Saturday, November 19, 2005

Extreme Makeover, Home Edition: The Reveal

My little family drove back to Sandpoint, Idaho to watch the famous reveal. Once again, we parked in a lot about a mile away and rode to the home site in a shuttle provided by Schweitzer. Unlike Thursday, thousands of people arrived before us and formed a huge line.

When we arrived at the home site, I saw people playing bagpipes outside of a castle playhouse in the back yard. A man dressed as a medieval knight knelt and presented a large key to the host of the show. Ty Pennington received the key and waved it over his head shouting, “I have the key to the castle!” On Thursday, we waited all afternoon and never saw anyone from the show, but today we saw Ty Pennington within the first few minutes.

Later in the day, my kids got autographs from several members of the cast: Paige Hemmis, Michael Maloney, Ed Sanders, and Eduardo Xol. We also got a few really awesome pictures. Ed Sanders posed for two pictures with Dakota and Whitney. We waited for Ty Pennington to sign autographs, but he never approached the public.

Of course, the most exciting part was the actual reveal. We got to see the limousine, and we shouted “Move that bus!” with other members of the crowd.

The family consists of a single man and his niece and nephew. Apparently, his sister died some time ago and left her children to him. We saw them when they came out the back door of the house. One of the kids shouted about the new hot tub on their new deck, and then they were invited into the playhouse by Ed Sanders.

In all, we spent five hours at the home site, and it was worth the wait. Our kids will have new bragging rights at school for a few days.

http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/

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