My RONA Home Update

Just a quick update for those of you who are curious:


On Friday, June 26th, Nicola and I made our appearance on Breakfast television with another lovely couple (Josh & Misty). Though, at first, we all appeared quite nervous, the segment went well.... at least, we felt pretty good about it.


Actually, we did two segments; the first was a remote appearance on Breakfast TV in Edmonton which was really weird because we were sitting on a couch in a boardroom with ear buds in our ears staring into a camera talking to the hosts in Edmonton... kinda strange because you can't see who you're talking to. The second segment was live here in Calgary... many of you saw it and your encouragement / support since then has been much appreciated.


Following our appearance we were told by one of the producers that they would be selecting the TOP 5 couples over the weekend and if we hadn't heard from them by Saturday night, then it was the end of the road for us.


To our delight we didn't have to wait long (although it seemed like an eternity). Friday night at around 5:30pm we got the call... AND we were selected to the TOP 5 finalists.


TOP 5 meant that we would have a home visit early the following week (last Monday, June 29th). They came to our house with cameras and wanted to do a candid walk through our current home. They filmed everything... they even asked to look inside our fridge which was packed full of random stuff from Maggie's birthday party on the weekend.... it was also the only place in the house we didn't clean in advance of the visit. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!


Following the tour, Nic, Maggie, Lyla and I all piled on the couch for a candid filmed inteview about our life. This wasn't the easiest thing to do with a 2 year old who wanted to have me read her books at the same time, jump on the couch and sing but we got through it. Maggie was a star!


The final "audition" was last Friday, July 3rd. For this audition we had to come with three 20" by 30" presentation boards which detailed what we think our floor plans would look like for a main floor, upstairs and finished basement. All we were given in advance was a picture of a square and told to design within the square. This was quite the task but fun at the same time and we were very excited about our finished product. ( I took pictures of the boards so I might post them later). So Friday morning we went down to the Delta Bow Valley downtown during the Stampede parade to do our presention and we left feeling like we rocked it.

It is now out of our hands and in the hands of the jury. The jury is made up of the producers of the show, executives for RONA and representatives from City TV. They will be making the official announcement who the final two couples will be on Breakfast Television on Monday, July 13th. Fortunately we won't have to wait that long to find out. They told us that whether we are selected or not they will call us sometime this week to give us the news.

So now we wait... what will the outcome be???

I'm not a guy who typically looks at horoscopes but I thought I would share what our horoscopes were in the Calgary Sun today:

CANCER: (James) "The actions of others will aid and support you greatly. Money will appear seemingly without effort. Let others take charge for a while. Reap rewards. Things have come full circle. Good luck."

AQUARIUS: (Nicola) "This is a wonderful time to make fun plans with brothers or sisters or another one of your favourite family members. Creative energies will flow freely. People will find you beautiful, witty, flirty, and charming."

I know one can interpret these things in many ways but I thought they were amusing anyway.

With our fingers crossed we hold our breath and hope we are what they're looking for. We'll let y'all know either way.

JRM 7/6/2009