I thought I’d share this photo even though it has nothing to do with how I was on TODAY, today. I met Matt Lauer in the summer of 2010 while hanging out on the TODAY plaza.

We really were.  It was for like 3 seconds, but we were on there.

How did this happen?

If you know me well you know I’ve had a small obsession with current events for mostly my whole life.  I started watching TODAY as a nursing new mom.  One morning Matt and Katie were on my TV and TODAY’s been on ever since.

A few weeks ago they announced a contest called “Wake Up With Al” where you have AL Roker come to your home and broadcast TODAY from your house.  To enter you needed a word 250 essay and you had the option to submit a video.

Naturally, I thought we’d be a good fit for this.  Why wouldn’t Al Roker want to come to our home?  So, I wrote up the essay in about 10 minutes and we made a goofy little video that evening.

I didn’t REALLY expect to hear back from the TODAY show.  I enter most every essay contest I see and I’ve never won a prize, but…a few days later I got an e-mail from a TODAY show producer saying they liked our entry and wanted more info about our home and family.

If you go to TODAY, you must take a cute poster.

I quickly assembled what they asked for and e-mailed it off.  I assumed THAT would be the end of it, but it wasn’t.  I heard from them the next day asking for a phone number so we could talk.

At this point I stared to get fairly terrified that the TODAY show might actually come to my house.

Think about the reality of that.  Who just has TODAY broadcasting from their house?  I was overwhelmed with the thought.   Luckily for me, my always reasonable husband calmed me down and told me that if anyone could accommodate the TODAY show at their house, it would be me. Then I started to get excited about the possibility.  Really excited!

The next morning I got a phone call from a TODAY producer.  We talked for more than a half hour about our family and community.  To my complete surprise, I wasn’t at all nervous while we talked.  They asked me, hypothetically, if were were selected as a semifinalist would we be willing come to New York and be on the TODAY Plaza when they announced the winner.  I assured them that our kids were capable of travel and that we would be willing to clear our calendar.  It was really very fun and exciting.

After it was over I thought to myself, “that went well,”and “they really might come here,” and “we really might go there.”  Needless to say, my mind was racing all weekend.  On Monday I was waiting for the phone to ring all day.  I was watching my e-mail inbox every minute.  Nothing came.

I figured that if we didn’t hear Monday, they selected some other family.  But I still had some hope it COULD happen on Tuesday.  But then, nothing happened Tuesday or Wednesday for that matter.  Late last night I gave up any reasonable hope that this might happen. For the first time in more than a week, I slept great.

This morning I got a text from my friend and former college roommate Robyn that she’d seen me on the TODAY Show. She wondered if I was a finalist.  So I raced to the TV and fast forwarded through until I saw the “Wake Up With Al Segment.”

With eagerness me and my two girls were glued to the TV.  They were showing some of the audition tapes and a very small portion of ours was the second of 8 videos they showed!

It wasn’t quite the thrill I was hoping for, but hey, who gets to say they were on the TODAY Show?

During the remainder of the program they showed the three semi-finalists.  The first was a Dairy farming family.  I can’t compete with that.  The second was a Firehouse full of firemen.  I can’t compete with that.  The last was a school teacher.  I can’t really compete with that either.  In the end, they selected ALL THREE.  Al will be visiting each of them next week.

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I won’t pretend that I’m not disappointed, I am.  But I at least we tried and at least I can check number 307 off my list.