The Trip to Nationals
Michelle: So before I left I have to pack all my food for the plan ride….I got up (my mom stayed with me and went with me) at 4am to catch a plan at 7am. I did make sure that the hotel we stayed at had a refrigerator so I could order food with NO sodium. Sodium the last couple of days are VERY important so that your body doesn’t retain water. I tend to hold ALL my weight in my mid section which doesn’t help with the curvy figure you need for bikini.
We all made it to Vegas on Thursday with no problems! I took my mom out on the town and taught her how to play black jack! WOW!! Thank god is was during the day and the tables were $5 with a VERY nice dealer. It took her a while to get the hang of the hand motions….LOL you should have been there! We played for an hour on $50, not bad for her first time. The we went to the Baleigio and ate lunch of course I order a DRY chicken breast and potato. I order extra and took it to my room.
When we got back to the hotel I got a call from my trainer. He has been keeping track of my physique and what I look like over the last couple of days. He wanted to see me in person and go over what changes I needed to make. Everything checked out good…..keep everything the same and off I went.
The rest of the crew got there late afternoon, Kristie, Tisha, Kendra and Pat.
We went to check in Thursday evening. That is when you start sizing people up and the competitiveness comes out. I always say be sweet and intimidating….so I stuck with that modo. Ended up meeting some really neat people. There were 500 competitors! It was very organized and ran very smoothly. At the meeting we found out that each of us were all in a different class! Yeah! Good News!
Kristie: On our way to the hotel our cabbie kept chatting with us. About every other sentence out of his mouth was, “Soo…whats your dark side?” Both Tisha and I at first were thinking he was just joking around with us. But then it got a little bit annoying! It’s Vegas I guess anything can happen. We all went out for dinner on Thursday after the meeting. The girls can only eat chicken and veggies but I DONT so I had myself a yummy sandwich with cheese, bbq sauce and the bun! hehe 
Friday
Friday morning started nice and early. My job was to check in all competitors for tanning. We ran 4 girls at a time and were booked from 9am till 9pm in fifteen minute increments. Talk about a lot of organization. I was highlighting, crossing off names, adding names and yelling at girls that were an HOUR LATE! HELLO ladies that is just uncalled for! It never fails we always have someone that messes it up. So they had to completely re-tan her. I guess others don’t get the instruction that we give our girls on how to make everything go smoothly. At 3pm I went to the show to work the booth. Mandy was my co worker and she made things fun! We did a lot of people watching. Oh the people, outfits, personalities you see at an event like this! haha I was able to sneak away from the booth to watch the girls on stage. Its nationals so the competition is TOUGH!! Everyone is beautiful, exotic and have it ALL going on. Our goal was to have the judges look at the girls more than once on stage which was a task in itself let alone place in the top 5!
Michelle: I was up early because I couldn’t sleep way to much stuff going through my head. When I get up to look at my phone there is text from Tisha. “Are you up I can’t sleep!” Since she was up might as well get things rolling. So I started tanning every
one by hand. Kristie was there for work for Jan Tana (the tanning company that tans all the competitors) So she was able to compare us to the other girls and said we were NOT dark enough. We had to run, yes run in the HOT Vegas heat across traffic 4 blocks away!! Rule number 1 when tanning, Do Not Sweat!
Friday Night
Michelle: The night of the show was finally here and I was in the BIGGEST class 20. They lined us up and we started to walk out onto the stage and present ourselves. We went off and on stage 3 times because of the size of my c
lass. They call out the top 4 girls to look at. Then they called me out! I couldn’t tell if I was 5th or 6th??? So I had to wait until the next night to find out. So Excited!
Saturday
Kristie: I set up the booth by 9am. Starting work at 9am is late for m
e. Mandy was competing that day so I told her not to worry about the booth. It was a little boring not having someone there to talk to. While working at the booth I was asked by John Lindsay, (NPC National and Pro show promoter) to present awards to the female body builders. I said you want ”ME??” on a national stage, standing next to bodybulders?? I will look like a 7 year old, haha. I was honored that he asked. I walked out on stage and stood next to the girls which their arms are about as big as my waist.
Michelle: Saturday morning to keep our minds off of everything we took our moms shopping. I bought Doug a shirt and Skylar an outfit and a little dog that barks and does back flips. Which she is terrified of and doesn’t like it! :~)
Then at noon back to the room to get our hair and make-up done! And off to the show to do it all over again. This time they wanted each of us to come out and present ourselves, exit stage right and then if you made top 5 you would get lead over to the side of stage so you could come out again and get your trophy.
The whole time I was thinking did I get 5th to 6th…..I thought it was 6th. So as I was walking off stage the guy at the side of the stage took my hand and said “congrats you made top 5″ WHAT - REALLY!! Is all i could say. Then he lead me over to where I needed to stand to go back onto the sta
ge to receive my trophy. Let me just tell you I NEVER have been in shock that much or had a panic attack before. When he told me I made top 5…..chilies went over me, I couldn’t breathe, I started to shake. The helper back stage had to get me water before I went back on stage to get my trophy.
In the NPC after you make it to the top 5 (out of 75 AMAZING WOMEN) judges will remember you. So I am thinking about competing in another national show… I would like to work toward getting a pro card. Which means I have to get first at the National level.
Kristie: After the show I met up with the TF girls at the Hard Rock. They had some “bad food” . But not too much and hey they deserved it! We gambled a little and i bought the group a round of shots! I was so proud of them all! But boy i was ready to come back home. I was missing my hubby.
Michelle: We ate dinner at the Hard Rock and ended up running into a few of the judges.
So we chatted with them for awhile. We had fun watching Kristie play $25 black jack, she did pretty good. At the end of the evening it was time to indulge a little:) Tisha and I had a cinnamon roll!! And boy was it good! 
Sunday
Kristie:We left Sunday on the 9am flight. Not sure who’s idea that was? Anyway I get home and my husband takes one look at me and says, ” Wow babe it looks like you got hit by a mac truck, you need to take a shower you look homeless.” haha And yeah he was right!
Michelle: I was happy to get home and see Doug and Skylar. Just being gone for a few days i could tell she grew a ton. In my absence Doug taught Skylar to say “Daddy”. So everywhere we went all day long that is all she would say. So i would day “Mommy” and she would look at me and say “Daddy”.
So my Vegas trip was a success….placing 5th in the land of the beautiful people is quite an accomplishment! I was very proud of that and VERY surprised.