I Was On Jay Leno

So this happened almost 2 weeks ago.  I just copied this from my journal. Enjoy!

April 19th

So today was crazy. I had to wake up at 5am to get ready to go on the plane. I’m glad I packed the night before. I ended up going to bed at midnight. I guess that is a good enough amount of sleep. anyway so i had to get up and take a shower first. I had to be sort of quick about it.  After that i made sure that I had everything together. We had to go soon after that. We went in 2 cars. I ate 3 crackers and some water before I left because i get car sick on an empty stomach. it took us about 45 minutes to get to the airport.

I’ve been to the airport but I’ve never been on a plane before until today. It was interesting. We printed out our ticket info and went through security. I had to put my jacket, shoes, and purse into a bin and send it through this machine. Then i had to walk through the metal detector. After we were finished with that we went towards our gate. We went to krispy Kream on the way. They had one in the airport. We got about a half a dozen donuts and some juice. I was with my sister and her kids at this point We were still waiting for everyone else to get through luggage checkout and stuff.  We stopped for a few minutes so my sister could call someone. Then we found our gate.

We nearly got lost doing this, Our airport is very big.

We just waited for then to say we could board at this point, and finished the donuts.

We boarded the plane after about 10 minutes. They messed up my mom’s name on her ticket a little so they had to search her and stuff a little longer. She and the others made it though.  I sat next to the window on the plane. The plane was pretty small, it was comfortable though. I just read most of the time and stared out of the window. We were right next to the left wing of the plane. The only thing that I didn’t like is that the sun reflected off of the wing and so I had to be careful which angle I looked out of the window. I loved the view. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never been that high before it was very cool. I’ve always wanted to go on a plane but never got to. The clouds and everything were amazing. The flight attendant came by at the beginning with juice and stuff. It was free stuff, it was pretty good and the flight attendant was pretty nice.

We were on the plane for about an hour and a half. We touched down at about 8:30am in Burbank California.  We got off the plane and found our luggage. The weather was clear and sunny. We had an Enterprize shuttle pick us up and take us to the car rental place. We had rented 2 cars before we did this at the airport.  When we got there we loaded our two silver vans. There was 9 of us so we had to have 2 cars. The vans were really nice Dodge Caravans. They were very nice and comfortable.

After we got all the stuff into our cars we drove to the hotel. We found out they weren’t ready for us yet so we went out to Wendy’s to eat. I got a spicy chicken sandwich with some fries, and a Sprite.  After this we went to my sister’s house for a few minutes. She gave us some late Easter baskets. My sister has a cat at her house and I started to have trouble breathing not to long after I entered the house.  It was still nice seeing her, very nice.

We are going to be singing back up for Jay Leno on the 20th of April, that’s tomorrow. We had to go rehearse with the Smashing Pumpkins after we made a brief visit to my sister’s apartment.  We went to this studio place and learned our parts and stuff. We accidentaly went into the wrong studio the first time.  We got to the right studio though.  They gave us earplugs so we wouldn’t have to hear the full sound of the band. It was pretty loud. It was pretty cool, we all had a lot of fun. We weren’t perfect at first, quite the opposite, but we got it to be sort of good by the end of the rehearsal.  After this we went to check into our hotel. There was a slight hold up because they had no record of us ordering rooms, we got that taken care of and straightened everything out though.  Eventualy we got up to our rooms.

We were expecting our rooms to have bigger beds, but they only had full sized beds. I was going to sleep with my mom and my brother was going to share with my dad but we changed plans after this and I moved to my sister’s room.  There were just my niece’s and my sister in that room. I shared a bed with one and she shared a bed with my other niece.  We got unpacked and stuff and then went out.

We went to this place called “Trader Joes”. It’s this health food store. We went shopping for dinner. We got some pretty good stuff.  After that we went to my sister’s again. She was with us the whole time by the way.  So anyway, we went back to her apartment and just hung out and watched TV and made dinner. It wasn’t fun for me very much. As much as I loved being there I was having bad allergies and was having trouble breathing.  It was still pretty cool though. We watched the TLC channel while making dinner. I had to go outside a few times because of my allergies. I was just playing with the pine needles on the trees outside and trying to make random stuff.

We had stir fry and pasta for dinner, it was pretty great. We just hung out after that. We did practice the song for a while later. I had been coughing a lot cause of my lack of air. My voice was sort of gone and i couldn’t breathe very well so I had a lot harder time singing than at the rehearsal earlier.

My niece’s fell alseep on the floor while we were rehearsing. They were so tired.

We went back to our hotel after this, watched TV and went to bed.

April 20th

So yesterday night was sort of crazy. I didn’t think that sleeping in the same bed with my niece would really be that difficult but it was. Apparently she is like me and likes to move around a lot. On top of that she is very hot. I ended up not sleeping with my covers for part of the night for this reason. I was way to over heated.  I actualy gave up part of the night and slept on the floor because she kept on moving around a lot and stuff.  I eventualy got back on the bed though and slept well.

I had to get up at 7am to take a shower, and get moderately ready to go to the NBC studio where they taped Jay Leno. We packed all the stuff we needed to take with us like clothes we were going to wear and then we left for the studio.

The NBC studio was fairly close to the hotel I was a bit surprised.  We got the gates mixed up for a bit and accidentaly tried to go into the wrong one. We turned around and found the right one though. It was NBC studio 11 we went to. When we got to the gate we gave the guard our ID’s and he varified us and let us through. We were each given a visitor’s pass as well.  We parked and then went inside.  There was a person at the front desk and he asked us our names and stuff and we showed him our visitor’s passes and he sent us into the dressing rooms. He gave us stickers to show we were a part of the tonight show first though. we stuck those on our shirts (i’ll take pictures later).

