More Pictures from the Previous Post

Bob Ross and Happy Tree
Bob Ross and Not so Happy tree

New Friends

Fairy Wars

Old Friends

Political friends

Party Girls

The beloved, broken camera

basically, this costume Sophie is wearing is what I wore for Halloween Day

My Creation, Edward Scissor Hands
aka Edward Tin Foil Hands

Catch me if you can

Queen Mab, of Halloween

My Dear friend Rachel and I

Witchy Friends

Seriously, We will!

The Month of October

I have been scolded soundly and I am here to rectify the situation. Why have I been scolded? Well, when you don't blog for an entire month, you tend to get people frustrated with you.
The only problem my dear readers is that I am out of creative juice, my life is really not all that interesting.
So I suppose I will just have to update on the life of Liz and everything of late.
For the month of October here is what we had happen in no particular order. Firstly, I received my first ever in my life, speeding ticket! I knew one day it would come, I had just never been caught yet ;)
Ok really, I do try to follow the speeding laws but sometimes we all just get a little carried away don't we? Some of us on a Freeway Construction Zone but we all do it. Needless to say, I have improved and if you are the poor person stuck behind my silver car going slow on I-80, you now know why and maybe you should consider also carefully going the speed limit.
Also this past month, I tried out to sing the National Anthem for the Utah Jazz games. Let me just tell you, the idea of singing in front of thousands of basketball attendees and Basketball TV viewers does not scare me but the actual trying out to sing does. I guess because when you want to make it really bad you just psyche yourself out. I think I kind of did that. I headed over to the Energy Solutions arena yet again to sing in front of some unknown person. This was however quite different from my previous experience. With American Idol you are singing by yourself and you're not. Because while you are singing a solo, so is the person at the table next to you and the table next to them and so on and so forth. Not to mention the thousands of hopefuls singing in the sections, bathrooms and wherever they can practice. This tryout you headed on down one section. You were given a number (I believe I was 57) and then you wait while the Anthem is sung over and over and over again. If you weren't sure on the words before then you were definitely now. I was lucky enough to run into an old High School buddy and was able to sit and catch up with her while we waited. I also brought along my sister Mabel for moral support. When they finally call your name. You carefully (very carefully for me considering that fact I wore heels) head down the stairs to the center of the Jazz floor where there is one microphone waiting for you and a table directly in front with four judges. Then you just start singing, alone and hopefully well. All the while with just a little over a hundred people standing behind you listening as well. I felt like I was doing pretty well but then I hit the high note and the nerves came. I never hit any wrong notes but suddenly my voice was a lot shakier than I liked. So they thanked me I turned around and that was it.
A few weeks later a letter came in the mail from the Utah Jazz thanking me for my efforts but unfortunately I did not make it this time. But Hey, I'm glad I did it. You grow each time you try right? Plus, there's always next year! :)
Moving on,
For a while I've been trying to come up with my Halloween costume. I actually had a very clever idea and ended up not doing it. But I had 4 other costumes this year instead. Starting with an early costume party where Stephanie and I headed over both wearing wings (She a Raven, me a Fairy) we ended up making a lot of new friends and taking a million pictures. The next costume was the "Runnaway Bride" where I headed to a family costume party down in Provo and told everyone I am not married yet because I run from marriage. Yeah not really true but it's an easy costume, Wedding dress + Tiara + Tennis shoes = Runnaway Bride. Brilliant! It was fun seeing all the family in their Halloween Glory. Then there was Witches Night Out, a festive tradition that the women in my family do every year over at Gardner Village. This year we dragged Toby and Ian along as well. I don't know if they enjoyed it as much as we did but hey it was fun! I also got to meet up with some of my girlfriend and later all of us, clad in our Witchy Garb headed over to Applebees where we received many a stare and the hostess could not stop giggling. Oh what fun! I also discovered a most delectable salad over at Applebees which I will never forget. An enjoyable evening was had by all.
