Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Junky'd in Anchorage

Hi everyone,I wanted to share our interesting week with you.Robbie and I decided to audition for the UPN show Junk'd when it came to Anch. If you win, they come to your house, junk up your yard really bad as a joke on one of the homeowners, and after the joke, put in a new yard. Robbie really wanted to play a joke on his Dad, so we went all out. I dressed as a head of lettuce and Robbie as a turnip. He was so cute! He asked them (on camera) to "turn up" at our house and "let us" junk his dad. He sang a song he wrote about his dad being a fisherman in Alaska who doesn't have time for the yard.We won! They followed us immediately to our house (Friday) and started filming. We told Bob we had won a lawn make over on a local radio station and they would be filming a commercial. The result would be a suprise so he had to leave the house early on Monday morning. They showed up and started filming again. I told them we like to entertain and could use a more usable back yard. They moved all the stuff Bob has collected for the last 10 years from under the deck to the front yard! They fenced it with a orange snow fence and tarped it-new storage area so out guests wouldn't see it on the back deck. They moved the old fence from the back and made a dog run in the front yard. In the back, they put in a pile of dirt with a hose going into a bucket and covered with weeds-our new waterfall. It was horrible!They had me call Bob and tell him I was unhappy with the job. He shows up, and they couldn't get him mad. I tried really hard to get him going, but he's just too nice and the job was a gift. He actually found positive things to say about it. They presented us with a $8000 bill. I acted confused and they explained that only supplies were covered, not labor. Bob was still nice. He whispered to me that we could handle it with our lawyer later.They separated us to try to get Bob to crack. As they spoke to me in the front yard, they tried to get ideas. The camera man made a comment that he thought Bob knew everything. They explained to me many times that if Bob found out or was familiar with the show, it wouldn't work and they would have to Junk the 2nd place winner.They took me to the back yard and started interviewing again. As they were talking, one of the camera men said the word show instead of commercial. Bob stopped and started laughing and asked if we were on that show Junk'd. My heart stopped! I tried to back petal, and make it all still work. The producer yelled "Cut. He knows the show. This won't work." They started loading up the crews, as the hosts talked to me. I was crushed. I took off my mike and went inside. Bob came in and told me they had some questions about how they could fix part of the mess before they left. I asked them just to remove the ugly hill in back since they only had a half hour.They started laughing and told me it was the first time the pulled of a double junk!Later in the day, they also played a joke on the station. They told them we were suing because of the cracks in our driveway. That was really funny. The station manager was stomping around cussing in our yard while hidden cameras were in our van and up in the living room.The next day I secured complimentary flights on a couple of small planes for them to fly up to a glacier on Mckinley. My friends at the air service decided we should junk them. They were flown up on the glacier and on the way they started receiving distress calls about a climbing accident. When they dropped them off, the pilot was called to go to the accident immediately. He left them on the glacier with emergency rations, because the clouds were getting bad and he might have a hard time getting back to them. We had a camera man in on the joke, so he recorded everything. The plane came back 20 minutes later and we were waiting on the runway with a sign that said they'd been junk'd. They loved it and joked about never messing with Alaskans.We had a great week. Our yard is beautiful. We made some lifetime friends. The show will air in October and our local station KYES will be doing an hour long prime time special- behind the scenes.Wild week!

Lori

Tuesday, August 02, 2005
a note from Deanna

Well I'm trying to use this blog again. By now everyone knows I had sugery July 14.
I'm doing better each day. Walking 3 times a day a mile each time. I go back to work Aug 15.

I want to Thank everyone for their cards, calls, food and help. Donald is doing a good job
at being Mr. Mom.

Danielle is moving Friday to Elmira, so Donald is going to take the day off, rent a uhaul and
Randie is going to help them move. (seeing as I am not much help)
Talk to you all latter. Thanks again. Deanna