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While You Were Out visits San Francisco I can�t believe that this never got posted! I wrote it in Word, then in all the craziness that was Ryan being sick, I never copied it into my diary! Bailey has an email pen pal. He has been writing to Mark Montano from TLC�s While You Were Out since early January. I am a huge fan of the show and therefore it�s on our TV all the time. So, of course, the kids started watching with me. Bailey, being in school and learning to write, wanted to send a letter to his favorite designer. Imagine my surprise when Bailey got a reply to his email within a few hours. Mark has patiently replied to all of Bailey�s questions (such as �Do you like peanut butter?�) and has even deciphered the emails that Bailey wrote himself (as opposed to dictating through me). In his first email, he told Bailey, �PERHAPS ONE DAY I WILL BE IN YOUR TOWN AND YOU CAN COME TO THE SET AND MEET EVERYONE.� Bailey has never forgotten that comment. A few months ago, TLC posted that they were looking for participants from California. It did not specify where in California. I knew that early this month they were filming in the LA area. Then a friend mentioned to me that WYWO was going to be heading up to San Francisco and that Mark was going to be designing at least one of the rooms. I told Bailey, who of course immediately wanted to email Mark and ask to meet him. I figured, �Why not?� Worst case scenario, he�d either ignore the email or write back and say that it wouldn�t work. Best case: we�d get to meet him, but I wasn�t going to get my hopes up. Again, surprise! Another very quick response letting us know when he�d be in town and that Bailey would be invited to meet everyone. Mark asked us to email closer to the date, so we did. He wrote back with his cell phone number and told us when to call. Bailey spent three days bouncing off the walls until we called Mark! He invited us to the �set� the very next day. Never before has it been so easy to get the kids up and dressed in the morning (well, OK, perhaps when we stayed at the hotel across the street from Disneyland!). They decided to get dressed up, which of course meant �California dressy� which in this case was shorts and Hawaiian shirts. We purposely left early to allow for traffic and a much needed Starbucks stop. We had to navigate our way through those typical San Francisco, very big roller coaster-type hills. Apparently, the boys tell me, at one point I started to point out a funny-looking house when we turned a corner and found ourselves at the top of a ginormous hill�so what I was saying came out, �Look at that funny�WHOA!� and they have been repeating that phrase ever since! Great, humor at Mommy�s expense! *rolls eyes* We found the house and Ryan found a great parking spot, right behind a big ol� SUV. Let me mention that we were uphill from this big SUV and we parked a little too close to his rear bumper for my liking! As we were parking, we could see the camera out in the street, so we kept the boys in the car in order to contain noise. See, this was mere minutes after my hilariously amusing �Whoa!� and they were yelling that over, and over, and over� So, we�re watching the cameras, and we see Andrew Dan Jumbo (sigh, pant, wipe the drool off my chin�I was so hoping he�d be there!) run out in the street to play football with Mark. They headed back into the garage, so we started to get the boys out of the car. Next thing we know they are back in the street playing football, but this time it�s Mark and Jason Cameron. We got the boys to sit quietly on the step of the house a couple of doors down, and they were doing great until Jason yelled, �Hey Mark! You catch like a girl!� Of course, they erupted into fits of giggles that caused Mark to turn around. Bless his big sweet heart, he said, �Wait a minute. I need to stop playing. My friend, Bailey, is here.� I have never seen Bailey smile bigger than he did at that moment. I urged the boys forward, where they went to give Mark a big hug. At that point, both carpenters came over to meet the boys as well. The camera guy caught the whole greeting, so if it was a really quiet couple of days, they could even make it on camera (not expecting it, but stranger things have happened). After the greetings, Mark took us into the house. We walked up about a million stairs to the top floor. Somehow we ended up meeting Evan Farmer at the door. He smiled at Bailey and said, �Hey buddy! Are you going to be a carpenter when you grow up?� Well, Bailey has been telling me for about a year that he�d like to be the host of WYWO when he grows up. So, I smiled and couldn�t resist saying, �Actually, he�s after your job!� Without missing a beat, Evan started taking off his mic and went to hand it over. Totally hilarious! It was around 12:30 on day 1, and they had really just finished prepping the room. The furniture was out, the mantle had been removed, and the beautiful hardwood floors were covered in paper to protect them. We got to peek into �sewing world� and saw some cushions with bright red fabric being made. Mark and Evan showed us the hand-drawn designs of the room. They were fabulous! It was a very elegant design in red, black, and white. Mark pulled out a WYWO t-shirt for Bailey. I then asked the guys if we could take a couple of photos for the scrapbook. Bailey, being a kid, said, �Nah. That�s OK.� I kept trying to nicely insist on a photo, but Bailey was too busy talking to Mark and telling him his entire life story (including the fact that someone pooped in our pool�really, I think he could have happily gone his whole life without that tidbit of information!�and the fact that we live �about 40 miles� from the house they were working on�41 to be exact!). And Jared was too busy trying to hide up my butt! Evan ran off to get the boys something for their scrapbooks, and came back with some photos that he autographed. After that, Bailey finally agreed to a photo. Photos done, we stepped outside to go take some pictures of the boys with the WYWO truck. As we were heading over, one of the �behind the scenes� folks ran up to Jared with a WYWO t-shirt for him. Enormous grin erupted all over his face! OK, at that point, I had seen each of my kids grin the biggest grin of their lives, which makes for a good day for mommy! We snapped some pictures by the truck and I realized that I got pictures of Mark and Evan, but that I couldn�t leave without pictures of the carpenters, too. So we waited for a small break in �carpentry world� and we were able to snag Andrew for a photo. He pulled his hammer out of the tool belt, handed it to Bailey, and said, �Here. Pretend you�re hitting me over the head with this.� Ryan, Mark, and I all yelled, �NO!� in unison. Ha ha! Unfortunately, Jason was inside the house, so we didn�t get a photo with him. We got into the car to head home, and after narrowly missing the bumper on that SUV parked in front of us, we were off. I called Lisa to and left a voicemail that said, �I touched Andrew Dan Jumbo.� I had to wait hours for her reply, which came in the form of a text message reading simply, �Damn You!� Bailey spent half the ride home talking about how it was different, yet better, than he expected. Jared was still shell shocked. That afternoon, however, he insisted on wearing the WYWO t-shirt to soccer practice. When his coach said, �Nice shirt!� he proceeded to tell her every detail of the trip that morning. So, he may have been shy, but he sure drank in everything he saw and heard. So, to sum it all up, the folks who work for WYWO, both the on-screen personalities and the behind the scenes people, are awesome! Seriously, we all felt welcome, the boys were in heaven, and it was really neat to see all the stuff and crew that never make it on camera. The boys felt super-special, and that made my heart melt. What an incredible group of people! 0 comments Listening to: Reading: Eating/drinking: Do what to me?!? - April 24, 2007 Wicked funny websearch - April 05, 2007 Trot out the dogs 'n ponies - March 31, 2007 Almost done... - March 20, 2007 Who am I? - March 12, 2007 READ ME |