Also during this lovely month of October I was able to attend two Baby Showers and two bridal showers. Baby shower of Cassie (a baby girl we are excited to meet) and my dear friend Stacia (baby boy!) Bridal showers of my dear sister Sascha (a lovely tea party thrown by her pals) and my soon to be sister-in-law Suzy.
My 4th and final costume was a 1950s poodle skirt wearing girl. I headed to work after painstakingly sleeping on curlers the night before and waking up early to try to create some sort of authentic hair-do on my head. Yeah I don't think it turned out all that well but it was still fun going to work dressed up in something other than "business casual." My friend Brittany and I even went trick o' treating around the Harry Potter themed office. By the way, my Harry Potter name (provided by Marriott) is Elliries Dawntracker or something along those lines ;)
It was actually pretty cool. My work decorated various parts of the building like Harry Potter locations (I.E the Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts, yada yada yada) and we even made the break room look like the Great Hall, candles hanging from the ceiling included! My favorite was definitely the Forbidden Forest where there was a paper Womping Willow and spiders and ghosts (attached to fishing line) fell from the ceiling to attack you if you weren't paying attention. To top it all of, they had a someone impressive Haunted house downstairs. Not too shabby I might add.
A couple of weeks ago we had a pumpkin carving contest at work where you could win a prize. I brought in my carefully crafted pumpkin Medusa and later won for the "Scariest" pumpkin and I got a Marriott Hoodie and a couple of bags of candy. Oh the joy!
Corresponding photos will come later.
Also this month a haunted house trip with my ward where a creepy clown held my hand and I was later shoved into a coffin. That was exciting.
My car has also had some excitement this month with all the different costumes, it's covered in glitter, fake blood, face paint and black hair spray! Not to mention it smells slightly like a pumpkin, I'd say time to get cleaned!
I am sad to say another happening of the month of October is the strange thing going on with my camera that I can't even explain to Canon over the phone so I'll need to send it in and see if I can get it fixed. Wish me luck as I am hoping for that camera to one day be part of my livelihood. This sad occurrence happened when I was taking pictures of my nieces in a pumpkin patch. It suddenly died a horrible death and hopefully can be brought back to life or I might cry. My nieces however are so lovely and the most darling things on the planet. Emma was a princess and Vera was a fairy. They bring a smile to my face each time I see them and I anxiously await the day my new nephew comes into the world, I can't wait!
I think I've about covered everything Brian (he's the one who scolded me)
The only thing missing is Halloween night. I was able to spend a lovely Halloween this year with just my family. We usually as most people know do themes. This year we just winged it. We carved pumpkins while dad videotaped us just like old times. We ate Halloween themed snacks and we went over to the Searles for homemade doughnuts and rootbeer (not going to lie, I ate 8 doughnuts) Then after the kiddies returned from Trick o' Treating, we headed over to the spook alley where Sascha and Ian were performing. Sascha as a Dead Bride and Ian as Frankenstein. I am sorry to say, we made Ian lose character as he could not stop laughing. What a trouper. That was so much fun and luckily we were able to see Susan and Jesse (aka Bob Ross and Happy Tree)
So that was it! That was October for you. I hope you enjoyed it, if you made it this far. And now, Pictures! Yay!

