WESTFEST! (The Furthest Journey Yet!)

Well everyone I just got back from Westfest and had a blast! I definitely recommend heading down to West, TX over Labor Day Weekend if you have a chance. It wasn't Wilber but I figure I have a biased opinion. :-D I had been in contact with Sharon Middlebrook (the mother of Sarah Middlebrook, Miss Czech-Slovak US 2006) on Facebook for a few months and she was so helpful and welcoming when we began talking about traveling to West for the festival. If you haven't already you should definitely check out her blog. She has made several replica kroj for Sarah...COMPLETELY by hand and she has been kind enough to share her secrets in case you are looking to make one or something similar. Click Here to Visit Sharon's Czech Costumes Blog I can't thank her and her family for their hospitality over the weekend enough. You truly made myself and my WHOLE family feel like royalty and you are the type of people who keep people coming back to events like this again and again!

We left around 6am on Friday morning (as usual we were a bit late.) HAHA! I didn't get to sleep until around 4am and had to pack up the van at 5am. Nothing like waiting till the last minute to pack and get ready for a trip. :) I swear traveling with 5 was a lot easier when we were all little kids! HEHE! Both of my parents went along with myself, Laura, and Brad. We drove and drove and drove then stopped in Oklahoma City to visit some relatives. They were cousins of my Grandmother's on the Rezabek side of the family which made it even more fun because they were my relatives AND Laura's. We thought while we were driving through we would stop by and since Brad and I had brought our accordions...we had a small concert in their commons area of their apartment. Their names are Mary Ann and Erma Rezabek. They have been sending me Birthday...Christmas...Easter...Valentines Day...St Patricks Day...etc cards since I was little. :) They never had grand kids of their own so I guess they just adopted us and we think they are the sweetest ever so it was well appreciated! A few months back I received a package from Mary Anne after my parents and brother had stopped by on their last trip to TX and showed them all of the pictures and videos from the state pageant. She had sent me several books about Czech heritage, 2 records one of which was from the Czech Choraliers that I now sing with, a piece of Czech trim, and the last was a complete shock. She had sent me a beautiful garnet necklace. With the necklace she had handwritten it's story. It was several pages long so I'll summarize. Basically she used to be a teacher on military bases for children of US soldiers. She was getting sent to Germany when a soldier asked her to do him a favor and if she ever went to Prague to find his elementary school pen pal. She did find him on her first trip to Prague and continued to visit him and his wife each time that she visited the country. Before she came back to the US she visited one last time and they gave her this garnet necklace. The man has since passes away but she told me that whenever I wear it that she would be proud along with him, his wife, and a now free Czech Republic. Mom and I cried when we read this. They loved having all of us stop by and hearing a bit of our music and in the last card I received from them they said that they still get questions about who we were and why we stopped and why we were playing. :) After leaving their apartment we stopped at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. I still wish I could go into the museum but it is like 4 stories tall and I'm sure I could spend a whole day just looking through it. I recommend stopping at least to see the outdoor memorial if you are ever in the area. I had been there before but now being older and really knowing what happened that day it literally took my breath away to walk in there. I held back the tears more than once. After those 2 stops we were set to drive the rest of the way with no other major stops....wrong....apparently traffic decided to make us stop ON THE INTERSTATE...MULTIPLE TIMES! We even took a 50 mile detour once to try to get around an accident that happened in a construction zone and were still at a stop when we got back on the interstate. Next we hit rush hour traffic in Dallas....LOVELY! By the time we checked into our hotel...our 11 hour drive had turned into a 14.5 hour drive. We were definitely ready to get out of the car when we got there. We hopped into the pool for a bit to relax when we got there which was fun. Mom and I tried doing flips together in the pool and almost drown each other then Brad and I tried our shot at a lyrical synchronized swimming duet. HAHA! Poor Laura had to get some homework done so she decided not to swim the first night. After winding down we tried to get some rest for a busy day on Saturday.

