I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful and warm Christmas with your families while getting some well deserved rest. I know I truly enjoyed Christmas and taking a few days easy at home! My family and I have 3 Christmas celebrations. We start out Christmas Eve at home and have my mom’s family over that night for dinner. On Christmas day we have our immediate family’s Christmas in the morning, (and yes… we still get up relatively early eager to see what Santa left ) then we head over to my aunt and uncle’s house for lunch (otherwise known as my faithful blog readers…. Danny and Anita ).

This Christmas I really got on a cooking/baking kick. I’ve made sweet potato casserole, chocolate-banana pie, autumn soup, pumpkin pancakes, tiramisu pie, and more! I’m not sure why I love to cook so much. I think it’s just a way to let your mind go on autopilot for me and then also supplies a wonderful treat at the end (sometimes… with a few exceptions from past baking disasters!) . I’ve also taken the time off from school to simply relax, spend time with family, and attempt getting some things done which have been on my to-do list for way too long! Regardless of what I did and didn’t accomplish thus far over break, I truly appreciate the Christmas season. There is just something special about driving downtown and seeing the Christmas lights strung across the street and how even when the temperature drops below freezing that everyone has more love in their daily steps. I am a little down that Christmas has seemed to pass so soon, but then I just try to remind myself that Christmas should be celebrated as a season, not just one day!

Besides the Christmas celebrations, I just finished recording a commercial today for a dress store called Miss Priss which is where I have bought some previous pageant competition gowns.  What made the day even more special was not only that I got to record the commercial with the super sweet Elizabeth Cruse and Cara Drury, but also because I got to record the commercial with  Miss America 2009, (Katie Stam) and Miss Indiana Teen USA 2011 (Jessica). I have admired Katie since I watched her grasp the title on the live broadcast a couple years ago. Although she models for Tony Bowls as well, our paths havn’t previously crossed. Needless to say I was thrilled and in awe while I met her and had the opportunity to spend many hours learning about her year with the crown.  She was just as sweet inside as she is stunning outside. She even let me wear her Miss America crown for a photo! I was so afraid that I was going to drop it! In additiong, watch out for Jessica because she is a beauty that is also as kind hearted as Katie. Lastly, I couldn’t forget to mention the part Heather French Henry, Miss Kentucky 2000/ Miss America 2000, played in the commercial. As a well established gown designer herself, (check out her collection called “Frenchy” by Heather French!) she honored us with her presence in the commercial to pretend to be making sure each girl was ready to go for the ”photo shoot.” I’m amazed by her poise and grace each time I’m in her presence. She truly is a special person. To wrap up all the incredible people I was blessed to be surrounded by, the videographer and crew was even outstanding themselves! They helped keep our energy high for the 10 hours we were there and are really putting together a class-act production. I am honored to have been included in not only an awesome opportunity, but and incredible day!

View the commerical on January 15th during the Miss America broadcast on ABC throughout Kentucky and Indiana. Blog readers from other states… I will try to post it here as soon as possible.

Interviewing Uk/Previous Boyle County Football Coach Chuck Smith

Merry Christmas to all!!! I hope you enjoy this amazing season with your family and loved ones. So happy to have a “white Christmas” this year in Kentucky. Remember the reason for the season…. and also remember to soak up every moment!

I just received my photos from my most recent shoot that are to be used in my new portfolio with Ford Models. I was very pleased with the outcome! I believe I mentioned how fun this shoot was in a previous post, but I’ll say it again,  it was a blast! The photographer was the very sweet and very talented Stephanie McNiel in Chicago. Without her creativity and variety in styling, the shoot wouldn’t have turned out the same. Some of the clothes, such as the black and white  dress and black jacket, were what I brought from home. However, her wardrobe additions of the stripped sweater dress and especially the red throw-back jump suit made the shoot so much more special! Another added bonus of the shoot, her studio is the apartment that Michael Jordan lived in when he lived in Chicago! How neat! I can still remember my older cousin’s room decorated in Chicago Bulls/ Michael Jordan.

Anyway, I find the differences that separate modeling and pageantry to be an entertaining challenge. Specifically, I enjoyed wearing hardly any makeup, if any at all, in these and other portfolio photos just as much as I like getting all dolled up for pageants. Some people think modeling and competing in pageants are very similar… but this is just far from true!! Some of the photos FORD has chosen for my portfolio are below, including one demonstrating how I can go back to playing in the leaves like a child if the opportunity arises ! Enjoy!