The Raven and the Fairy, who knew they could get along so well

My Award winning pumpkin
Ugly isn't it?

Stacia and I comparing
I don't know why

Stacia's shower
It was a blast and great to see all these people

Weddings? I love weddings! Drinks all around! - (non alcoholic of course)

Happy to announce that I have two of my best friends getting married the end of this year.


Sascha Draper

And

Jesse Campbell Draper


Jesse will be getting married to Susan on November 22nd and Sascha will be marrying Ian on December 5th.
This is going to be a busy and exciting time of year and I am so happy to welcome these 2 amazing people into the Draper Empire ;)

Can't wait!

Here is some pictures I took of the great couples

Sascha and Ian

Jesse and Susan

September Birthdays - Vera Jewell Webb, Elizabeth Draper, Sascha Draper, and Emma Dell Webb

Vera - September 5th

Me - September 14th

Sascha - September 17th

Emma - September 26th

The Final American Idol Story... yes you can kill me for how long that took.

On the ground floor.

Please excuse these horrible pictures, it was a long day
Just look at the poor American Idol volunteer and you can tell

I don't even know how long it's been since I last blogged. I almost don't remember what happened!
I am very sorry and I can't promise it won't happen again.
So Anywho,
After Ryan Seacrest left we sat for another several hours and watched the millions (It seemed like it) try out. Every once in a while you could hear something from all the way up in the stands and it sounded pretty good and you weren't surprised to see them run out with a golden ticket. Then again you'd also get the occasional weirdo running out with a golden ticket as well. I may have mentioned this before but this is not about Talent. This is a reality show. Sure there are talented people that get picked but I swear there were almost more weirdos and bad singers being picked just to create the show we have come to love and make fun of.
Eventually you get very bored sitting there with no treats, blanket or pillows and you go walk around. I have never been to the Energy Solutions Arena before so this was cool for me to get a look around. I walked around with Laura Dawn and that was fun because we came upon a huge circle of hopefuls. It was like a dance circle where people jump in the middle, show what they've got singing wise and then people clap they jump out again and so on and so forth. This was interesting. There were actually some really good singers and then there were those you just look at the ground, keep a smile on your face and try desperately not to laugh. Wondering "Is this for real? Do they really believe they are good?" Which brings me to something, I have never heard myself sing. I could be horrible and not know it, so if you think I'm horrible please speak up now so I can save myself from further humiliation. I may keep on singing but at least I will know ;)
The thing that was crazy about this singing circle is I recognized a guy from previous seasons trying out again. He had tried out before and Paula loved him and Simon hated him. They actually let him through but really he was pretty good. He sang the overly used song "At Last" -Etta James. But again, he was really good and later that day I was happy to see he made it through again to the next round. So we got bored of watching that circle and headed back to await our time. Finally the sections were getting smaller and smaller and it was time to move ourselves. That was an exciting feeling! Finally I could go home! ;)
I felt horrible because the girl who had stuck out the whole 12 hours next to me suddenly got up and said she would be right back and she never came back and I still to this day wonder if she got to try out. For her it would truly be a waste of a day if they didn't let her.
We made it out on the floor and now it was suddenly scary! I can't believe how scared I was.
The lines got smaller and smaller and suddenly all 4 of us were standing in front of the judges at the table. There were two men. John got up first and I think he did really well. The judges even rocked out with him a little bit by bobbing their heads when he sang. Then Otto. Otto had a great voice too.
Finally it was my turn, I took a deep breath. Stepped forward and told them what I was going to sing,
I sang Bonnie Raitt's "Something to talk about" I changed my mind at the very last minute and didn't even sing any of the songs I had actually come prepared to do! I was insane. They actually let me sing for a while before they stopped me. I even got to the chorus and they were smiling the whole time (hopefully not because they thought it was funny) but I felt pretty good about it. I didn't even close my eyes (which would've been a tragedy). After they stopped me our other friend sang and then they had us all step back while they deliberated. They actually put a piece of paper in front of their faces and talked about us right there and it seemed like forever. I almost thought we made it!
So finally they told all four of us to step forward so they could deliver the verdict.
They said something along the lines of --- We heard some really good voices and saw some (and I quote) "interesting personalities" but you're not what we are looking for at American Idol.
So there you have it folks, we weren't what they wanted but hey we did it and that's pretty good!
They then have you step past the tables, they cut off your memorable wristband and throw it away, then they kick you out of the building. Good thing I grabbed my stuff before I left.

There you have it, my looooong story of the day I tried out and didn't make it to American Idol.