Saturday started early as we were trying to be to West by 7am and we were 20 mins away. Plus we had to be in kroj and ready for the day. We got up and started getting ready. Laura and I were runnin around with our tights already on and shorts and puttin on makeup and doing our hair. It was kinda like having a sister! Then while I was pulling my curlers out of my hair...I dropped one in the toilet! I told my mom I wasn't grabbing it and it was either staying there or she had to pull it out. :) Don't worry...I got pictures. HAHA! When we got to the Middlebrook's house we met up with the wonderful Kiesel family also. We didn't have a lot of time before we had to head to the parade but got to meet everyone and say hello at least. The Middlebrook's had a float made for us "Nebraska Czech Royalty" so Myself, Laura, Sheyenne, Carrie, and Konner got to ride through in the parade. I couldn't believe how fast they drove through the parade! We originally wanted to dance on the float but we stood up a few times and almost fell...not good. :) On the parade route I found out that my Texas family had met up with my parents. It was wonderful to see them and have them support me! My uncle Russ, aunt Linda, her parents Ann and Earl, my cousin Angie and her husband Dan and their 2 kids Nathan and Brayden ALL came down to West to see me. After the parade we got to watch some of the entertainment before the parade of kroj. I LOVED seeing all of the different and unique kroj and what better way than to have each person parade through and describe their kroj a little bit. LOVED IT!!! Once we were done walking through the open air auditorium they had us parade through the whole festival then take a picture under the Vitame Vas na Westfest (Welcome to Westfest) sign. They wanted some pictures with all of the queens so we had to wait to get all of us together too. After all of that I was pretty worn out and ready to go back to the hotel and swim/relax. It was hot which I had been hoping for but I definitely didn't ask for all of that humidity. We didn't have much time to walk around but Laura and I had a shirt made by the airbrush people with our titles but had to wait until the following day to pick them up. We left early to go cool off and my parents didn't want to come back the next day because they had see everything but Laura,Brad, and I decided we were coming back to see everything the next day. We had fun visiting my aunt and uncles campsite and swimming but we were definitely ready to crash when we went to to bed...AFTER waiting forever for the showers. LOL...5 of us and 1 shower = lots of time waiting if you're the last one to shower (ME AND I WAS THE FASTEST ONE OF ALL!)

Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast. We ran into the Kiesels at breakfast and had a few issues with the waffle making! LOL! We went back to Westfest and walked around for a few hours. We bought some of the stuff from the craft section and I had to make another stop by the outdoor air conditioning because I thought it was just too funny. I even walked through several purse booths...AND DIDN'T EVEN BUY ONE!!! Mom and Dad made it to the bakery in West to grab some goodies and called when they ran out of things to do. We grabbed some food (WE FINALLY FOUND THE CZECH FOOD) and headed back to the gates to meet them. Oh I didn't mention this was a lot like a fair...craft booths....fair style food....and entertainment only with a Czech twist. We stopped by my aunt and uncles campsite on our way out of town to say goodbye to everyone before we headed for our HOPEFULLY NOT SO LONG trip home! I had such a good time and wish I could have stayed longer but had to be back in Lincoln for a parade at the Nebraska State Fair. On our way home we decided NOT to go through Dallas this time and stopped to show Brad and Laura my aunt and uncles outdoor living area that I am IN LOVE WITH! The basically have a living room, dining room, and bar under a shelter with fans etc so most of the year you can sit out there instead of being stuck in the house all of the time. They also put in a wood burning stove and heaters plus screens you can drop down so you can spend some of the "cold Texas months" out there too. Someday.... :) We had a less crazy drive home but it was 2:30am when we finally got home and headed to bed!! I was definitely happy to be home and see my puppies! (I'm pathetic...I know.)

Spanem Bohem!
Stefanie Vocasek
2009-10 Nebraska Czech-Slovak Queen