The President comes to Portland!

President Obama came to Portland on April 1st. A couple days prior I signed up on Chellie Pingree's website to get more info when the details were available, which I mentioned to Mackinna. That was all it took for the girl to have her heart set on going. It didn't matter that she'd have to miss her dance class, or someone would have to wait in line to get tickets the day before- she needed to go. I would have liked for it to work, but gave up pretty quickly when I learned all the details. I could justify missing dance to hear the president, but just didn't see how I could wait in line to get her tickets, when I'd have to bring her to school and pick up from school and wait with at least one kid for hours in the rain and cold, but her Daddy was not deterred.

He took the morning off from work and got in line for tickets at 7:15- four hours later he had two tickets in hand. Then the next day he got in line at 11:30 for a 3:30 speech so they'd get decent seats. I brought Mackinna to him at 1:30- which is when the doors were supposed to open. Mackinna decided it'd be best if she wore a dress to hear the President speak, so we put her in a new dress from Grandma Campbell and put a bow in her hair. We talked a bit about health care- the topic of the President's speech, Mark loaded some new games on his phone to entertain her while they waited, and she brought her own little camera to take pictures. She had a blast from start to finish and Mark said he'd wait in line again in a heart beat- it was worth every minute.

The President!

Once they got inside, Hen sat on the floor at Daddy's feet and watched a movie on his phone.

The line behind them

Waiting in line to get into the expo- two hours still the speech starts!

The tickets! She later brought them to show & tell.