The morning of February 15th, 2007 it was 14 degrees outside and 5:45 am. A small group of people who have now become know as the Westbrook Taskforce have begun to gather in a park located just up the street from the Westbrooks home. Despite the freezing temperatures the mood is energetic and uplifting over what we had accomplished. The petition drive worked and we were now listening to the crew from ABC give us instructions on what would be taking place that morning. AbC had decided that since this was such a overwhelming community effort to get them here that this would be a first for them by letting those of us who had helped make this a reality walk up and let the family know with the stars of the show. Now we just had to wait for the bus to roll up and let the design team off so would could line up with them. Everyone at the park had a story to tell about how they knew this amazing family and I was just taking in the moment,
Finally, 8:30 am we saw the bus coming around the corner and stopped right in front of us. We could see the design team standing at the window for what seemed like an eternity, then the door opened and out they came, the crowd began to cheer and then quickly realized this was still a surprise as we were quickly hushed. This was it, the moment we had been working towards and it was here. We began to line up with the design team, Ty, Paulie, Preston, Ed and Tracey and then we started to march toward the house, everything just felt surreal as we approched the house. Then Ty put the bullhorn to his mouth and said those famous words "Good Morning Westbrook Family". Out they came Peggy, Elizabeth, Katie, Gene and then James. As we all gathered around to listen to Ty telling the family where they would be going on vaction I don't think anyone who was there will ever forget what happened next. James raised his hand and looked at Ty and asked " Does this mean we got the Extreme thing" Ty looked at him and said " yeah Buddy that why we're here".
I couldn't wait to run over and hug the family and congratulate them, but Peggy found me and came over gave me the biggest hug and said "Thank you so much, I love you", and all the hard work that I had done had just become worth any sacrifice.