Table for Eight

(c) Entertainment Weekly, page 11, 2013. Me, JC, and JPro! There are 4 really funny things to me about playing S urvivo r: 1 . Y ou get to live on an island and play this incredible game (an d potentially win 1 million dollars !). 2. Y ou get to challenge yourself in ways that just never ever happen in "real life." 3. You get to KNOW Jeff Probst! 4 . Y ou get to temporarily see what life is like "in the public eye" ( for media people or politi cians , etc.) . And I'm just here to say, numbers 1-3 are enough to thr ow off my center of gra vit y. But number 4 is something I still FLIP OUT over. It 's just never NORMAL to have someone stop me and say, "Are your Dawn fr om Survivor ? " N ever. And yet on some days it 's enough to make me think I should have my own box at the Lakers games, I tell ya. (Just kidding. Sorta.) But f ortunately--because I've played the game once before--I know that the "Sur

(c) CBS, 2012. (And thx SurvivorFever.net)   I am so happy to have made it this far in Survivor Caramoan! As of last night, I beat my placement in Survivor South Pacific (woo hoo!). I thought last night's episode was great. (I think my wording was "huge" at the end of tribal. That was no small feat getting Malcolm out. Holy mack!) I liked last night's episode because we saw a lot more of everyone--and you got a really good picture of what camplife is like (people back and forth sharing plans, voting changes, stress over splitting/not splitting votes, idol searching, bluffing, drinking brown water, heat, tears, diarrhea ... the works!) And while it may seem nuts that I bought a rotisserie chicken for $500.00, it was THE best chicken I've ever eaten. And at this point in the game, I felt I needed food more than I needed family letters or an advantage in a challenge. (But I could have been wrong, been blindsided and easily gone home last night. The ga

Zu and Bam--on Bam's 16th bday this month. Before Survivor Caramoan (the game vs. show) , I was able to blog almost every day consistently. But I'm telling you, Surviv or has been was one MAJOR life-changing experience for me (and our family) . And since re turning, my whole life has been d ifferent. And I don't mean that in a bad way, I'm just saying that I'm a completely different version of myself after playing Survivor two times in 12 months . Completely. If you're a Survivor fan , then you know that Malcolm played two seasons back to back--with only 3 weeks in between seasons. Brandon, Cochran, and I however, were the next "most recent" returning players, having played Survivor Caramoan exactly 12 months after our first season, Survivor South Pacific. And if you're watching this season, I have to just share this--because it blows my mind ... a t this stage in the game ( D ay 28 ) Cochran and I ha ve spent 56