My First Official Appearance!

I had so much fun at my first appearance as Mrs. Oklahoma! Heather Rouba, Mrs. OK 2009, asked if I would like to emcee with her at the Festival Idol competition at the Arts Festival. Each night this past week kids have been competing. The winner from each night was awarded the chance to compete in tonight's finals and one of them would become the Festival Idol! Congratulations to the Jacuzzi Lifeguards, a band of teenagers from Norman, for winning last night's preliminary!
Heather asked me if I would like to join her for the Friday night competition and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun! Had this competition been around when I was a kid I soooo would have auditioned! It was right up my alley! Here is Heather giving me the lowdown on what I am supposed to do.

Heather went on stage first and gave me such a lovely introduction.
And then it was my turn! I think it's impossible to get flattering pictures of a person while they are talking and gesturing (and I do plenty of the latter!).While the judges deliberated I had a chance to talk about cystic fibrosis! Yay!Ryan did a wonderful job at his first appearance! He took care of my purse and crown case and took lots of pictures! More importantly, he was extremely supportive and helpful. He is going to be such a large part of my success this next year.
Here we are with Heather and her husband, Yuri. If we look content and happy it's because we just finished eating macaroni and cheese from the Sage booth!
Oh, but we couldn't stop there! It wouldn't be the Arts Festival without some Strawberries Newport!You'll notice there isn't anything actually left on the plate except for a little dollop of whipped cream. I think we inhaled it in record time. Hey, we had funnel cake to move on to! It was such a fun evening and the perfect start to my year. If only each one of my future appearances could involve fried dough and powdered sugar....... :)