Wilmington Report and How Awesome God Is

Our 48 hours in Wilmington was for lack of a better word, insane.  If you want detailed reports of filming and such go to Thursday filming report or Friday’s filming report.

If you want the short of it basically the entire cast ended up filming on Thursday including guest star Nick Lachey.  And I FINALLY got a picture with Chad Michael Murray.  We stayed outside standing on a sidewalk freezing for hours on end both Thursday and Friday waiting on them each to have a break in filming to come speak to us.   We didn’t get to go to the reunion dinners as planned but ended up talking to several people at filming (including Carolyn who reads this blog and her two children!).   Like I said there, it was nice to hang out with people who knew as much or more than I did about OTH.  Thursday night we went out downtown hoping to run into cast members but didn’t find anything.  We did however hang out with 3 other fans that were really cool.

Friday evening we stayed in.  Heather slept and I caught up on all my posting and pictures and Grey’s Anatomy.  I finally went to sleep around 1 I think.  Heather had the weirdest allergy reaction around 2.  Her eyeball turned red and swelled until it was bulging.  It was WEIRD.  We went out to CVS and got her some drops and Benadryl which helped enough that we didn’t rush to the ER.

Saturday we slept in as much as we could until time for the studio tour.  Which was great because we saw some sets we didn’t see last year AND we were able to peek at the call sheet for next week and got to see that one of the biggest scenes of the series was being filmed next week.

That Part About God

Most would call us lucky, but I have to say I think God blessed us this weekend.  I think this is where that “peculiar people” label will come into play but I have to say Heather and I literally prayed God would grant us favor this weekend and we’d get to see filming and meet some cast members.  And wow, did he deliver.  Just go take a look at all these pictures and you’ll see that we got pictures with or at least saw almost every single cast member.  But even more than that, I wrote in a post on OTHBlog that I really wanted to meet the creator of OTH.  I heard he was in town and it was one of few chances.  Here’s what I wrote:

Honestly, I’m dying because Mark is in town.  I REALLY want to meet him.

MARK, COME FIND US IN WILMINGTON!!

Now here’s an excerpt from one of my filming report posts:

You guys know I was dying to meet Mark…it was on “the list” when we left.  Heather and I decide to get some ice cream this afternoon at Kilwin’s.  We’re sitting on Market in my car facing across to the RiverCourt and notice a white van.  It doesn’t appear there is filming but it definitely meant something was up.

When we got there, there was a group of 5 or 6 people with some sort of lens/camera looking out over the RiverCourt and downtown Wilmington.  And THEN a white van pulls up and out steps Mark.  OMG.  We do a little fangirl scream b/c omg, we were the only fans there and there stands MARK who we’ve been dying to see.  So random!

He joins the group and they work on whatever scene they were working on.  They walk down to the water line and face Market street and point and talk and do whatever they do.  My gut said it was some sort of scene for the finale since we know Mark is directing.  So Heather and I have squatted on the picnic bench there and when they move to go back towards the parking lot, we call him over and say we want a picture when he is done.  He says he can do it right then.  We tell him we’ve been wanting to get his picture the whole trip.  We mention we run this site and he thanks us for our work.  We tell him thanks for all their work on the show that we love it.  And then Heather and I go scream in the car. LOL.  Yes, we turn into fangirls when we arrive in Wilmington.

Now let me tell you why I know this was a direct and specific answer to prayer.  While we were standing in the cold and wind on the sidewalk Friday afternoon, we were just about over it.  We wanted to leave and get warm but couldn’t hardly tear ourselves away never knowing when one of the cast would come over.  We were going back and forth, wanting to get some ice cream or something (they have this GREAT place called Kilwin’s!).  I suddenly felt God saying “GO AND COME BACK!!” and it was just like that over and over GO AND COME BACK!! GO AND COME BACK!!  So I said to Heather, Let’s Go!  So we did.  We got our ice cream and we went to sit in the car with it.  Then Heather looks across the river where the river court is (If you don’t know the show, the River Court is one of the key filming locations from the show) and she says there are white vans over there (which means that is cast or crew traveling around town).  So we start going back and forth whether to go over there (which didn’t look like anything was going on) or head back to filming.  And then I heard “Go NOW”.  I was about 3/4 the way through my ice cream and I said we’re going to the river court and handed Heather my cone so I could pull out.  We pull into the river court and there are the few crew members there.  We were sitting there literally less than a minute and another van pulls up and who but Mark Schwahn jumps out.  The story above tells what happens but ya’ll??  That wasn’t an accident!  I know it sounds dumb but I just know it’s true!

So when Heather and I prayed I said, “God, we’ll give you the glory and praise” so this it.  God, thank you for caring about what I care about and helping us find that needle in a haystack.  You are awesome and thank you!!