Surprising Miss America 2023 Recap: Admiring the Year from Afar

Hey, hi, happy new year!

I hope you all had exactly the holiday break that you needed - whether that was time away from work, time spent with family (or time spent without family), time to work on that special project you've been wanting to tackle, or just some days to simply rest!

After Miss America, I took the train up to NYC to celebrate a milestone birthday for my mama, promptly got the flu when I got back to Kansas, spent a week as a snotty mess, and healed up in time to visit my dad in Virginia for Christmas. Miraculously, we did NOT encounter any of the crazy flight delays or cancellations and made it back to Kansas to dive into a big rebuild for my boyfriend's business relocation. We spent every day (and night until 2am or later...!) building from the concrete up to have his grand opening on January 2nd and I think we did a pretty good job!

After Miss America - I put out a question box on IG asking what y'all wanted to know in my recap blog. So I compiled the most-asked questions and figured I'd roll through them here with you!

So without further ado... My Miss America 2023 Recap - Admiring the Year from Afar.

Before I get into the questions - here's the context: I went to watch Miss America for the first time in 2017 as a local titleholder back when it was still in Atlantic City. I competed at Miss America 2020 at the end of the 2019 calendar year. It was the organization's first year in Connecticut at the Mohegan Sun. Lots of changes were going on both on and off stage. And quite frankly... was not remotely the experience I expected out of Miss A. I came back to watch when we resurrected after the pandemic for the 100th anniversary and was also very underwhelmed. So this was my third year back in Connecticut, my second year back as a former, and my fourth time experiencing Miss America live.

This year, I watched the first night of preliminaries on the live stream, then watched the second prelim night and finals live and in person - so I think I got a pretty thorough experience from all viewing options! Okay - let's dive in.