Miss Louisiana

Saturday was the night of our Beauty Pageant Murder Mystery Party. It was an incredibly good time! The game worked that we were all Beauty Pageant contestants (and a few of us were judges) fighting for the Miss America crown. In the story of the game, the actual Miss America competition would take place the next day, but we were all invited to a pre-pageant-dinner. At this dinner one of us would be the victim of murder, and one of us would be the murder. We got our roles well in advance, but no one was told who was going to be the victim or the criminal (including the victim and the criminal) until the crime took place. We had certain topics of conversation that we had to discuss with other pageant contestants, and we had (fake) money to bribe/blackmail others with. Some of the girls were fantastic actresses, and it was super neat to see everything unravel.

In the weeks leading up to the event I had borrowed a few dresses from friends for this occasion. I had put off trying the dresses on for a few days. But one morning I was feeling especially slim, and so I took the plunge and tried on all of the dresses. One friend loaned me two dresses...and they both fit great. However, when I went to take off the 2nd dress the zipper would NOT come undone! It was 6 o'clock in the morning and my husband would not be home for 2-1/2 more hours!!! I tried and tried and tried to take it off myself, but to no avail. My only other option was Wyatt. Yeah, that was pointless. :0( I began to panic. I mean REALLY panic. I was sweating, I was breathing funky, I just needed to get out of this dress! I finally gave in, and called who else, but my MOM! Mom to the rescue! That is the joy of having your mom live only 10 minutes away. She came right over and helped a sister (ahem, a daughter) out! She too tried everything...EV-RY-THING! We put Vaseline on the zipper, and KY on the zipper (LOL), but nothing would budge this zipper! Eventually I told her that we just needed to find a way to pull it up over my head. And as any girl would know, dresses that have a zipper in the back, are not supposed to be pulled up over your head! Luckily the dress wasn't tight on me, so there was a TAD bit of wiggle room. I was able to completely smoosh my lady parts and have my mom yank that dress up and over my body....FREEEEEEEDOM! I felt like Mel Gibson in the final moments of "Braveheart."

That incident had narrowed my options down to 3 viable dresses. However, of those 3, 1 of them was too small and I couldn't get it zipped up. I was NOT going to force it! Sigh. But I considered it a viable option becuase it was my very favorite, and I saw the potential that it maybe could fit in the near future if I stayed focused in the gym and on my diet. Except that didn't really happen. I worked out as usual, but this party was coming on the heals of "fun mommy" week...and "fun mommy" ate some fun treats.

But on the morning of the party, I decided to take a chance, and I had my husband help me into the dress, and much to my surprise, IT ZIPPED UP! It was TIGHT, but it zipped! This is one of those situations that I totally don't understand how, but in this case it worked in my favor, so I was just going to say "Thank you Lord" instead of questioning how I was able to get into it.

Because the dress was tight, and becuase I had a lot of things to do that day so I was not going to have time to exercise, I knew that I was going to have to be a real beauty pageant contestant for the rest of the day...a.k.a. starve myself, LOL! Up until the party all I had was a generic Target brand Slim Fast shake and a few carrot sticks. My efforts paid off and the dress still fit by the end of the day. :0)

Here are the girls all decked out...



Miss Louisiana in the house...



Miss Alaska, Miss California, and Miss Louisiana...



My sister Jenni had hosted a murder mystery party for us all a couple of years ago, and she was kind enough to provide all of the food, drinks, and everything else that went in to this event. This year however, she still put on an AMAZING party, but the food was more of a potluck style.

The appetizers were incredible. Someone brought fresh fruit with a delicious dip, Miss New Mexico brought an out-of-this-world corn/avocado/bean salsa with some pita chips, Miss New York had brought bite size pieces of rye bread with fresh ranch dip to dunk the bread into, and Miss Alaska had brought a yummy sea food salad to spread on crackers. Everything was SOOOO good! (Especially since all I had eaten all day was a Slim Fast shake and a few carrots, LOL)



Dinner was a mish-mash of all kinds of food! Miss Texas had brought some delicious BBQ ribs, Miss California had brought some pizzas, Miss Kentucky had brought some scalloped potatoes, Miss Louisiana had brought some chicken enchiladas and spanish rice, Miss Mississippi had brought an amazing brocoli salad, and there was even so much MORE! This picture does nothing for our eats, but none-the-less its the only photo I have...



Dessert was incredible! One of the judges had brought pink champagne cupcakes, Miss Idaho had brought an evil chocolate peanut butter brownie cake, and another judge had brought some mini eclairs and cream puffs...my fave!







And at the after, AFTER party when only 6 former beauty queens remained, Katie took a trip to the "famous" Peterson's donut shop, and brought back their huge donuts!





Fortunately for my scale, I was able to resist those!