Extreme Makeover Home Edition

This week Extreme Makeover Home Edition was in Phelan, California which is about fifteen minutes from our house. We were not able to go and volunteer to work on the home, but lots of our friends and family went and helped out. The family was a family that have an animal shelter and save all kinds of animals from dogs, cats and other domesticated animals to tigers, monkeys and exotic animals. Today was the big reveal and "Move that Bus" day as the show calls it. We decided it would be fun to take the kids to see it.

We drove over to Phelan and I realized that there is not one paved road other than the main road!! The road that led to the new house was totally blocked off, but Joe managed to find a way around it using another road. It was so cold and rainy; I felt so sorry for all of the voluteers!! We had to four wheel drive into the area. When we got there, they directed us to the "non-VIP" section--all of the voluteers were VIP and got all kinds of perks including a front row seat of the reveal. There were tents and stuff set up for all of the voluteers to eat and get drinks. As we were standing there, they gave everyone waters and really got the crowd excited.

We stayed in the "non VIP" spot for about an hour and they said it was going to be at least another hour or more. We decided that we should leave; the kids were freezing. As we were waiting, we got to see Ty Pennington (the host of the show)and several of the other people on the show. He came out and said hi to the crowd. As we were leaving, we were asked to come over to the VIP section so that they could get a bigger crowd shot. We walked thru so much mud and yuck (Ryan lost his boot at one point and we had to dig it out of the mud) and got to be on the front row for all of the camera crowd shots. They had us just cheer and then they had us chant "Move that Bus!" over and over. I started to lose my voice! We got lots of camera time.

The house was beautiful except for the massive amounts of mud everywhere. As we were standing there, they were bringing in rocks to pave the road in front of the house. Besides the house, they made a huge animal shelter. It was really fun. We met the Director of the show and Joe was given a carhart wallet which was pretty cool. All in all, it was a great time. They said that the reveal was going to be in two hours, so we decided we couldn't stay for the whole thing.

I am so glad that we went. I think it is great for the kids to see how much fun it is to help people. They really learn to appreciate what they have and how lucky they really are. If you ever get a chance to be a part of this project or anything like it, I would jump at the chance. The blessings are so great!!