Finished up filming for TLC and The BBC.

Remember in August when I posted this? Apparently since the BBC documentary will also air on TLC, they wanted a bit more footage for the U.S. version, so they sent a second crew out to film us. The crew included our Director/producer Gwen Isaac, of Midnight Swim productions, Cinematographer Gavin Brennan, and our sound technician, whose first name was John, unfortunately I didn't get his last name. As we got acquainted with our crew, Christi was beside herself to discover that Gavin had worked on the Deadliest catch on the Time Bandit boat and John had worked on the crew of the Ghost Hunters series on SyFy. These are a couple of the family's favorite shows and everybody had lots of questions for the guys. While the last post was titled "The British are coming!", in this case our crew were from New Zealand; (Gwen), Australia; (Gavin) and America; John. Gwen was Fabulous and has been all over the world, Christi did not enough time to question her too much.
It was a pretty good day, and the kids had a lot of fun playing soccer in the front yard for the camera. It was funny as Gwen kept telling the kids to kick the football and the kids would look at her and she'd have to say, "soccer ball". Afterwards, Christi and I did a pretty candid interview regarding our ability to have so many kids and our experiences with birth and such.
All in all it was a pretty good day and I hope the footage they got makes for a great documentary when the final cut is done.

A busy weekend, and maybe some luck thrown in

A busy weekend in store for Christi and I. We finally have to get it in gear with the search for a used car, the band kids have got events on Saturday and Christi still needs a couple of things for her reunion. This coupled with my having been unexpectedly moved to a different shift (not only am I now on the night shift for the foreseeable future, but I'm now on the opposite day schedule). All of this means that Christi is working her magic even harder now. She is constantly reminding me of the silver linings of this shift change, probably as much for her own benefit as mine. She always has that way of seeing all sides of things so that when life seems to throw us lemons, she can instantly point out that it's really oranges if you look at it the right way and who doesn't love a good orange? She doesn't really know how much she keeps me going. Aside from the obvious things like, keeping me on schedule for all the stuff we have to get done, her enthusiasm for stuff, like the way she looks forward to our weekend evenings, even when we have nothing more exciting to do than catch up on our favorite shows. The way she smiles and claps when some plan of hers comes together, or some unexpected bit of luck makes a bad day turn good. Plus the things she thinks I don't notice, like the little fist pump in the air she does when the checkbook balances perfectly (which it always does) or the way she high fives me when I put my hand up, even though she hates high-fiving. All those things and so much more are just a small part of why I love her so much.
So tomorrow we'll venture out in search of a used car, and she'll watch me do my manly thing as I check out each car and try to work a deal with the seller. With any luck, we'll come home with a decent commuter car that I can then drive to death with my 78 mile one way commute. With a little more luck, it will have a half-decent stereo so I can listen to my CDs and talk radio all the way to work. With even a bit more luck, we'll find a bargain car for Dalton too.
Then if all is well, in the evening we'll plop on the bed with most of the kids and watch our shows on the DVR and maybe have a little popcorn and whatnot to snack on.

That would be the perfect end to the day.