I’m so excited to announce that I was able to go to the opening of the new 109 Positive Exposure Exhibit along with 2 of my friends who are also Pearl’s ambassadors, Emily and Alex. We had a BLAST from designing the dresses all the way to walking out in them on the runway. I am so thankful that Rick and Dr. Bree have allowed me to have this once in a lifetime experience to embrace my beautiful and unique skin condition. We flew out last Friday and I was actually starting to get paranoid that we wouldn’t even make it to New York because they delayed our flight! We left Houston at 8 when we were supposed to leave at 6:40 . I was so relieved when I heard them finally letting us board the plane! We arrived at LaGuardia airport around 11:30 and to the super cool and unique air bnb we stayed in at 12:30. It was interesting how much activity there still was at that late time, so I guess New York really doesn’t ever sleep! The next morning we were back out of the house and headed to brunch at Tavern on the Green. I had some extra fancy French toast with strawberries and whipped cream on top with some hot chocolate since it was in the 50s outside!! I know that may not sound very chilly, but it’s been 90 degrees in Texas for so long and it was fun to have nice weather for a change! After that we wandered into central park on our way to a private tour at CBS studios! The studio tour was incredible. They showed us the behind the scenes of things like main rooms, like the production room, control room, media area, and we even saw one of the news anchors filming a live broadcast! Next we drove back to our house we stayed in while we were in New York and explored it. There’s 3 floors filled with different artifacts from the owner’s travels. After hanging around the house, we gathered our things for the fashion show and headed to Rick’s new gallery to get ready and be interviewed by CBS. The first thing we did was get interviewed about each of our journeys through having a visible difference, so they asked a little about how we were able to accept our skin conditions as a part of who we are. I feel that there’s no way anyone else will accept or respect you until you accept yourself for the beautiful person you are. You have to walk in a room with confidence, hating yourself will only make being diagnosed with a difference more difficult. I think once a person can accept and love their condition, their uniqueness can be extremely empowering. I’m so glad I was able to do the interview alongside my friends, Alex and Emily, because I was a little anxious about the interview. I think that we all said some amazing things that people should hear! The next step was makeup and hair done by a very talented stylist invited by Rick. His name is Joe and he was very fun, I’m super glad to have met him yesterday! He did an amazing job on all of us! Pretty soon after my makeup and hair was done, we got our dresses on and prepared to walk the runway! I was super nervous, just because I’ve never done anything like that before. When I walked out to my song, brave, I was so happy to be there and overwhelmed by the amount of support and cheering I received, that I began to tear up, but they were definitely happy tears! I went back and watched as Alex and then Emily had their walks down the runway. After walking down individually we had one last walk, together this time, for one more round of applause from the people there. They played the frame film and we had a reception after. I felt so special and honored to walk around and have people come up to tell me how beautiful my skin condition was! This experience even led me to meet, for the first time, someone else with my same condition, scleroderma, and I just thought that was so cool, since my condition is so rare. After the exhibit we said goodbyes to people there before heading back to the house and ordering pizza since we were so exhausted from our long day! We went to bed fairly early, at 10:30 New York time, because the next morning we had to get up around 4 to get to the airport for our 6:40 am flight home! I was very sad to leave this morning, but I do love love love airplanes and all types of traveling!!! So I am so grateful for all the experiences being a part of Positive Exposure and A Children’s House for the Soul has given me. I would also like to thank all the people who have made this possible for me like: Rick, Dr.Bree, Lindsay, Kimberly, my family, and everyone else who has helped me and supported my along the way to accepting myself and loving the skin I’m in!