Wow. Where do I start?
This past few days has been incredibly overwhelming in some pretty awesome ways. I am kind of laughing at myself in my previous post because obviously, I was looking for more in life. More adventure. More time with my husband. More than just nights at home catching up on "New Girl," which I am shamelessly doing as we speak, while my sweet almost one year old practices his new walking skills in his crib rather than going to sleep....
It started innocently enough. My husband, Paul, auditioned for Wheel of Fortune, made it through, and in July 2013 he and his BFF made the trek to Vegas for the show taping. Now, I received a call soon after the show was finished, and Paul explained to me what had happened. He has mispronounced a fully spelled out word, and had then lost the potential for $1 Million dollars (which makes my heart stop thinking about it) as well as about $2,400. All in all not a huge deal because we truly didn't expect much at all to come of this. We kept saying beforehand how cool it would be to pay off the car, or get a down payment for a little home. Paul works a second job on the side of his Fire Fighting career so that I can stay home with our little man, so a little chunk of change to us really goes along way in the dreaming department!
So the time came to watch the show. Our friends and family gathered together and got to experience it all first hand, while Paul closed his eyes in the back. I truly think he was gearing up for the mean texts or facebook comments that would come from this, making fun of such a silly mistake. What he got was so different and really made me realize what awesome people my husband surrounds himself with. He was getting encouragement for how unfair it seemed, and that they didn't even hear a mistake. He felt built up and as though people were going to let it all go.
Then, we woke up the next morning and it all changed! I had woken up early to spend time with a friend and Paul called with new that literally made my heart stop for a split second. The youtube video someone posted had made national news, and moments later Good Morning America called. WHAT? GMA stalked my husband (we've decided not to question how so many people got our numbers...and our parents numbers....and battalion chief's number...). They wanted him for an interview- in my home!! And seconds later, there was CNN wanting Paul to do a Portland-based interview the next morning. Now, to be fair, my dream was always Ellen. This whole morning my friends and I were talking and we kept saying- "maybe Ellen will call!! I hope Ellen calls! Do you think she's seen it?!" I am an incredibly huge fan of Ellen's and the fact that this was even something she would see was blowing my frazzled mind! We were so thrilled and honestly believed this was as far as it would go. I mean how much bigger can it get, right?
Wrong.
After picking my sister up, so she could feverishly storm my house and "clean" with me, (I say clean in quotations because I am fairly certain that gathering up the multitudes of crap- shoes, baby toys, laundry, and dishes strewn about and throwing them into the garage doesn't count as cleaning as much as hiding evidence of my inability to keep up with my child...) I walked in the door to a whole new surprise. Paul looked at me and said "pack up your bags, Linds. Were heading to New York city! There is a very good possibility I passed out at this point, but I ran around the house packing myself, Paul and Henry for his sleepovers with grandparents and still made the house look somewhat presentable for the GMA crew. And just like that, 24 hours after the Wheel was seen for the first time, we were jet setting on a red eye to the Big Apple and laughing at the craziness of it all the whole time.
So heres the part where we are in NYC:
First things first, we head straight from the airport at 5:45 am to the CNN studios and are welcomed by the sweetest girls ever. CNN was the crew that flew us out and were putting us up in NY and we were just so excited to be there. After a little makeup for Paul, he headed out to the show and was taping a live interview within two hours of being in NY. He did so awesome and I even got to sit in the control room with headphones and watch the whole thing. Unfortunately, I looked like one of those sewer "mice"/ huge freakin' rats that run across your toes in Central Park and finally got to change into real people's clothes just in time for a picture with the awesome show hosts.
At this point we only had CNN and Jimmy Fallon on the menu for our time in the city, but that soon changed. As we were getting ready to leave CNN and head to the hotel (and moments after the stunning Miss America walked into the green room!!!), we got a text from a producer from Bethenny Frankel's show!! Now, of course Paul didn't know what this show was and was probably going to say no, as he had to a couple other shows. But, luckily her producer also copied me in the text and I am fairly certain I texted back with a calm, yet dying-on-the-inside-can-she-tell-I-am-going-to-pass-out polite yes and just like that, we were booked for the next day.
