Grandpa Jim helped me sneak over to Milwaukee to surprise my girls.

I walked into Grandpa’s house early on Saturday morning.
I said “Hi” to Page.
Neither Page, nor Alex knew who I was.
After a few minutes they worked it out.
They both got very excited.

The film, that Alex has been working on was being filmed at the house on Monday, so I stayed an extra day to watch it all happen. It was fascinating, and I got to sleep on a movie set! (Look for my jammy pants hanging off a surfboard in one scene)

We had to wake up at 5:30am as the crew started arriving at 6am. By the time Page had woken up, they had turned the house upside down. Page was very excited to see Grandpa’s house “upside down”! I then felt it time to have that “idiom talk” that every parent dreads.

Despite not seeing the house literally upside-down, Page and I did a tour of the house looking at all the equipment. Page was even offered a ride on a “dolly”. Still more confusion.

There are about 75 people involved in the production, and a good number of them were involved in the shooting. The cars stretched half way out of the estate. You might notice the Airstream in this photo, where the stars were supposed to hang out. Though Mimi Rogers preferred to have a nap in the house.

There was even a train in the living room. After I picked up Sienna and Page from daycare we checked out the filming of this scene. We did until I got the feeling Page didn’t want to be quiet any more.

“Settle!”
“Action!”
“Rolling!”
“Cut!”

The final scene of the day was an establishing shot of the house. Should add an extra $100k to the value, I’d say…

Here are a few shots from today, the first day of shooting. Things went very smoothly today despite a very hectic last week. Its a large crew, about 100 cast and crew members. Now that pre-production is over, its fun to see everything come together!

So cute, little kids in the neighborhood wanting copies of GOONIES autographed.

Setting up for one of the scenes indoors.

Director Gil Cates, Jr. and Sean.

Getting geared up for shooting.

A shot of the crew getting ready for a shot outside.