MIDDLEBURG – With each flip of a page of her scrapbook, Carrie Prewitt’s attention fades a little deeper into a memory that 10 years later is still hard to comprehend.

Prewitt sat in a wonderous living room filled with spectacular Polynesian-themed furnishings, not the dilapidated fixtures of a broken down double-wide trailer that used to be home, flipping through pages of a book that tell the incredible story worthy of prime time.

Another page is turned. Then another. And another.

The book is filled with letters and photographs of club and Middleburg High volleyball players to the producers of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” The scrapbook, called “Live, Laugh, Love,” is one of the most-cherished keepsake in her 3,400-square-foot house that was presented to her 10 years ago on Feb. 2.

“It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years,” Prewitt said. “All this time later, I still don’t understand what we did that was so extraordinary that made everyone feel we deserved this. I still ask: why me? It’s been life-changing, for sure.”

For “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” it was an easy call.

Prewitt lived in a double-wide mobile home. She was the volleyball coach for the Mustangs when three sisters, Ashley, Taylor and Gina Brewer walked into her gymnasium. Their parents were dead of drug abuse. They needed a home, and the Department of Family and Children insisted they been kept together instead of being sent to separate foster homes.

“I still remember the day I met those girls,” Prewitt said. “There was fear. Can I do this? But in the end, I knew I was going to do it.”

Prewitt became the legal guardian of all three. The girls not only found a loving, albeit rundown, home, they escaped the horrific conditions created by their parents’ addictions. And it meant they no longer had to beg for food from neighbors.

When Prewitt approached the parents of Black Creek Volleyball Club about extending the season to qualify for the American Athletic Union, parents asked about costs. She offered to coach the girls for free, but the parents wanted her to be paid. They finally decided to pay her by spending an afternoon at her home making repairs.

The parents believed the mobile home was beyond repair. The only solution, they believed, was “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

They caught the attention of the producers of “Extreme Makeover” after flooding them with letters.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” Prewitt said. “When they approached us, they told us we were one of three candidates from Clay County. It was nerve-racking waiting to see how it would turn out. There were times we the girls and I circled in the living room and prayed.”

In reality, they were the only family on the show’s planning board.

As Prewitt wrapped up high school practice one afternoon when the show’s host, Ty Pennington, appeared at the school and gave them the news. The mother and daughters were given a weeklong vacation on St. Thomas the next day. It took the show’s design team, J.A. Long Design Builders of Orange Park and Art Remodeling and Construction of Gainesville a week of working around the clock to demolish the double-wide and build the new home.

“They took old volleyballs and filled them with water and froze them,” Prewitt said. “Then they used a pumpkin launcher to fire them at the double-wide to tear it down.”

Prewitt said the show’s producers didn’t ask for any design ideas. They also took their cellphones away to make sure nobody sent photos or made calls about the progress of the build.

The four returned home to a massive crowd of friends and neighbors – and behind the customary “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” bus. Prewitt vividly remembers “everything was a blur” the moment Pennington, yelled, “Move that bus!”

Seconds later, all four lives changed.

“It exceeded whatever kind of expectations we thought we were going to see on the other side of that bus,” Prewitt said.

The show also built a beach volleyball court in the backyard and a Zinn garden in a courtyard.

Their mortgage was paid. The University of North Florida offered all three girls an academic scholarship. Dr. Robert Fields of Orange Park offered free braces to the entire family. They also got four season tickets to Jacksonville Jaguars games and a gift certificate to Marineland.

Clay Electric then donated $3,426.94 to help offset their increased electric bills.

The love from the community, Prewitt said, still was one of the greatest gifts. She is reminded of that every time she opens her scrapbook.

Prewitt is still coaching volleyball at Middleburg. The girls have grown up and started their own families – Ashley in Green Cove Springs, Taylor in California and Gina in Keystone Heights.

“Every time I drive up, I realize just how special this was,” Prewitt said. “Ten years later, I still don’t believe it.”