Cardozo Current Events: Extreme Makeover........Extreme Exhaustion

I have spent the past week (5 shifts) working on the Extreme Makeover Build. It has been such a wonderful and rewarding experience, although it kind of did ruin "watching" the show for me after seeing the production side of things. Tracy Wingate, who is in my MOPS group, and who we have known since Brooke started pre-school was one of the lead volunteer coordinators for the build and therefore, we were able to get first dibs on signing up for volunteer shifts. I was shocked to find out that I actually knew the family who was chosen, Tobin & Jill Wagstaff and their kids. Jill had spoken to our MOPS group my 1st year and we had a fieldtrip at their Studio Percussion. This personal connection made the experience that much more exciting.

The door knock was Monday, the 7th, and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the "Braveheart March" Even though it took 4 takes, it was so much fun to be a part of. My next shift was on Wednesday, the 9th, and I got to be with my girlfriend, Kathy all night. We were told to arrive to our shifts early......so like the good girls we are, we did! Being early winded us up with the shift at the check-in site....the old Ford dealership. It was kind of a mass of chaos and we kept VERY busy! This was where ALL of the volunteers, VIP's, caterers, and spectators checked in. Basically.....if you wanted to go on site....you saw us! When things slowed down we were able to go on site for about an hour to check things out. The foundation had been laid, and the framing was just starting to go up and there wasn't much else going on. We returned to our post and ate some cake....LOL! On that note I must tell you how good the food was!

I returned to site on Saturday, the 11th, at 6am where I got to be with my friend Julie Peine from MOPS. It was kind of a yucky drizzling day :( At first there wasn't much to do, so we picked up trash, but then we got to get our hands dirty by digging a ditch for the plumbing to run from the house to the ditch. That was a HARD job and I have the blisters on my hand to prove it! Funny thing was there were so many guys standing around just watching us girls dig this ditch and they waited FOREVER before asking if we wanted their help. Um duh! Of course we need your help......I know we gave it a good effort, but those guys could dig much faster than any of us women. We relinquished our shovels and headed to the catering tent for breakfast. The rest of my shift consisted of me standing inside the house guarding the back door to the patio and kicking out anyone with a camera or not wearing a hard hat. NOT SO MUCH FUN......but I did get to see a lot going on. I returned the next day at 6pm and got to pal around with my friend, Rebecca Tillmann. We had a great time, cleaning out the break trailer for the cast/crew (Pauly was sitting in it when we arrived....although didn't speak a word to us). We cleaned, put away groceries(it was definitely taco night) and left. We joked that it was the perfect job for 2 Moms. When we got back to the house, Rebecca somehow got hooked up with an inside job putting stuff away while I became the "Key Holder" Not the job it sounds like.....basically I wore a hat with a big "K" on it and had all of the keys to the golf carts around my neck that I had to check in and out as people took and returned them. After about 2 hours of this oh so glamorous.....AND boring job, I was rescued by Shandon who took me inside with her. We got to put "unneeded" objects in the garage and then got to frame the photos Shandon had taken of the family on "Door Knock" day. Oh, I also got to put games away too :) So, after a long night, I went home for 4 hours of sleep and returned at 6am the next morning......REVEAL DAY! Such an exhausting day it turned out to be. I was with Alison Walker, my girlfriend from MOPS, who is also in Addi's NFRMC playgroup with her son, Erik. She is pregnant with twins, so I tried to make sure she took it easy. We got to take waste out of the back yard, scuff tar off the sidewalks(silly job!), and then thanks to Tracy got to be inside for the rest of the day. We were part of the team who went around and covered ALL of the windows with visqueen(sp?) Alison and I had a great time together! We got to see everything up close and personal, sweated....A LOT, but also laughed A LOT! When we were done we went outside and waited for the reveal to happen. We were exhausted AND starving and thanks to the Brill women, we were fed Wendy's. So thoughtful......so appreciated! Love those Brill girls!!!!

Anywho, the Reveal took FOREVER....that's Hollywood for you! Several takes later and the family came home. We got to be on their front lawn so had great seats for their reaction.....oh I forgot to mention that Alison and I took about an hour break on a golf cart in the neighbor's driveway so she could get off her feet....I didn't mind the break at all. Well, after it was all said and done, it was 5:00(our shift ended at 1:00) and they still hadn't let the Wagstaff's inside to see the house, so we left. Come to find out, they didn't finish filming that night until after 9pm.....geesh! I would have passed out for sure! As I said earlier, being a part of the process and being remdined that at the end of the day it is all still a Reality TV show, did kind of make me think a little different about the show, but I am happy to report that the reaction you see on TV of the family when they see the house for the 1st time, is 100% authentic! Because I worked so much, I never got a chance to document the process through pictures (didn't thin to pull out the cell phone until reveal day). Here are some of the pics I got during the reveal.....not too bad for my chincy little cell phone :)