Thursday, June 30, 2011

Ellen Degeneres Mother's Day Giveaway

Well considering it's past father's day, I considered not blogging about this but then I remembered things like this don't happen to me and I would feel ungrateful not documenting it. So here it is, the story of how I got to go on the Ellen Mother's Day Giveaway 2011 Show and win a lot of really cool stuff. Back in March I went to San Diego for a fun girl's trip with my best friends from college. One of the things I wanted to do most in CA was to go to a taping of the Ellen show because I LOVE her and joke (except I couldn't be more serious) that one of the things on the top of my bucket list is to dance in her audience. Anyone reading this hopefully has seen the show so you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, we tried to get tickets but they were totally sold out.
Fast forward three weeks later when I get a hysterical message, make that 3 messages in a row from my friend Lindsey who lives in San Diego. The message went something like this, "OH MY GOSH! The Ellen show just called and left me a message. I wrote them an email and they called me back. Can you believe it?! Answer your phone. I think I may get tickets for the Mother's Day show and you are coming with me." Mix in there some screaming and you get the idea. They gave her two tickets to the show and asked if she had any pregnant friends. Here's where my luck streak comes in. I was about 5 months pregnant at the time while she was due just a month later. I bought a ticket back out to CA for the three days before mother's day and picked out an outfit that made me look the most pregnant I could be at 5 months. We drove up from San Diego to L.A early the morning of the tapping stopping along the way at Cafe Rio. Pretty soon we arrived at Universal Studios!
When we pulled into the garage where they instructed us to park this is what we saw...This picture doesn't do justice because everyone is sitting down. It was so funny to see this many pregnant women all gathered in one place. We sat down with all the other waddling ladies and dug into our Cafe Rio. An employee came out and announced that they would be handing out numbers so everyone should slowly line up to get one but assured us that this number had nothing to do with where we would sit in the studio so not to rush or worry. We were both starving so with that we sat and ate our Rio until the other ladies cleared out.
We were pretty much the last girls to get our numbers. Number 170 and 171.
Remember how he said that it had nothing to do with seating? Well he lied. When it was time to make our way into the studio they called everyone up in groups of 2o or so in numerical order. We knew we would be in the very last row of the studio but didn't even care because we were still going on the show and we knew we would still get the goods. When we finally got into the studio, sure enough we were filling into the last row when an employee put her hand in front of me and asked how many were in my party. When I replied it was just the two of us she motioned for me to follow her and started walking down the stairs to the front. This is where our second streak of luck comes in. She took us all the way down to the front left side and put us in the front row of a side balcony. We were RIGHT next to Tony!!! (Tony is her DJ in case you aren't an Ellen fan- in which case you probably aren't reading this anyway). See?!!! That's Tony's seat!
The show was amazing! We danced our hearts out. There's only one thing more funny then seeing a whole bunch of pregnant girls all sitting in the same area and that's watching that many pregnant women dance. There was one girl that was due any day and busting out moves I didn't know where possible! Kate Hudson was the guest. She was adorable. And it was really cool to see how Ellen acted when the cameras stopped rolling. She seemed totally calm and just had a big smile on her face. During one commercial break she was over by our side and looking out at the crowd with a big smile. She stopped when she saw me and started laughing. Maybe because I must have looked like a kid on Christmas with a HUGE smile and mouthing 'Hi Ellen, hi Ellen, hi Ellen". She waved back at me and people in our section started cheering.
Ok, I have to admit that when I see giveaway shows like this on TV and people are crying I kind of roll my eyes (I know that's awful) but when they brought out these incredible gifts I couldn't help but choke back tears. I was hoping for maybe one big gift like a stroller or a car seat or maybe a crib even. We got all of those things and a ton more. Here's a list of the things we got...

$300 old navy gift card

Daillia Necklace

Rockabye Baby 13 CD Set

$240 blume gift card

6-month supply of Plum food

150 Birth Announcements from Paperterie

6-month supply of Huggies

Puj microfiber bootie

Expecting 411 Book Series

Little Giraffe Blanket

Britax B-ready Stroller

Britax Car Seat

Baby Carrier

Diaper bag- go gaga

Peg perego High Chair

Video camera

pack and play

Graco espresso crib

Baby Bedding

Washer and Dryer (Hmmm, after jumping up and down when they brought these out my girlfriend and I looked at each other and said 'oh yeah, we're renting!' Anyone want to buy a washer and dryer?!)

After the show ended we got in our cars are went out in an assembly line. It took us about 4 hours to get out of the parking garage but we were so happy we didn't care! They sent us home with the high chair, pack n play, video camera, baby carrier, blanket, diaper bag, CDs and booties. Everything else they gave us vouchers in a packet that we can order any time for the next year. This is our loot.

Monday, June 13, 2011

CANCUN

As usual, I'm way behind on blogging! Somewhere between Cancun and the last post will be coming a girl's beach week and The Ellen Degeneres Mother's Day Give Away. Like I said, I'm way behind. In the mean time though, here are some pictures from our Searle (my family) Trip to Cancun. The only thing missing from this trip was two of my siblings Arianne and Quin. We missed you guys!!! Oh yes, and a bunch of the little cousins too. Camden was definitely missed by me and Justin! He was a tricky age for this trip so we thought of it as our babymoon:)
The last night of the trip we did dinner on the beach. You can't ask for better scenery and I guess better food in you're into seafood. It was a champagne and lobster dinner- hold the champagne and lobster for Justin and me. The sprite and steak were however, incredible.
The bump grew in the 6 days we were there... seriously!This is Justin's little admirer Taren or "Fo" as we call her. She likes to tell me that Justin is "HER JUSTIN" not mine. :) So cute. They made a pretty cool sand castle.The swim up bar never got old. Why is it that no one in Mexico believes you when you ask for a drink virgin. It's like they think you're trying to be funny. Every time we'd get a wink and they would start laughing. We had to repeat it four or five times with an added emphasis on "No REALLY" before they'd stop laughing. My parents are so darn cute.
We danced the night away. This was probably my favorite night! Fo was hilarious dancing her little heart out all night. At one point everyone on the dance floor backed up and at the end of the song she got a standing ovation from the entire room.
I wasn't allowed to take my camera in but this was everyone going to swim with dolphins. Apparently they were out of adult sized life vests because everyone got to wear these postage size half vests. Woo! I was so sad that I wasn't able to swim with the dolphins; it's always been on my bucketlist. Dolphins are very smart animals that get freaked out around pregnant people because they hear two heart beats. Who knew?! I expected that I wouldn't be able to do the zip line, ATVs, and speed boats but swimming with dolphins?! Come on!

View from our room. I've never stayed in such a nice room. We had a huge hot tub in our room. Gotta love how cheap Mexico is right now!!!