the first week because of this and had to miss the Ellen Show, the Warner Bros studio tour, the trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, and flipping pancakes at IHOP. I did not, however, miss any filming days which I was very thankful for. About two days after I started my second round of antibiotics, I finally began feeling better and was certainly well-rested after two full days in bed.
Once my antibiotics kicked in, I was definitely more "myself," and really started to enjoy myself. My first day back with the gang was the day we took a trip to the South Coast Plaza mall to have some free time to shop; what a day to get better!! One of my purchases was common among many of the other girls; a shawl! Although we were in California, it was chilly at times, so it definitely came in handy.

We also joined a huge crowd to watch the L.A. Angels baseball game. It was nice to just grab a hot dog with the girls and kickback! Toward the end of the trip, we arrived at the Los Angeles Children's Hospital to visit with the children. There were so many activities and crafts that we were helping with, so we got to interact with the children one-on-one. I spoke to one of the mother's for about 15mintues and everytime I visit a children's hospital, I'm reminded that the children aren't the only ones that need attention; the parents do too. It is also always nice to see where the Children's Miracle Network fundraising, that we all work so hard on, goes and how it is applied.

As far as the show goes, it was very neat to see the other side of production when we were filming. Because the contestants were together for so long, I had the opportunity to get to know many of them very well! I can't wait to reunite in Las Vegas when the Miss America Pageant rolls around. For the sake of the show's success though, I cannot tell you any more about what we did! You'll just have to wait until the show airs in January to find out!!

I've also posted a few pictures from the Ms. Assited Living Pageant that I judged shortly before departing for California.

Now to update you on my appearances since I've been home! Susan (my business manager) couldn't have been more correct when she told me in an email that "Saturday is going to be a whirlwind." Boy was it busy! I went down to Bridgeville with Sue and Bob for the Apple Scrapple event. We had a great time chatting with people and many of the elected officials from Sussex County. The event was a lot bigger than I had imagined! I participated in the Scrapple Shuffle Board game along with many of the political figures in Delaware. The first round I overshot, and the second round I undershot. Apparently shuffleboard is not my specialty, althought I think if I had been given another shot, I may have gotten a happy medium. As soon as the game ended, I joined the other participants at Mayor Joe Connely's house for food, drinks, and conversation. They mayor's wife showed us all of the doll houses that she's built; from regular homes to fabric shops and churches! They were incredible!! She shares these with all of her grand-daughters. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay at their home for too long because I had to book it up to Newark for the Miss Brandywine pageant. I arrived a little bit late, but Marisa and Chris were able to emcee for me until I got there. After intermission, I also performed Chopin's Black Key Etude on the piano. A big congratulations goes to Tiffany who won the pageant last night!; our new Miss Brandywine.

I'll update in a couple days! Talk to you soon.