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I got up at 4:45 am.  We headed to Los Angeles around 6:15 and didn’t have very much traffic.  We stopped for breakfast and got to the studio early — a whopping 5 minutes early which is amazing for my family.  When we got there, all of the other families looked nice — already dressed and ready to go.  On the other hand, our family was still in sweats and grubbies (except the always ready-to-go Trilby).  To my mom’s disgust, we dressed out on the street with Scout’s baby blanket covering us. 

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When we got in, my mom and the kids were sent to a “green room”, and we had a “rehearsal” to give the producers an idea of our energy level that morning.  They also went over all of the rules and a little strategy.  One thing they said that hit home was that when we picked the two people for the fast round, don’t just pick people because they want to be picked…pick the best people.  (This was an interesting piece of strategy that any lame rod would know, but for our family’s benefit, we were all glad that Tristen heard it.)  After that comment, and while Brook, Megan, Trilby and I were giving secret thumbs up signals, Tristen said, “I don’t care what they say, I am going up.”  

I am proud to say that our family was the first to be picked for the show!  Our first show went pretty well.  John O’Hurley loved our family and so did the producers.  They said we make great TV, and that was evident when Tristen introduced us all.  She said, “Hi, I am Tristen, blah,blah,blah….this is my ‘bossy’ sister Lindsey, my ’single’ sister Trilby, my ‘nicest’ sister Megan, and my ‘littlest’ brother Brook.” Then she told the host how good looking he is and he kissed her hand.  Not wanting to be the “not kissed” sister, I crossed my hand over Tristen and had him kiss my hand too.  I guess my family is what I know, so it isn’t unusual, but apparently our family is a bunch of “hams”.  In fact, the casting director came by and told us we were making her look good.  Our game was pretty competitive, and it literally came down to the last question…and thank goodness for Brook - we stole the round and ended up getting to the fast round. 

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Of course Tristen went first.  She did OK, but got really flustered on one answer so she passed. Her excuse — “I kept thinking of Mormon answers!” The question was ”Name something a family should do together.”  Her answer was going to be family home evening, but she knew it wasn’t going to be up there and got flustered.  At the end, John O’Hurley announced that she ended up with 83 points. She then told him, “my bossy sister is going to KILL me when she gets out here!”  I did — going first, she should have at least gotten us half of the points.  In fact, because she has all of the opportunities to get the #1 answers, she should have well into the 125 point range.  Luckily when I went out, I was really focused and calm.  When they were turning over my answers, there was one left to turn over.  I needed 29 points to win, and Tristen had already given the number one answer that had 48 points attached to it.  So if you do the math, I really needed to give the #2 answer that had a lot of the rest of the points.  It was tight, and when my answer flipped over, by the skin of our teeth, 33 points gave us the W-I-N!

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We had a great day, topped off by shopping in L.A. and a great dinner.  Too bad the second show didn’t go as smoothly, but the producer said to stay tuned because they want to have us back for the “tournament of champions!”  Sounds great if Brook and I do the fast round!