This Thanksgiving has been very enjoyable! I appreciate a day devoted to thinking about the aspects of our life that we commonly overlook or take for granted. We are all so blessed in numerous ways. I like to challenge people to not only make a list of things they are thankful for, but of 10 things they’ve never thanked God for before. On the list can be very simple things, or more complex ones. The concept is to notice blessings which are otherwise forgotten. If you’re up to the challenge, I’d love for you to send a comment to me from this blog! I will reply to you with my list as well!

Of course another very important part of Thanksgiving is all the delicious food! Anyone who knows me knows that cooking and eating are almost like hobbies to me. I have had a total of 3 dinners. The first one was on Monday night with my classmates in the Communication Disorders program at EKU. We spent it at a couple of the girls’ apartment. It was a potluck, which was good news for me because it gave me an excuse to cook up something special! I made one of my favorites, sweet potato casserole. It was a new recipe for me that included bananas…. it was pretty good! It was almost like adding natural sugar, with a little taste of banana. However, it took 3 attempts for the marshmallows on top to be browned. Apparantly my lack of patience does not benefit me well in cooking. During my first attempt I knew I smelt something yummy, that smelled familiar, but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Sure enough it was the smell of marshmallows over a fire during a cookout! However, there was no cookout around, they were just on fire! I had to scrape off the layer twice (I left the potatoes, which were untouched by the flames… shhh… our secret:)). Finally on the third try I got it right. Turns out that although putting the oven on broil makes things go faster, it’s not a good idea when the food is about an inch or two from the top!

The next dinner was on Thanksgiving day with my boyfriend’s family. We ate at his great grandmother’s house in Harrodsburg. I enjoyed seeing so many members of their huge family, including many many children. Our family dinner was a little different this year since my mom had to work the day of Thanksgiving. This only impacted our traditions minimally. Instead of eating the dinner on Thanksgiving day, we did it on Black Friday at my grandmother’s house. I enjoyed seeing everyone of my family, including my aunt who just arrived from her old home in Corps Christi Texas, and is now going to live here!

Of course Black Friday wasn’t overlooked. My mom, aunt, and 2 cousins woke up about 3:30 am and headed to Walmart, JC Penny, Peebles, and Shoe Sensation. This is absolutely one of my favorite days of the whole year! It is a tradition to go out early, even though I personally wasn’t even going after anything that required getting up so early this year. This tradition was even included on my Miss Kentucky USA application as something I enjoy. One judge asked about it during the interview! I remember that year I got a great deal on a camera for my mom. After shopping in Danville we went to a breakfast buffet. Next, I headed up to Lexington to continue shopping at the mall with my sister. We got some really amazing deals, and of course had a ton of fun! I made it all the way through the day, with only a couple cups of coffee, but made sure to be in bed at 10:30! 

All is well in the modeling/acting world! I just recently was informed that I was seen on E News and spoke about on Access Hollywood by Josh Groban for the video. The host of Access Hollywood is Billy Bush, who was the host of Miss USA during my year of competition. His kind nature glows through on the interview and I appreciate everything he said so much. I’m still so grateful to have had the experience to be in the video… it’s greatly impacted my modeling/acting career.

http://www.accesshollywood.com/access-hollywood-live-will-josh-grobans-new-album-land-him-a-girlfriend_video_1259918

It is official! My first true acting experience has been released! I couldn’t be happier with the results! I suppose that’s what happens with an amazing crew, writers, and of course a song that just couldn’t be more gorgeous. Watching the video makes me realize what a blessing it was to have had this experience come my way. I was having such a good time while recording it, that I think I forgot to really think about the outcome. I hope you have as much fun watching it as it was to record it. For more updates on Josh’s music and how to order the upcoming “Illuminations” CD which has the song from the video, “Hidden Away” on it, just go to JoshGroban.com.

