hey everyone! I'm so happy it's summer. Days is on hiatus for the next two weeks. We shot a whole bunch of episodes in advance so that we can take a mini summer break. though I guess we'll be pre-empted by tennis on the 2nd and 3rd of July. Better to know now right, then that crappy moment of turning on your dvr when you get home and finding that you've recorded an hour of news or golf or something. aargh. when I used to record the show - back in the days of making sure your vcr was left on the right channel, I used to have to leave post-it notes on the remote to make sure my brothers didn't screw it up. and I would be SO disappointed when it did get messed up. i remember my younger bro giving me such a hard time about watching Days, and then one day he saw that Carly had married Victor and he said "but i thought he was a bad guy?" and i laughed! that's how addictive Days can be.
Speaking of Carly, i am so excited by the return of Crystal and Wally. I never worked with Wally, I am excited to find out what his story will be. Same goes for Crystal! She is such a talented actress, we are lucky to have her.

I've been crazy busy - thought I'd catch you all up to speed on what's going on!!
Celebrated with Nancy O'Dell her daughter's birthday on Saturday. check it out at whrrl.com/
And shared with PEOPLE about being a mom again, and my workout routines.
And then, after watching the Lakers kick @ss Sunday night, I had an early call to Days. We're shooting about a month ahead right now - lots of stuff I can't talk about. lol. Then, the whole Days cast got together to participate in an nbc promo shoot. Such a fun afternoon - even though we were freezing!!! whrrl.com/ we started feeling rain drops as we were all gathering for the big group shot. Still it was a blast.

This storyline has brought us so many mixed feelings. We were all so excited to take on the challenge of a story so difficult and painful, and definitely intimidated at the same time. I was so moved reading the scripts. I thought the whole thing was put together so beautifully. Every scene bled into the next, and though it took several days to get through it, it still seemed to move so fast to me.
I loved getting the opportunity to do such emotional scenes with Galen. He is always so fun to work with - but these scenes were different. No one was cracking jokes, we were all so serious all day. One day our director choked up - when he was explaining the scene where Grace's heart monitor starts skips and flatlines. usually, no matter how dramatic or emotional the scenes, we can goof around in the early morning rehearsals and often people try to ease the tension of tough scenes by being light between scenes. Not these. everyone seemed affected by what we were shooting.
Several people on the message boards commented on the scene with Roman. I was struck by that right away. My dad has always been someone I can turn to for any situation, he is such a great dad - always there to try and help me make things better. I'm so lucky to have him. So, in a moment of such utter grief, I totally related to Sami just wanting so desperately for her daddy to be able to make this better. And just falling apart in his arms. it seemed so real for me.
Also, I am definitely an optimist. I always think things are going to work out. Everything is going to be okay. So, those scenes in the chapel, where Sami was saying to Rafe that she felt better - that everything was going to be okay... it made me really see the other side of that. what if it's NOT okay? As Sami said, all the crazy stunts she's pulled just to make sure she gets what she wants... it all seems so trivial int he face of her daughter's health, and knowing there is absolutely nothing she can do to help her.
I can't begin to describe how uniquely affected we all were by this whole storyline. Galen said he was standing off stage during one of the scenes, and he saw our co-ep, Gary Tomlin hand a big crew guy, Brian a tissue. He was literally crying in the darkness backstage.