Grand Opening of Rice Basil

When I still lived in Salt Lake City, I used to go to Rice Fusion all the time for dinner. When Agnes told me that we've been invited to attend the grand opening of Rice Basil, I thought it must've been fate! I moved to Holladay 10 months ago, and so I stopped going to Rice Fusion since it was too far. Then I find out the owner had moved the restaurant to a new location in Holladay. Now I can go eat there again!

Their new facility is still as upscale and classy as the former location. Parking seems to be more limited but you can park on the street. The food is still very good and they were gracious enough to serve free food to the public from 12 pm - 8 pm today.

Thank you, Alice for inviting me to help with the ribbon-cutting ceremony! I wish you and your business nothing but prosperous success. You'll be seeing a lot more of me :)

Ms. Wheelchair Utah 2013

A stressful week, it's been. We had a lot of unexpected obstacles come up with the calendar project. All of the queens from the Miss America and Miss USA system had to withdraw from the project because of reasons that they could not control. I'm thankful that they had the intent to help my cause though. We also had another queen withdraw for personal reasons. So we became short one person. Luckily, fate brought me to Ms. Wheelchair Utah and she agreed to be the 12th model for our calendar!

She is truly an inspiration and just from getting to know her, she really shows that no matter your abilities and disabilities are, you most definitely can still be a queen. Additionally, she adds a great diverse element to our calendar. I'm so excited to have her!

Miss Utah Teen USA 2012

We managed to get Miss Utah Teen USA 2012 to join our group of queens for the calendar! She was so elegant and classy in her photo shoot today. So fun to work with her!

Behind-The-Scenes @ Calendar Shoot

After weeks in the planning and searching for titleholders, we finally were able to select a day where all of the beauty queens could get together and do the photo shoot for the calendar! Big thanks to Trinity and the students at Aveda salon for doing makeup and hair for some of the girls. Also, big thanks to Lyman Wynn at L1quid Studios for allowing us to use his studio to do the photo shoot. Lastly, big thanks to Austin Lindsay Photography for helping me set up everything and for doing the pictures. It was so much fun being able to meet everyone!

The local Miss America titleholders with Miss Utah Latina 2012.

Jawahir and I...we're sash sisters! (Meaning that our sash has the same font and all. Haha)

The two Native American titleholders! They drove the farthest to be there! One drove 3 hours and the other drove 5 hours!

Love her crown! So unique.

I call us the "Southeast Asian" titleholders.

Miss Africa Utah with Miss Utah County and her adorable little miss.

Miss Asia Utah 2012 and Miss Draper 2013.

I decided to hop in for a picture as well.

Miss Utah Latina and Miss Lehi testing out our chairs for the group shoot.

A fun little group photo we got while everyone was getting ready :)

These awesome ladies helped the queens get their hair and makeup ready!

Miss Asia Utah with her teen titleholder.

Had to get a picture with this lovely pair.

We managed to nab National American Miss Utah for the project. She'll be going to nationals very soon.

Overall, it went really well despite the stressful moments when we were crunching time and helping girls find the location of the studio. A sincere and heartfelt THANK YOU to all of the queens who came out for this project. Can't wait to see the final result! :)

Fundraising Car Wash

As the hot weather comes to end, I decided that it was a good excuse to put together a fundraising car wash for my campaign and platform before winter came. For the last couple of weeks, I have been planning it by recruiting volunteers, gathering supplies and things to sell, along with finding a location. The Harmon's in Kearns has been so gracious to let us use their parking lot and water supply.
However, the original date of the car wash was September 8th. We had to postpone it to September 15th because of weather conditions.

The beginning was kind of stressful because we were an hour late and by the time we got there and started setting up, there were already 5 cars that arrived! Talk about unpreparedness :(

All of the signs that were used in this car wash was made by my friends. They did such a beautiful job!

Jose's nieces and nephews were so cute! She wanted to hold the signs so bad, so I let them help :)

Everyone was such a good sport about the various things I asked them to do, whether it was washing cars or holding signs on the street.

All of the proceeds from this car wash went to Jose Miranda's family to pay for medical expenses. I was originally going to split half of the proceeds and use it for my helmet safety platform. But I decided that I will fundraise for that at a later time.

We had the girls hold signs on the street and the guys washing cars. Talk about false advertisement. Haha!

It touches me to see a group of people come together for a good cause. A thriving community is one where there is a circle of helping hands.

A sincere THANK YOU to all of my friends who volunteered for this event. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come out to the car wash. And a BIG thanks to Harmon's and 7-11 for letting us use their parking lot and water system. Your time and efforts did not go to waste. It's amazing how much you can accomplish with a team. Love you all!

THANK YOU

Thank you for your purchase of "Pageant Queens of Utah" 2014 calendar. Please allow 1-3 weeks for your calendar to arrive in the mail.

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, feel free to contact r.nguyen90@gmail.com

On behalf of Miss United Nations USA 2013, all proceeds will be donated to Toys for Tots in conjunction with her helmet safety platform, "Don't be insane, protect your brain!", which aims at promoting awareness about helmet safety and was inspired by one of her best friends, Jose Miranda.
Jose was involved in a motorcycle accident on July 1, 2013 when he was unable to avoid a collision on I-15 and was ejected from his motorcycle. His helmet felt off before impact (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=25836183). Currently, he is still in critical condition and a coma. “Jose is still fighting for life every single day. But I believe Jose is still alive for a reason. A couple days after his accident, there was another motorcycle accident on I-15, but that cyclist died on impact. I know that if Jose could open his eyes right now and talk, he wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what he has.”

Her plan during her year of reign is to encourage youths to pledge that they will always wear a helmet when they get on a bicycle, scooter, or motorcycle. She will also be raising awareness about how to find the right size helmet and securing it properly. Additionally, she will be fundraising for donations so that by this Christmas, she can donate 500 helmets to Toys for Tots in Jose’s name. “I want to make sure that when a bicycle, scooter, or even a pair of rollerblades is given out to a child from an underprivileged family, there will be a helmet to go with it as well.”

For more information, visit www.missunpageant.com

Calendar Ordering Form for Titleholders ONLY

Pageant queens! Use this link to order your calendars. Make sure that PayPal asks you for a shipping address. You will notice that there is no charge for shipping but there is tax added. There was no option for shipping to vary according the amount of calendars you order, so I put the shipping percentage in the tax field instead. Let me know if you have any questions! :)