Mickey and MAC Nationals

So, while you were all enjoying your turkey and stuffing, Rob the girls and I were in Orlando visiting Mickey, my dad and all the Miss American Coed Queens (not necessarily in order of preference!). Hannah is the current Keystone State Miss with the MAC system, so she qualified to go to Florida to the National Pageant. The short story is that she came home with the Spirit of America Award (an uber participation award) and the general participation award. The slightly longer story is that she was ROBBED of placing in the talent optionals, but if I have learned anything from our years doing pageants it's that you never know what the judges are looking for. I am in agreement, though, with the woman who yelled to Hannah across the lobby of the hotel: "YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOP FIVE!!" In fact, it made Hannah feel better whenever anyone said this to her -- and it happened quite a few times.

Luckily, she had a great time even with that debacle. Here she is in her modeling outfit. She had never modeled on stage before, so she did pretty well with only a tiny bit of coaching. She was going for a Bohemian Chic look.

And then there was talent. Hannah was thrilled that Aunt Anonymous and Aunt Tina and Grandpa came to cheer her on and she wowed on the stage (well, except for the judges!) She sang Over the Rainbow and her costume was a sort of grown up Dorothy. I don't have pictures or videos because no cameras were allowed in the ballroom, so you'll just have to take my word for it. She was AWESOME!!!!

Another contestant (who sang Johnny One Note) shops at the same places we do ... luckily the girls thought it was funny that they had the same dress/different color!

Here was Hannah's fan club (well, Lizzie is a forced member!) It was really nice for me to finally have them see Hannah sing on stage -- it's a lot different than those Poconos Garrity family talent shows!

 The optionals are done before the main pageant, which scores the girls in poise in evening wear and interview. There were more than 70 girls in Hannah's category. Here are some of them. Hannah's in the second row on the left.

 Patty Hawkins is the national director of MAC and her mom started the pageant system in 1983. Here's a picture of Hannah with both of them. They had a cookie and gift exchange party (yes, Hannah got more than 70 gifts -- yikes!) This system has several parties and offers several dining together opportunities, but none of it is mandatory, so you can pick and choose what you'd like to attend.

Hannah with a friend she made, Cheyanne. One of the best parts of doing pageants in the era of social media is that you can meet and keep in touch with girls from all over the United States.

This is Hannah with the two other Miss delegates from Pennsylvania: Jenna and Jalynn.

We can't forget Uncle Anonymous. He had to stay at Grandpa's house with the dogs, but we saw him on Thanksgiving day when we invited ourselves for cake and ice cream!

This is Hannah's interview outfit. She usually does well in interview but I won't know how it went this time until we get the scores in February.

When the dust settled Hannah looked great on stage and we were very proud of her poise, but moreso her ability to make friends and have fun and NOT get too upset when she didn't make the top 15. Lizzie had a good time at this pageant, too, because it is very family oriented (moreso than Cinderella) and the girls really wanted to include her in the things they did. On Saturday night the two of them just went off with a couple of other queens and I didn't see them for three hours!

 Hannah in her evening gown. This was AFTER the competition so her hair looks pretty bad, but I'd be lying if I said it looked much better BEFORE she took the stage. I'm getting better at hair, but the Florida humidity was NOT my friend. (And neither was the fact that one morning I woke up an hour LATE and had to do her hair in about 10 minutes because I'd written the time for the competition down incorrectly ...)

Soooooo, that was the pageant. But part of the prize package was a day at Disneyworld, so off we went as a family. We lost Rob once we got there .... but the girls and I had a great time. We did eventually find Rob (we did have a meeting place and he was there, but so were about 4 million other people so we missed him whenever we went to look for him. (In between all the fun we were having.)  I really enjoyed the shows ... here's one at Cinderella's castle:

 They shot fireworks/confetti from cannons!

 The girls and I didn't get onto too many rides (way too crowded -- the line for Space Mountain was more than 2 hours for the entire day!) but there was no way we were going to miss "It's A Small WOrld," Grandma Jo's favorite ride. We were all thinking of her and talking about her and were a trio of blubbering idiots by the time the ride came to a stop -- I am sure that people thought some sort of mutiny must have occurred on our little boat!

We also liked the parade. This is Lizzie sitting in a prime spot to watch, watching the Minnie ears I bought her. Hannah walked around a little more during the parade, but Liz and I stayed put and had a great show. We had found Rob by this time, but he already hated Disney by this point so he pretty much spent HIS time figuring out how the parade could have been presented more efficiently. And frowning!

Here's another parade shot (the final float!) Oh, if you haven't noticed yet, I didn't use my "good" camera at the park, so had to be happy (or not) with cell phone shots.

Rob and the girls also spent time at Disney Springs which was right across the street from our hotel and I am happy to say that Rob DID enjoy his time there. So YAY for Disney Springs! I don't have photos of that but I heard there was a boat trip and a volcano that erupted and free music. There were also sundaes from Ghirardelli chocolates that were not free but delicious (they did bring me back a taste.)

I honestly had a great time at this pageant. I got to spent time with both Hannah and Lizzie, the weather was gorgeous (a little cold during the evening at Disney) and Hannah is old enough that I had to get her places but then I could leave her and go relax by the pool. ALSO I only had to worry about messing up her hair, since makeup is not allowed.

Will we go back? I don't know! But if we do we will do Disney MUCH differently (leave Dad home! Ha ha!) and I think it would be more fun (although the girls and I did have a great time ... just didn't get on many rides!)

We are taking a break from pageants (maybe, I think, we'll see) so it might be a while before we get back to Disney. Although Vegas may be in our future in 2017!