Thoughts on this... Honestly I'm ok with that. I didn't try as hard as I could've and deep down I didn't really want to win on the show. It could've been cool for sure but I don't think I want to be associated with that show for the rest of my life. I feel confident (despite what I wrote earlier) that I have a good voice and still have room to grow and who knows, maybe one day I will be a singer in a different way and make an album or something.
Plus people already think they hear me on the radio because there already is an LDS singer out there named Liz Draper. Apparently I just sang on the new Michael McClean cd ( I don't think I've ever hear this man sing in my life but I'm on his cd)
As far as future ventures, I am going to be auditioning very soon to sing the National Anthem at the Utah Jazz games so wish me luck.
I'm grateful for the gift of music from our Heavenly Father and I'm so happy that I have the guts to sing in front of people and actually enjoy it.
So that's it, that's my story. Hope you enjoyed it!

So Awesome Azure snapped these hilarious photos of us while we sang in front of the judges
take a look!

Oops, I guess I did close my eyes. Here's proof
reminds me of the line on "About A Boy"
"I was killing them softly with my song"

Here's my personal favorite, getting rejected. We all look so happy :P hahaha

p.s I wait all day and all I have to show for it are these lousy pictures! haha!

American Idoling part 2

Part of the gang. Jon, Laura Dawn, Azure

1st of all,
I should leave you on cliff hangers more often. I get more comments that way ;)

So Back to my story...
Now one of the rules for AI is that you need to sing at least 10 seconds of a song of your choice but also that you have 3 songs prepared and then another 2 for "crowd shots". This was the hardest thing of all for me because I in general do not listen to a lot of female singers. I prefer male singers, for example my favorite singer of all time is Sting. On Monday and all day Monday I stressed over what to sing. After talking to my family I came up with "Only Hope" -the Mandy Moore version. I was prompted by my dad to sing at the dinner table so that I could practice singing in front of judges. My dad was so much fun to talk to about AI with because he got just as excited as me about it. I had the week before forced him to watch Simon, Paula, and Randy tear the contestants to shreds. My Dad is great and he really helped my nerves and come up with some guts to actually do this thing.
So after dinner with the "judges" I headed over to my ward Family Home Evening. It was a real bummer that I couldn't get the wristband wet because it looked like a lot of fun.
After leaving the ward activity without getting wet I headed over to Jon's house where the group of us decided to do a practice run on each other. This included singing at least 2 songs that we picked and then getting critiqued at the end of it. They made me go first :( I sang the "Only Hope" song and I also sang "Can't keep my eyes off of you" the Lauren Hill version. I got some positive response to both and was grateful to pass the torch (there's some Olympic humor for ya) on to the next person. I am happy to report I have some very talented friends.
Ladies and Gentlemen, after singing in front of friends in a small room I was prepared to do anything.
That night was a sleepless night for me as it hit me "What if I don't make it? Does it mean I'm a bad singer? or what if I do make it? I don't know if I really want to." and then after closing my eyes the alarm clock went off at 5:00 am and I headed over to Laura Dawn's apartment to meet up with our brave little group. After finding a place to park in Downtown Salt Lake, we took the Trax over the rest of the way to the Energy Solutions arena. This is where we saw thousands of people lined up and ready to go inside. It was kind of crazy! There were news cameras everywhere and we even saw a small celebrity. Season one's Justin Guarini (for some reason his last name reminds me of chocolate). He was interviewing people in line and was about 3 feet away from me. I'm happy to say he doesn't look like "SideShow Bob" up close .
There were several frustrating things right off the bat about this whole shindig. In the instructions it said to not forget certain things, water bottles, blankets, food, treats etc... We get up to finally go inside and they tell us none of the above mentioned items were allowed. Stupid me, I brought a small blanket with me that I ended up having to leave outside. I hope a homeless person was able to keep it in the end. My friend Jon also brought his guitar which they made him walk several blocks to his car to put back. When walking in we saw several bags of goodies just being left out on the sidewalk. The things we human herds do to be on TV... So after finding our seats in the stands they had everybody sing the 2 songs we had to learn for the crowd shots. These were "Ain't no mountain high enough" and "Get Ready"- The Temptations. We sang them over and over and over again. For a group as large as that was (we're talking thousands here) it didn't sound half bad. After the practice runs of that song they recorded us singing. Then they recorded us cheering, louder and louder. Note to AI producers. When you have people scream at the top of their lungs, they might, just might be losing their voices in the process. Then they had us chant a bunch of silly things like "First Archi, Now me!" and "Welcome to Happy Valley?" I'm sorry but who told them Salt Lake City was happy valley? At this point they finally were setting up the tables for judges in the middle of the court. So the setup went like this. They set up a few tables. 1-2 judges at each table. You go up in groups of 4 people. When it is your turn you step up, sing your bit and step back and so on and so fourth. The tables are divided by a simple piece of cloth.

