Extreme Makeover: Home Edition...

The Toledo Edition that I was fortunate enough to take part in will be aired this Sunday at 8pm Eastern Time.

I've already caught myself in a preview, I dare you to find me on Sunday.

A nifty prize goes to the first sighting. :)

Welcome HOME Frisch Family. (365 Project - Day 14)

One of the most memorable days of my life. I'm so grateful for having the opportunity to be a part of it.

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition - The Reveal.

When I left you I was saying how I was promised to work on the build site for the reveal.

They kept their promise.

I woke up after a fitful two hours of sleep and made my way towards the church parking lot where were were meeting up to catch the bus for the house. 0600 comes awful early when you're not well rested, friends. Thank God they furnished us with a never ending supply of energy drinks for the duration of the day.

The last time I saw the house it looked like this:

This was mid afternoon on Wednesday. Foundation was poured and the framing was underway.

Now I realize that the whole premise of the show is volunteers tearing down one house and rebuilding a mini-mansion in just 106 hours. I was still shocked when I stepped off the bus and witnessed the progress they had made in such a short period of time.

0700 ish Sunday. That's a completed (mostly) house folks. The only thing left to do was touch up the paint and clean up. Unbelievable. There were at least three hundred volunteers working when I arrived. Just on the house.

There was a LOT of sitting around and people watching for the first two hours or so. Until they let the spectators in. When I had arrived at 0610 or so there were a hundred lined up at the gate to the build site and several dozen lined up at the bussing site about a mile away.

Just a small portion of the crowd. There were thousands there by noon and the site was closed due to the amount of people.

They put me on hydration duty with a few others and we doled out hundreds of water bottles to the crowd and the crew.

Then they put us on trash pick up. That was.... Less than fulfilling, but it passed the time.

We started to hear through the grapevine around 11am that they were going to push the reveal time up to noon instead of 1400 so that we could beat the storm that was heading our way. Apparently shooting a TV show in a torrential downpour is less than ideal. I made my way back up to the house and got to check out the house. I wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside (rest assured, it's stunning. If you manage to catch the episode be on the look out for the "very green bed"), but I did manage to snap a few of the backyard.

They were limited by the fact that the house is in the middle of a heavily populated neighborhood and the lot size just wasn't what is typical for the show. But it was beautiful. If you click on the pictures you can zoom in a little bit. In the above shot you can almost make out the waterfall and the pond in the back corner.

If I had eleven kids I would be calling this my "happy place". It was very peaceful. They also had a very nice firepit, lots of seating, and a great sound system for the back.

Landscaping. Looks a hell of a lot better than my back yard. The grass is actually GREEN.

And then... The actual shooting began. And insanity ensued. The guy above in the cowboy hat was the crew's equivalent of a cruise director. He jumped. He skipped. He break danced. He barked orders to the volunteers and simultaneously apologized for being "a dick". I instantly fell in love.

The magic of Hollywood.

The crew decided that the island in the cul-de-sac looked like crap covered in stone. This began what I like to think was the world's quickest sod job.

LITERALLY eight minutes later the island was covered. It only took fifteen people and a few rakes. I need to find them and have them come attack my yard. Yes, for those of you who watch the show, that is "The Bus" that the crowd screams to "move." I think we screamed "Move That Bus" for almost an hour. Fifteen takes from fifty different directions.

Then came the fun part.

The Frisch Family came home. To their new home. For the first time. I was very fortunate to be so close.

I was close enough to see their facial expressions... And I can tell you that they honestly looked humbled by the attention and the crowds, and excited beyond belief. I can also tell you that the crew pulled that limo onto the site (empty) several times to make practice the shot and at the same time ensure that the family wouldn't be able to see the house when they got out. The windows of the Limo were blacked out.

The Frisch Family. If you blow the pic up it's probably going to be out of focus (again, I only had my cell phone camera to use), you might be able to make out Ty, he's to the left of the Frisch's on the right side of the shot... And the cameras, and the dude in the cowboy hat is the "cruise director" of the crew (he's some kind of Production Assistant or Producter or something).

He signaled the crowd to start yelling "Move That BUS!!!" one last time... And this time the bus engine was running. They pulled the bus away and the family instantly fell to pieces. As did most of the crowd. Myself included.

The kids dropped to the ground. Aaron and Jackie (Mom and Dad) were sobbing. The little guy, at just three years old or so, didn't know what to think and clung to his older brother. It was something I'll never forget.

Truly.

I was sunburned, exhausted, and my feet were cramping up from standing in the same place for a few hours, but happy.

I was happy I got to be a part of it all.

As Ty would say, Welcome Home, Frisch family, welcome home.

You lose some, you win some.

So I'm supposed to be volunteering at the Extreme Makeover set. Midnight to six am.

Clearly, I'm not there.

However they have promised me a choice shift tomorrow at the house for the reveal! (I realize a promise at this point isn't worth a damn thing, but the potential is pretty exciting for me!)