As far as feedback goes, my cup has overflowed with the kind things you all have been saying and the endless support. I can’t thank you enough. And no worries… I wasn’t really as sad as it appears Enjoy!

http://www.joshgroban.com/videos/hidden-away-official-music-video

Sitting at Cracker Barrel last Thursday, I get a text from my agent in Nashville to ask if I had had class on Friday. Usually I do, but for some reason it had been cancelled. She wanted me to trot down to Nashville for an audition for Josh Groban’s music video to his new hit called “Hidden Away.” She said if I were to get it, it would shoot on that Sunday. Since the audition wouldn’t cause me to miss school, which is fairly abnormal, I decided, what they hey! So I drove down (about 3 1/2 hours) for a 10 minute long audition and drove back. I honestly felt it was one of the worst auditions of my life!!! They asked me to walk on video for them, tell them about myself and a couple questions. I knew these were only asked so they could see my personality, but I still wanted to have great answers. With all the times I’ve been put on spot with questions in pageants, one would think I could have had this mastered. Nonetheless, when asked what the funniest thing that ever happened to me was, my mind went blank… Not to mention, I also told them that I am focusing exclusively on modeling right now and going to school, despite that this was an ACTING audition and that one of the biggest ‘no-nos’ is to present yourself as only a model and not an actress as well!!!! What was I thinking? I thought, oh well! That was a fun-long trip to get Chick-Fil-A, where I ate on the way home!

By a matter of a miracle, about 10 pm Saturday night, I get a call that I booked the audition. I was shocked and so excited! One of the main things I wanted to sign with Advantage in Nashville for was to possibly book a music video, and here it was! It always surprises me how last minute this industry works as far as the late phone call goes. Regardless, I traveled down to Nashville again the next morning and they had everything ready to go and were one of the kindest, most hospitable crews I’ve ever worked with.

After arriving early for hair and make-up and wardrobe planning, which I was instructed to bring my whole closet for, the shoot began. My title in the video is “Josh’s love interest.” I met Josh on location at my first scene of the video, an apartment porch. Despite the posse that formed around Josh, he approached my mom and I to shake hands which I thought was very nice. I could tell from that moment that his friendly smile was genuine and that he was going to be easy to work with. For the rest of the day he was very considerate to all the extras, crew, my mother, drooling fans on the street, and me. The scenes carried on from one location to the next downtown Nashville. At times people would build up on the sides of the road to watch and some even would walk by as their friend snapped the picture of them near Josh and Josh had no idea the photo was ever being taken! It was pretty funny! Another interesting part of the day surprised me much more than the other people of Nashville, “The Zombie Walk.” This consisted of close to 1,000 teenagers walking downtown all dressed as Zombies. They weren’t out knocking on doors, or acting like they had any real goal, but to walk with straight faces dressed as Zombies. Although a couple filtered in on set, the security kept them back pretty well. However, Josh was pretty amazed and got one of his publicists to record him with them for a moment. I thought that was very kind as well.

I was surprised several times throughout the day. One thing I was surprised about was how little I’m “star-struck” anymore. This by no means is because of Josh’s status, as he was the number one selling artist in 2007 out of all the United States (and making the status of best artist of the year in only a few weeks since the CD was released late in the year!!!) as well as the singer of the well known song “You Raise Me Up.” However, since participating in Miss USA  where the contestants and I met several celebrities and after meeting celebrities at the KY Derby, I look at them just as regular people. I appreciate this as I seem to trip over my words much less now when speaking with them than I would have previously . Josh’s approachability made this even more true. He truly is one of the most grounded, kind, and light-hearted “celebrities” I’ve ever met. I was also surprised by how quick the crew moved throughout the set. Each section of the video only required a few takes and then the producers were happy with it and moved on. I was also thankful to have my mother with me who provided feedback. I was honored when she said as she watched the mini TV on set which showed what was being recorded, that she felt that the emotions were genuine, so much she wanted to beat up whoever upset me!! But no worries… I wasn’t upset at all

That night we got back about 5:30 am. My mom deserves the Number One Mom in the Planet Award because she literally slept for 30 minutes then had to be at work at 7 am. I don’t know how she did it. She also has officially had her debut of fame when she didn’t turn down the opportunity to be an extra in the video. She’ll be sitting in the crowd at the restaurant scene to the left. I’m unsure when the video will be released, but I will try to keep you updated. As of now, you can download “Hidden Away” on iTunes and make sure you catch and vote for the video once it’s released! Moral of this story, I let my agent know that I enjoyed acting more than I ever thought I would. I enjoy the depth that it requires and just how fun it is to play another personality. I asked her to please, please submit me for more acting jobs such as this! I think I’ve found a new door to include in my work!

Me, The man that needs no introduction, Mom