Drew Carney Show

This morning was a very early morning…4:15 am! I met Miss Leslie and Rich Jarvis at waterfront at 5am to promote the Rose Festival BBQ and Brew on the Drew Carney Show. I ate delicious ribs by Slabtown, and even had the chance to visit with some animals in the small zoo area. I told Drew that I have eaten lots of delicious food during my reign as Queen, but these ribs were the most delicious. I held a 15 foot long 115 pound boa snake and a cute, fluffy baby lion cub. This was a very fun event, definitely the most fun that I’ve ever had at 5 in the morning!

Holding the baby lion

Drew Carney and I with the snake!

New Member Knighting

Today was my first of three knightings. I knighted a group of new Royal Rosarians, a true honor. The knightees included Vicky–Carla Stenberg’s sister and Adam Baker, the son in law of the Klobertanz’s. The hardest part was pronouncing the names correctly, but the knighting itself was lots of fun. This was the true portrayal of the “Magical Realm of Rosaria”.

Knighting Adam Baker

Newly knighted members of the Royal Rosarians with Prime Minister Sue Klobertanz

First Court Orientation

This evening was the first 2010 Rose Festival Court orientation. It was the first time that all fifteen girls met each other. The orientation brought back so many memories for me of our first court orienation. I spoke to the girls and gave them advice about being grateful of their new titles and to cherish every moment of their Rose Festival journey. I also said how the time flies by–it just seems like yesterday that I was sitting at orientation and Queen Marshawna was telling us about how quickly everything would fly by! The 2010 Court is a great group of girls, I am excited to spend time with them.

2010 Grant Princess Coronation

Today was a wonderful day, as I crowned Grant’s 2010 Rose Festival Princess. The title went to senior Victoria Dinu. All of the girls did an amazing job speaking in front of the school. Victoria has that extra passion for the festival that makes her a perfect princess candidate. I was able to speak a to the school about my experience as Queen thus far, and about what an honor it has been to be Grant’s first queen in 43 years. Princess Victoria is going to be a wonderful representative of our school and community.

Speaking at the assembly

2010 Grant Court, Mikayla, Cilesse, me, Maria, Carolyn and Princess Victoria

Metro Princess Crowning

Today the 2nd ever Metro Princess was crowned by last year’s princess, Bre Burnett. It was great to go to the coronation and to meet their court, and newly crowned Princess Jessica Hua from Aloha High School. She will be a fantastic representative of the Metro Area to the Festival. Congratulations, Jessica!

2009 Metro Princess Bre Burnett and I at the 2010 Metro Crowning

The 2010 Metro Court

Newsmakers Event

This evening was one of my favorite events so far. The Newsmakers event is hosted by the Royal Rosarians annually, as the local news stations feature one of their most memorable stories of the year. Miss Leslie and I sat at a table with Shauna Parsons, the anchor of FOX 12 Oregon. The story that FOX 12 was featuring at the event was the story of a high school aged boy who pulled his two sisters from their burning house earlier this year. Other moving stories include a lifeguard who saved a boy from a river, a non-profit group who builds fences for families with dogs so that their dogs aren’t tied up all of the time, and a young woman who raised money for her favorite teacher with cancer. All of these stories were moving and inspiring, great coverage by the news stations. This was such an honor to attend.

Kaohsiung: Day 6

An early start today–breakfast at 6:45, bags packed and we were loaded on the bus at 7:20 a.m. We had a four-hour bus ride to Taipei; one bright spot at a toll stop was a Starbucks; most folks on the bus were extremely happy, since we had not seen one the entire time we were in Kaohsiung! I have to admit, I was very, very excited! 

Another sit-down lunch upon our arrival in Taipei. At least they had a couple non-seafood courses, so Miss Leslie was able to eat a little more than she had at previous meals. We completed lunch ahead of schedule and had to wait about 45 minutes for the bus to come back because the restaurant hadn’t realized we were done eating and hadn’t called him! Fortunately the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze, so it wasn’t too bad.

Our next stop was the Taipei Museum, the Palace treasures exhibit. It was nice, but on the last day after a four hour bus ride, not as interesting as it would have been a few days earlier. We had 2.5 hours there, but really only needed one hour, which meant we could have had longer at our next stop, the 101 building. Before the 101 we stopped for a photo op at a temple. The Chinese guard was in the process of taking the flag down, and we found this very interesting. Seven guards took approximately thirty minutes to take the flag down and roll it up!

In front of the 101 Building
The 101 building was so awesome. When we got off the bus to see it up close, we had to nearly bend over backwards to see all of the way to the top. We only had an hour there, so we quickly entered and started looking at the shops. Wow, they were all designer. We saw Armani, Valentino, Chanel and many other designer stores. As you can imagine, we didn’t make any purchases. However, we went to the food court and had a great dinner. Miss Leslie had a chicken sandwich and I had some noodles and a pineapple smoothie. We also went to a great pastry shop where we bought some goodies for the plane; and for dessert we had some fantastic ice cream. The day was long, and we were about to leave Taiwan on a long airplane ride.

This was truly the trip of a lifetime–what an amazing experience!