Extreme Makeover Home Edition Diary #3

I arrived at the work site sometime after 6:00 on Saturday night, and somehow managed to find a spot directly in front of the house, despite the large gathering of spectators. The shell of the house was up, and the huge mound of dirt had been replaced by a large truck. There wasn't too much action at first, although we met a nice couple in the crowd, and when I told the man I was worried about blocking his view, he said, "Why?! I've seen hundreds of houses go up!" It turned out that he was an insurance inspector, but his response was typical of the people I've met there. Everyone has been friendly and mellow, and there's definitely a nice community vibe going.

Aside from the construction activities and a spitting security guard (seriously, I didn't even know a person could produce that much saliva), there wasn't much to see. Someone said they heard Ty had flown to Colorado, and no one from the design team had been seen in awhile. I was beginning to think the night was a bust when we spotted John Littlefield coming down the line. "He's on the show!" I blurted, and several people turned to me expectantly and said, "Who is he?"

Ummmm. To be honest, I've only seen him on there a couple of times - just long enough to note that he was pretty cute, and might make up for Preston's absence. "His name is...John?" I said uncertainly, "Yes, John! He's pretty new."

He chatted good-naturedly with people, and when he got close enough, I asked if I could get my picture taken with him. He agreed, then ran back down to the front of the line to get a black umbrella. I was about to say, "Wait, you don't have to do that," but he was gone. He ran back, asked if our flash was on, then sweetly posed for a picture with me and signed an autograph. Moments later, I realized that without the umbrella as a background, the picture would have been a mess of glaring lights and chaos. How cool that he thought of that ahead of time!

They did a couple of crowd shots before the night was through, so I increased my chances of being on TV just a bit. Sadly, I'm probably standing there with my mouth open. It's hard to see what's happening at the other end of the line, so when people start cheering, I start looking for a member of the design team. Every time it's happened, they've been filming us. One of these days I'll get wise...I hope.