We were directed to our dressing rooms. There was one for my sister and my nieces and there was one for my other family members.  The rooms were very nice! They had nice furnishings and they gave us a plate of truit and bagels and rolls they were pretty yummy.

After we got un-packed and our clothes set out and stuff, we went into the studio and practiced a bit by ourselves backstage. Then they called us up and we went through once.  We were pretty good.  We talked a little bit with eachother after wards. The studio was a lot bigger than I was expecting it to be. I was really quite surprised. It was awesome though.

After this we went back to our dressing rooms and got ready. We got dressed first. we were all wearing blue, and the girls were also wearing white and the boys were wearing black pants and stuff.  We took this time to rehearse the song, and the parts we were singing.  They pulled us out a few at a time to do hair and makeup. I just had my hair down at this point. I went to the hair guy first. I just told him to sweep my bangs to the right side and to just do whatever e wanted to do with all my hair. He ended up putting it up in this really cool bun thing. I had like 35 pins in my hair it was crazy but awesome! My hair looked fabulous!! After that I just waited for my turn t do makeup.

The woman that did my makeup was really great at it. I really liked the black macara she put on my eyes and the foundation and stuff she put on my face, it all fent and looked very nice. She fixed up my eybrows and stuff too it was really cool! I’ll have pictures of all this stuff sometime soon. My dad said that when he went into the the hair and makeup room that Jay Leno was having his hair done as well.

I watched them do my family’s hair and makeup for a while and then went back to my dressing room

we just practiced for the rest of the time until they go to our turn to be on the show and tape. Then we did the final taping, it went decently well. I was satisfied with the way I sang.  The stage was really cool. Meeting Jay Leno in person was also cool.  I wasn’t nervous at all.

We hung out at our dressing room for a few minutes, packed our clothes and things and then talked to some people afterward.

We just hung out there for a while and took pictures and stuff it was neat.  Then we went to dinner with Billy Corgan (oh by the way my sister is friend’s with him and she was also the keyboardist when we were doing the performance.  She is the one that got us on the show.

Anyway, so we went to dinner with Billy Corgan. We took some pictures with him before we went in.  We went to this great place called “The Good Earth”. The food there was really great. I got a lemonade and Orange chicken pasta and cream of brocoli soup. It was amazing. I drank so much lemonade there.  When I first got to the resteraunt they kept on moing me to different spots it was funny. I eventualy just sat at the end. There was a lot of us there.

Anyway so we were there for a while just eating and talking. I was daydreaming and being quiet as usual.

After that we decided that we would go back to the hotel and watch some TV. It was there that we parted ways with billy and the other people and went back to our hotel. We just hung out and watched American Idol and Glee and ate our treats that we got in the easter baskets from my sister.

It was pretty fun, my sister came over and we just mainly just hung out.  I fell alseep until we were on TV a few hours later after Glee and American Idol was done.  I just sort of dozed off, sort of waking up here and there to check of we were on yet.

I think we looked fine on TV and sounded good. While I know we could have done better it was still great.

We went to bed after that. we were all pretty tired.

April 21st

So by the time I woke up today yesterdays events seemed like a dream. My sister woke me up at 5am to get ready to leave and go back to Utah. I had already packed the night before right when we got back to our hotel.   I felt like a zombie when I woke up, much like the yesterday morning. I did not feel quite as bad though. My allergies had subsided a little, and I could breathe more normally now than the past 2 days.  Being allergic to my sister’s apartment really sucks. I’m really allergic to her cat. I started not being able to breathe as well from the moment I came in there.

Anyway, my family and I had said goodbye to my sister the night before. It was fun hanging out at our hotel.

Anyway so we cleaned up the rest of our stuff, finished our drinks that my sister had given us when we got to her house and then went down and put all our luggage into our two vans and checked out of the hotel. I was sort of sad to leave but I knew that when I came home my allergies would dissappear.

It was cloudy today when we left and it loked like it was going to rain, in fact you could feel a little droplet of water here and there.

So at this point we drove to the Enterprize Car rental place and brought back our cars. We had to wait a few minutes and then we rode one of their shuttles to the airport.  We gave them our luggage and printed our tickets. We went through the metal detector, had to remove our shoes, jacket, and purse and put them in a bin so they wouldn’t set the detector off. I had forgotten that my blue and silver bracelets were made of metal so i had to go back and put them through again.

At this point we just walked to the waiting area for our turn to board the plane. It was about 10 minutes and then we got on the plane.

I was not seated next to the wing of the plane this time and I was very glad about this because there was nothing blocking my view this time.  It was about 10 minutes and then they took off. It looked cooler this time. The clouds were really nice and the scenery was nice as well. I have allways wanted to see what it was like to be above the clouds it was very cool.  We went throug the same thing as last time. The flight attendant brought me juice and peanuts and I just sat there staring out of the window at the scene below me. There was a few times when the sky below me was just covered in clouds and it made it look like we were flying above  a white sea or something. It was truly amazing.

I dozed off about 40 minutes into the plane ride and woke up when we started to make our decent into the Salt Lake City airport. We got there early and had to wait a half an hour before a gate was available. I just fell asleep during this time again and woke up when we got off.

After that we just went and got our luggage. It was cloudy and breezy outside and the weather was slightly chilly.

After we got our luggage we caught a shuttle to the parking lot where are cars were. It started to rain not long after this, not a lot though. I went in my brothers car, it took us about 40 minutes to get home. It was weird being back home when I got there.

I turned on my computer as soon as I got into my room and then went upstairs to find a granola bar.

I just mainly spent the rest of the day playing the computer, sleeping more and reading.