Monday, December 10, 2007

Move that bus!

The kids and I had talked about going to the Extreme makeover home edition site and had decided over the weekend after reading in the Farmville Herald that the shuttle buses were handicap accessible, that we would like to go and see them move the bus today. We made some new friends and saw lots of other friends there as well. We had a great time! We got there early before 10 am. We were entertained by pirates with some song and dance. They were pleased to see Brandon in his pirate shirt.

They spent time with Nickie too.


Jackie and I even got a picture ourselves. We even considered becoming pirates ourselves after watching them have so much fun!


It was interesting seeing all that goes on behind the scenes. There is a lot of hyping up the crowd and practice runs of everything.

There is even a test run of "the family" coming out of the limo and hearing the crowd say "move that bus". They used a fill in family to do the practice run. I wonder just how tired the cast gets of doing it over and over again. We met James Brown, no not that James Brown, this one.
He was a really nice guy. He made a fuss over Nickie. The EMHE that ran Sunday night was of a family in Vermont with a 2 year old that has the same condition that Nickie has, Arthrogryposis, and James said he wanted to meet her. So he talked to her and this really made Nickie smile. She loves to get attention from a good looking man. She is such a flirt, she even winked at him!
By 1 PM we were exhausted and hungry and after hearing that the reveal had been moved back to 3PM I made the executive decision to go home. Brandon was thrilled, Nickie was too since I think the huge crowd kinda freaked her out. There is a chance that she may be in a shot of the practice run of the move that bus, that was done. I think it was a wise decision to leave when we did since the parking lot was filled with tons more people making their way over to the site and the street had overflow parking filled up and down both sides of the road.
This of course means I didn't get to see the Lucas family's reaction, seeing the house for the first time but we will all get to see that on the air. I understand from some of the others at the site that the family was also given a beautiful quad cab 4x4 truck. You may be able to see a glimpse of it parked to the right of the house in one of those pictures above. I can't think of a more deserving family. I wish them a lifetime of happiness in their new home.