Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

In August, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was in our town building a home for a local family.  I have watched this show only a few times, with most of my viewing in the last several years being the credits rolling as I prepare to watch Desperate Housewives (a guilty pleasure of mine to watch this show!)  But, with this being a fairly small community, the celebrities in town for the taping of the show brought with it a lot of excitement and a ton of news coverage in the local paper and on the news each evening (Jillian Harris--former Bachelorette was even in town--OK,OK, so all my trashy shows are out in the open now!!  Anyway, I would have loved to run into her!)!!  We took special interest in the show because of the excitement about a national show coming to town as well as several of the kids in the family (the Marshall-Spreier family) chosen to have the house built for them go to G's school.  We do not know them personally, but a lot of my mom friends do know them and they tell me the family is incredibly deserving of this amazing gift they were given.  They are a family that is super active in the community even though they have had some rough luck over the past several years.  The kids and I went down to experience the process one afternoon---although the motivation of the whole excursion was so they could ride the city bus to the taping location!  Well, while we were there, they actually taped a scene and that was pretty fun to watch (we were way in the back, no chance of us being on TV thankfully!).  Ty Pennington, the hunky host of the show, was out for our viewing pleasure, the crowd was screaming, booms and cameras were swinging around---needless to say, it was hard not to be excited!  The whole local media coverage and buzz around town was pretty cool---even though our town has some oddities, this experience showed that it is also has a lot of heart!

You can see some of the booms that were being used for filming.  Pretty cool!

Ty Pennington in the back of the truck in the blue plaid shirt. 
He was literally throwing things out of the truck for volunteers to catch and run into the house to decorate.  Notice the pillow in the air.

The finished Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
 Not sure if you will be able to tell on the show that is aired, but this home really does fit into the wonderfully eclectic University area neighborhood

The show is set to air on Sunday November 7th, on ABC, 8/7 central.  If you do watch well, I think it makes it much more interesting to know some of the stories from behind the scenes---life changes for other people who never expected Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to affect their life!

**our neighbor's brother's flower shop did all the floral arrangements for the home that you will see.  One of his employees happens to also be the service coordinator that worked with W for three years in the Infant-Toddler program (hope you followed that one!)  We are really excited for Mandy (a social worker by day!) to have all of her beautiful flower arrangements on national television!!!  Also, my neighbor went in the home to help her brother place all the flower arrangements.  While she was there, they had her help with some taping scenes--we will be looking for her during the show!

**a previous playgroup Mom peer of mine met and fell in love with one of the shows producers while taping was going on.  She is planning on getting married to him soon!