On the way to our hotel, another call came: the Today show. ahhh. I watch this show every morning with Henry and was literally dying. Unfortunately, Jimmy Fallon had asked that we not do anymore TV until his show and Today show agreed, but they did let us tour the studio! We happened to run into, and take some awesome pictures with, Gisele Bundchen and Carson Daly and walked right past Savannah. I was in star heaven and we so enjoyed that time. And after heading back to our hotel to freshen up, we even had time for a carriage ride in Central Park!
Jimmy Fallon heaven
That evening we got all dressed up and headed to the taping for Jimmy Fallon [enter swooning here]. We showed up to an awesome dressing room with Paul's name on the door- fully stocked with yummy treats and NY specialty cookies and truffles. And we even had a page, just like in 30 Rock! The whole place truly looked like we were on 30 Rock- it was awesome. After being there and spending time with the super nice writers and bookers, Jimmy Fallon walked right by after rehearsals, stopped and did a double take to Paul, and came right over to shake it hand saying "Paul, dude! We are so happy you're here!! We have all watched the video and you seriously got robbed! We love you!" and fun things like that. He was so so sweet. And we even got pictures with him later!
Now, the guest that evening was Hugh Jackman [enter even more swooning here....] and we were so excited. His dressing room was 2 doors down and we were expecting a quick wave then to really not chat with him much after. Another wrong! When he walked in I looked over and must have been awkwardly staring, because he came right up to me! He shook my hand and said "Hello, I'm Hugh" and I ever so nonchalantly replied "Hi, I'm Lindsay....I'm umm....I'm nobody..." COOL. Way to go, Linds. That wasn't weird or anything. He shook Paul's hand and really sweetly asked why we were here [a question we got a lot haha. They were all so nice about it but I think people wanted to know what the hell we were doing there!!]. Paul explained the You Tube viral video and he said he would watch. Well, about 5 minutes later Hugh came into our dressing room yelling "You were robbed!!" He chatted with us for about 10 minutes, took photos with us and even has one of him and Paul on his phone! He tweeted that Paul was robbed- I couldn't believe it!! On his phone is a photo of my husband! And, I even taught him a cool trick about how to get to your camera easier on your phone. I got to hold his phone and everything. So I pretty much spent that entire evening looking like someone had shoved a coat hanger in my mouth. And- we even got a Corner Curio Cabinet from Jimmy Fallon filled with awesome goods! This evening with forever be a highlight of my life and Paul and I are in continuous disbelief.
We spent the evening later at an awesome dinner with my BFF and hubby, and then some Tasti D-Lite in Times Square. So fun.
Bethenny!!
So we had spent some time during our first day there with Bethenny's awesome producer and were so excited for her show the next morning! When we got there we had the cutest dressing room and both our names we on the door. That can only mean one thing- I get to be on the show too! At this point I turned into the giddiest little girl you've ever seen and spent about 4 hours that day speaking way too high pitched and trying desperately to contain my smiling and squealing. Luckily, the producers who spent the day hanging out with us were SO fun and completely allowed and encouraged my squealing, so that was great. It was truly like spending a day with awesome friends and we completely enjoyed that experience. They even brought be back for hair and makeup like someone who is actually cool! I died.
When it was time to go on the show I got so nervous. I had to pee like crazy, yawned even though i wasn't tired, and couldn't drink water because of my lipstick, but somehow felt as parched as if I were in a desert. Yikes. But the show was so fun, so much energy and Bethenny was the sweetest. Oh, and the 7 day all expenses trip to Antigua doesn't hurt! Seriously, we have spent today looking at the resort and are so excited to go on this trip. We would never do anything even close to something like this for ourselves, but its always been a dream. I know that trip will be one of the high lights of our life together.
Now, were home.
And life is good. I loved coming home to my sweet baby boy who I missed so much. And I love that I so enjoy my life, that coming home from a high like that isn't sad. We feel so so blessed- I honestly can't even describe how blessed we feel. This experience as a whole was so life changing in the smallest ways and we just can't get over the opportunities we have had. We are very thankful to everyone who played a part in the last few days and feel so overcome with support and love.
Its still overwhelming to me that any of this happened because it seems like it would be someone else's life. But here we are, having lived it ourselves, and feel so blessed because of it.
Hope y'all enjoyed this way long synopsis!
