Extreme Makeover:Home Edition adventure

I am a little behind here...but wanted to let you in on the adventure I had last Monday. I had heard that the Extreme Makeover:Home Edition crew was near building a house in Keller, TX. Well, I absolutely LOVE that show, so wanted to go check out the action!! The weather has been pretty nice, in fact it was 76 (though a little windy) on Sunday, and I decided I would go out on Monday when they were doing the big reveal, taping the "Move That Bus" scene, and Ty was SUPPOSED to be mingling with the crowd. Except that on Monday...it got all the way up to 28 whopping degrees with a wind chill of...well, it was MUCH lower. However, I bundled up, hoping to meet Ty, watch this beautiful house be finished, and welcome this family (who I don't even know!) come home and see their house. So, I set out at around 9:00 on Monday morning, bundled up (I thought very well) to the Texas Motor Speedway where they were shuttling people back and forth to the site. I got to the site about 9:45, and stood, and waited, and stood, and waited, and started to freeze ;) No Ty. Ok, wait-he came out to run around, film a scene...back in the house (Did you know he typically does 2 of these houses a week? He was going back and forth to Connecticut). By the time I left at about 3:30 I had been standing outside FREEZING for about 5 hours...but it was really fun and a great experience!

Ha ha, I know most of you are thinking I am crazy by this point (if you had not already reached that conclusion before) ;), but I actually really enjoyed it, and made some new friends! I did not get to meet Ty, in fact I was kind of dissapointed, because he really hardly interacted with us at all...but I did get to meet Paul Dimeo who is one of my favorites!!

He was really nice, as were Eduardo and Tracy. I actually ended up getting on the front row by good chance (and the fact that I showed up early), and got to yell "Move That Bus" A LOT!!! Also, the one time Ty interacted with us-when he is yelling "The house is finished" and runs by slapping our hands-I was there. Ok, I am really not a stalker-I just wanted to see what he is like in person. My conclusion: he does a lot of acting. Not that I don't think he is a good guy-obviously someone who spends this much time trying to help other families in need, traveling like he does, along with the time and energy it takes has to have a great heart; but I was just hoping he would have interacted with the crowd that had braved the freezing cold to chat with him! Despite that, it was REALLY neat to welcome the family home, and to see all of the behind the scenes action that takes place. They tape many of the scenes many times and piece it all together. It is actually interesting to go back and watch the shows now, because you can see how they put them together. They taped the limo coming in a few times and us welcoming them before they actually brought the family home, along with the "Move That Bus" scene, and they also taped that moving that furniture scene in on Monday when they had already moved most of the furniture in. Pretty cool, though that they build a house in that amount of time-and even cooler, that it is the community that does it. Wouldn't it be amazing if we did that more often as a community? Just think about what we could accomplish. Anyway, I will not get on that soapbox ;), but here are some more pictures from my very VERY cold but fun day:
(the whole design team)

(the mock moving in of the furniture)


(Eduardo-what a sweetheart!)
(the absolutely BEAUTIFUL house!!)
(the family right before they moved the bus)

You can see the rest of the pictures HERE and if you would like to know more about the Augustin family whose house was made over, you can check that out HERE, along with more pictures of the progression during the construction. The show should air sometime in February or March, and you might be able to catch a glimpse of me pumping my fist in the air while I yell "Move That Bus" while the adrenaline rushes, because I could not feel anything!! ;) Good times, great memories...