Whew--it's over!

 Being in charge of the Hyde Park royalty pageant gave me an unbelievable amount of stress.  I made a few decisions that I would love to go back in time and do over.  I offended a few people, lost sleep, and spent the majority of last week either worrying or trying to put everything together.  In the end--I felt like the pageant itself went really well.  The girls were so impressive and Melissa (one of my hired and un-paid judges) tells me it was super close with so many of them.  If they only knew that, maybe they would feel less sad today, I don't know.
Something that I want to remember about the evening is what happened to Alicia.  All the contestants were upstairs and the basement was filled to capacity (about 175 people) all awaiting their entrance.  The 12 contestants came in and got a lot of applause.  A little bit before that, Alicia had gone upstairs to check on the well being of Audrey and just to be with her.  Well, the current royalty made their entrance and got a very big shout of applause and here comes Alicia right with the 5 of them, wearing her jeans and Aggie tshirt.  The look on her face was one for the books and she couldn't get to her seat fast enough.  We've been laughing a lot about it today.