Here is a picture to better describe what I'm illustrating.

These are the tables after Ryan Seacrest came and left. Thankfully they added more to make the process move along somewhat quicker.

As you can imagine it's not the best place to audition. You are surrounded by thousands of people talking and the next table over someone singing loudly and sometimes very badly.

After the first half of the first section auditioned they put it on pause and they brought in Ryan Seacrest. That was pretty cool. He came to pump up the crowd and to do some more TV spots. We again had to cheer. This time we had to wait to hear a very quiet voice say "This is American Idol" watch for the guys hand to lift up and then scream as loud as we could. Again, over and over.

You can get an idea of how far I was from the floor at this point because this picture of Ryan Seacrest (the man w/ his finger in the air) is really blurry.

Ok I'm really not meaning to leave you again on a cliff hanger but I am writing this very late and need to go to bed. I apologize for the bad grammar and poor story telling. Thanks for all who are reading this, you have my sympathy.

American Idoling part 1

Several weeks ago now I was at the library letting my finger run over the many DVDs on the shelf and I came across "American Idol, the best of seasons 1-4" I thought "Hey this could be funny" so I checked it out. I have never been a huge American Idol fan but back in my senior year of high school my sister Micaela and I had a few good laughs watching the first season's auditions and then a few of the final performances in the end where yes, I admit, we voted for Kelly Clarkson and she eventually won (yes Kelly, you won because of my sister and I, no need to thank us). So back to the DVD that I checked out... I started watching it and it contains some of the classic moments of American Idol that I remember, including but not limited to the horrible rendition of "Like a Virgin" (stupid song anyway) and the man who can't even remember the words to the National Anthem. I remember sitting there saying that I would NEVER try out for American Idol. What a horrible way to find out that your entire life you were lied to and told "You're the best singer" only to have your hopes and dreams crushed on Live TV! Yeah American Idol is not for me. I only enjoy watching people making fools of themselves even though sometimes even that is too painful. So around this time of watching the DVD I had no idea that a week later American Idol would be having auditions in Utah let alone I would be signing up like thousands of American Idol hopefuls to sing in front of a judge, deciding my fate. It started out when my friend Jon showed up on a Sunday wearing a funny looking, red wristband. We started making fun of him because he explained that he was trying out for AI (for the rest of this blog I will be abbreviating American Idol, tired of writing it out). After a few minutes of mocking he then asked if we (me and a few other friends) would do it with him, saying that it would be "Fun" and "something to laugh about later." So we did! We drove late Sunday night (at about 11:30) Over to the Energy Solutions building and went right in to the building where there were tables set up and we signed up for AI! So red wristbands in tow we left Energy solutions and headed home with a set of rules and some instructions for what was to come on Tuesday morning. Basically it goes like this. #1 You are not allowed to remove your wristband and not allowed to get it wet. If you need to shower you need to cover it up in saran wrap. So the next day the ward activity was out of the question being that it was water balloon volleyball.
#2 you sign a waiver basically saying that you have no say what AI says about you and I quote,
"I further understand that my appearance, depiction and/or portrayal in the program may be disparaging, defamatory, embarrassing or of an otherwise unfavorable nature which may expose me to public ridicule, humiliation or condemnation." On that happy note I will end this part 1 of my story and leave you begging for more ;)