Election Day!

I have guilt when I’m away from the blog for too long. So rather than post the catch-ups in chronological order, I’m going with the most exciting first. We got to see The First Lady yesterday!

It was such a l-o-n-g wait! We didn’t have enough info first. There were no seats, standing room only, and it was hard concrete. It was packed, so much that I was afraid the girls would get squished. And they nearly did a few times. And it was HOT, since it was 80 degrees here yesterday and the a/c didn’t appear to be running. At least not enough.

We arrived at 11 to get a good seat (ha, ha), and the First Lady didn’t speak until 12:40. The girls were very patient, but they did get quite tired. Annie rested on Pappap’s shoulders:

I made them all outfits to wear. Catie is wearing a really cute twirl skirt that you can’t even see in this picture! lol Annie designed her own tee. She is absolutely enthralled with the idea that a woman could be VP. Interesting to me, since having a female leader has never been at all important to me. But I’m happy to see her enthusiasm. Anything can happen, child, anything can be.

Lousy picture, but at least you can see a glimpse of Catie’s skirt. The bottom layer was blue with silver glittery stars.

Lilly still does her Disney World picture pose! She’s holding Tink of course.

I can’t get these pictures to appear in the order that I want and I’m frustrated and giving up. This was taken at the end of the rally. The crowd was thick and I couldn’t see at all, so I just held the camera up and snapped away. This is a pretty good one!

Here she is giving her speech. Behind her are local candidates:

A better shot of Lilly’s shirt:

Annie wanted desperately to meet her but there was no way I could get to the front of the crowd. She and Catie are small, so they held hands and worked their way up to the front, very excited. Unfortunately then a man passed out next to them, and they had to move so paramedics could get in.

OK, try again. Catie gave up, but Annie wormed her way up front again. In comes the r-u-d-e lady and her child standing next to Annie, who told her that she had to leave. Annie was confused and just looked at her, and the lady said that kids weren’t allowed to talk to the First Lady. Annie ran away in tears. Turns out this was just some attendee who didn’t want Annie taking away from her own child. MANY children got up front and met the First lady, got autographs, snapped pictures…Annie just wasn’t one of them. If I had found the lady who scolded my daughter I might have cheerfully choked her.

Instead I told my baby not to cry, hoisted her onto my shoulders, and ran in as close as I could. Mrs. Bush was just about to leave and I knew I couldn’t get any closer so I told Annie that this was it. She shouted, “I love you Laura!” It was so cute, and many people in front of us turned to look. Including… Mrs. Bush! She looked up and smiled and waved right to Annabelle!!! It was definitely the highlight of our day, and could have been better only if I was able to take a picture of the moment. But that’s ok – when we left Annie found a heart-shaped rock at Fazoli’s that she kept as her remembrance of the day.