The Rachael Ray Show

What an awesome time I had with my best girlfriends at the filming of 

The Rachael Ray Show!!!

A few months ago I started watching the show regularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays ~on the days I babysit and as the baby is taking his morning nap~.  I really like watching it, it's entertaining, and I love Rachael's cooking!!  She is of course a great cook and a fun person!  So, secretly, I started thinking about taking part in the audience and about how cool it would be there.  Of course, I would not have gone by myself, and since I don't have many friends here, and anyone I know is working during the day I thought I would never go!!
But when my girlfriends told me they wanted to come visit me from France, I right away thought about going there with them!  So, I registered us online and crossed my fingers that there would be room for us to go during their stay in the NJ/NY area.  I know how busy the filming of the show is, and it can be pretty long until people get tickets...
A few days after my submission, I received an email from the show's crew informing me that I and my guests had be selected to be audience members!!! AAAHHH!!!! I was so psyched!  It did say though that the tickets, which are given right outside the studio when we get in-line, would be based on a first come first serve, so we were not 100% guaranteed to actually get in until the day of.

Yesterday morning, D-Day, we woke up to this...  

Rain, rain, rain...  How depressing to go to the city with this weather...  It hadn't been raining in weeks in the region, and of course, our luck, on the most important day of our week it started pouring!! ;)
Even Lily was sad about it!

But, oh well... We had planned to see Rachael, nothing was going to get in our way.  We left my house at 7:30 a.m., drove to the train station for the 8 o'clock train, and by the time we arrived at Penn Station in NYC by 9:00 a.m., the rain had stopped.  We were really lucky to be able to walk to the Chelsea Studios without getting soaked!  We got there at around 9:20 a.m., early enough to get in line and assure that we would get tickets!

The line was pretty long already, I wonder what time all the other people got there!  Some of them were coming from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts... even France! haha!! ;) Crazy what people do for something that's dear to them!

We finally got into the building at around 10:00, waited in the audience hangout room (click on the link for a tour of the cool rooms and studio!).

From Right to Left: Amandine, Marion and I in the Hangout Room

There, we met the warm-up guy, Joey Kola. ~here is a little video of him on the Rachael Ray Show website~  This guy is absolutely awesome!!!  He is sooo hilarious!!!  I laughed so much my cheeks hurt!  He taught us some "oooh's", "aaaahhh's", and "mmm" that we would have to do throughout the filming!  It was pretty cool!

Joey Kola ~the Warm-Up Guy for The Rachael Ray Show~

We finally walked into the studio at around 10:40.  It was so beautiful in there!!  I was really excited to see the set!
I also got very interested in seeing the crew at work.  The people in charge of the audience department were so nice ~and young too!  I thought of becoming one of them! :)  It must be such a fun job!  And then, we saw the Stage Manager on set, a thirty-five year-old man, and that's when I thought back to my stage managing moments!  ~I miss being a stage manager so much~  This guy must be really really good to be managing such a show!  I admire him and envy him at the same time...!  ~I got about 10 years to get as good as him!! #letsgo ~ 

I have no pictures from in there because we weren't allowed to have our phones or cameras out...  Understandably.
The filming of the show was a fantastic experience!  I loved observing the work that each of the Star ~Rachael Ray~, the Stage Manager, the crew members, the guests and everyone else involved put into making this show happen ~or as Joey Kola kept saying "making television"~.  It was truly fascinating to me!
Rachael was such a nice person, very simple, modest, classy and super professional.  

We also had the chance of seeing cool guests: 
First was the band 98 Degrees with Nick and Drew Lachey, Justin Jeffre, and Jeff Timmons to promote their first album in 13 years, entitled 2.0.  They performed one of their new song!  
As a gift, we all received their album to download online.  Woohoo!!!

Then came the beautiful Nina Dobrev, star from The Vampire Diaries.  And finally, Bert Kreischer.  Rachael and him apparently like to give themselves some crazy challenges, but honestly, I didn't know who he was... 

We got out of there at around 1:00 p.m...  Wish we could have stayed longer... Boohoo :( Time flew by while we were sitting in the audience!

Best time in the city!  Even though the weather was bad, it made up for a perfect day!!

Seize The Day For  A

Life in Positudiness!

Xoxo

~Sandie