So, hopefully, twelve hours from now I'll be on the site when the Frisch family first sees their new home. God willing and all that.

Who knows, maybe you'll see me on TV in a few weeks. I'll be the tall one in the blue shirt oogling the guys in turnout gear.

Just kidding.

Okay, not really.

Honestly, I'm just excited to be able to help.

An EXTREME visit.

I think I've mentioned (a few times maybe) that Extreme Makeover Home Edition has come to Toledo.

Maybe once or twice. Or three times. Who knows. I'm a fan... What can I say?

I am set to volunteer on Saturday night into Sunday morning (the big reveal is shortly after my shift ends on Sunday... BONUS!). I was supposed to work last night but I was sicker than a damn dog. Rather than show up green I bowed out gracefully. *sigh*

So... This late afternoon - early evening we ventured out to the Extreme site.

Keep in mind that it's only day two.

We were greeted with this:

An hour long wait for the bus that takes you to the neighborhood the house is in. Good God that's a mouthful. The kids hung in there and I was impressed. I should have seen the crowd and realized I was in over my head. But no. Not me. More on that in a bit.


When you step off of the bus you're greeted with this blanket release. Basically anything you do or say can be recorded and used on the show. Or any other show. So don't do anything you wouldn't want your Mother to see you do on National TV. At this point I decided that it would be *bad* to rip my shirt off in Ty's presence. No Epi Gone Wild moments today.

You have to think about the kiddies you know.

ISOH/Impact is collecting donations for disaster relief. I believe the donations are heading to Haitian children affected by the recent hurricane devastation. The family that the house is being built for has adopted five children from Haiti and three from Toledo. The donations have overwhelmed the organization... Several PODS units have been packed to capacity. They were turning donations away tonight when we left.

We managed to catch a local news reporter delivering a live report from the site. Since my Step Dad is the Chief Photographer for the same station and both of my kids have been on the news more than once, they were less than impressed.


Here's where things got very interesting. I don't have any pictures that can convey what this neighborhood has been transformed into. Picture this. You live on a nice little street in a middle class neighborhood. On a typical day there are kids playing everywhere, the noise of traffic is audible but still a distance away.

Compare that to this. Your normally fairly quiet neighborhood is overrun by THOUSANDS of people. A queue line is set up with metal gates, people are trampling your yard, standing in your driveway, taking pictures of your neighbors house. Cement trucks, construction crews and random people stroll around. Flood lights blanket your house at ungodly hours. The quiet is gone. Your normally peaceful nights are replaced with the constant sound of trucks, folks laughing and talking, and the sound of hammers pounding nails.

I love the idea behind this show, I really do. But at the same time, I'd probably elect to spend the week at a friend's house. Either that or I'd charge folks to stand on my formerly green lawn.

This is as close as we got the the actual house. It's hard to believe that a little more than a day ago there was another home standing here.

If you look really hard (and squint your eyes and stick your tongue out and point north), you'll see a white splotch within the white circle I so skillfully drew in photoshop. That splotch belongs to the hardhat worn by none other than Paulie. This guy:

It took us an hour to make our way up to within twenty feet of the fence they had set up. Rather than scar my kids for life (the crowd was kind of intense, as someone who is a veteran of some crazy concerts where I sat general admission, I'm willing to admit that) we hung out for a few minutes and headed back in the general direction of the bus. At one point I lost Future Cardiologist and just about lost my mind in addition. He was two feet in front of me. In front of a 400 lb woman on a hoverround holding a "Marry Me Ty" sign. We retreated to the relative calm of yet another line. This time to catch the bus that would shuttle us back to the parking lot where we could finally sit.

We chilled out. Which is good because I was ready to die at this point. Feeling like crap and dealing with large crowds do NOT mix. Don't let the smile fool ya.

We ran into a friend from my former employer. She was taking her kiddies to see the site. I tried to express to her how insane the scene was that way, but she didn't seem to notice. I didn't want to spoil the fun for her girls.

Thank GOD we retreated when we did. I can only assume that the crowds will just be getting worse as the time goes on.

In all, it rocked.

Extreme Makover Home Edition - Family revealed.

(Edited to add a little more information...)

Aaron Frisch, a Toledo Firefighter and Paramedic, his wife, Jackie Frisch, an Ordained Minister, and their 11 children, 8 of which have been adopted.

Aaron and his partner were attacked during the riots in the North End a few years ago. His ambulance was the one that was assaulted by rioters throwing bricks, injuring him and his partner.

His wife has some health problems, involving a hole in her heart. They haven't gotten very specific with more information yet.

They have 11 children, as I said. 13ABC just said that they are ALL boys. Five were adopted from Haiti, three from Toledo, and three are biological children.

Let me say that again. 11 kids, eight adopted, ALL boys.

Good Lord for that reason alone they deserve a new home.