Thank you Oprah!

I cannot believe what just happened to me a week ago. Let me begin by telling you how it all started.

About a month ago I nominated my roommate Gina's Pin-Up For Vets calendar project on the Oprah Winfrey website. There was a link on her website to nominate someone who inspires you and who is a hero in your community. I thought that this perfectly described Ms. Gina Elise so I went ahead and submitted her name. We didn't think too much about it and went on with our lives.

Then, two weeks ago, we got an email asking if we would like to be in the audience on the show! Crazy, right? We had no clue this was coming or that really bigger things lay in store for us. After much debate as to whether or not we should go ahead and buy those expensive plane tickets from LA to Chicago on such short notice, we finally caved and purchased them. When was this sort of opportunity ever going to happen again? Several of our friends told us that we would be stupid not to go. This is her final season after all. We didn't even know what the show was going to be about!! This led to some serious investigation....

Now if you've been following my blog for awhile, then you'll know that Gina and I travel quite a bit for her Pin-Ups For Vets project to hand-deliver calendars and other merchandise to VA Hospitals. So of course we thought that we should also go to a hospital while we were in Chicago. Let's kill two birds with one stone. We would attend the Oprah show in all its magicalness and also go cheer up some amazing VETS. Logical, eh? I had never been to the Windy City before so I was ecstatic about the trip. What was there not to be thrilled about: Being at the Oprah show, visiting a VA Hospital and venturing to a new fun city! Well, this trip turned out be the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me! Are you ready for it? The show that we went to happened to be OPRAH'S PART 2 of her FAVORITE THINGS EPISODE!!!!!! Can you believe that?! If you follow Oprah even a little bit, then you know what this episode is all about and how much it means to be in that illustrious audience on the taping of that particular episode! If you don't know what I'm talking about, well, all you need to know is that Oprah generously gives away to her audience members 10-15 of her all-time favorite things. That's right, this show is all about receiving gifts!!! It was insane! I don't really even know how to describe how incredible it was being in that audience and discovering that it was her Favorite Things episode. Let me just tell you that the audience absolutely freaked out!! Tears, hugs, giddy laughter, screams, uncontrollable shaking, outbursts of singing and that was just me! Hahaha! Ok, not really, we were all going crazy!!! I kept hugging and shaking Gina's hands and asking over and over, "Are we really here?! Is this really happening to us right now?!" I had to pinched throughout the show to see if I was awake! Fake snow was falling from the ceiling and the words "Oprah's Ultimate Favorite Things" kept bouncing on the screens everywhere. It was madness in that studio for awhile. Wonder how much of this commotion they got on camera?
Honestly, I still think I'm in shock that this all happened to me. Out of all the people in the world that tried getting on this show, Gina was chosen and she picked me to go with her. I mean, what are the chances of all this?! Mathematicians, help me out....

If you haven't watched this episode yet, then go check it out asap! It aired yesterday so perhaps you die-hard Oprah fans have it recorded or maybe you know of someone that recorded it. I'm in the reddish-peach dress in the second row-front center. I know-they were amazing seats!! I had an stellar view of the entire stage and of course of the lovely Oprah! Sadly, they didn't let us take our phones or cameras into the studio with us so there aren't any pictures from the inside. I was definitely taking mental pictures though the entire time! : )

This Thanksgiving, I am truly grateful for experiences like this!