a new president

i'm back home after a very long 4  days in phoenix, az.

i was attending the HC design conference with a slew of my colleagues.

i had a wonderful time and learned alot, but it was exhausting.
my days started at 7am and i'd roll into my hotel room at 11pm every night.

i was all ready to come home the evening of the election, but the sd airport
was fogged in. our pilot circled the airport for a while {hoping the fog would clear},
and when it didn't turned the plane around and went back to phoenix.
i stayed another night. *sigh*

since i spent the majority of tuesday pm in the air, looking for a hotel and
re-booking my flight home, i missed watching the election,
except for the glance or two i got of the tv at the airport.

i woke up wednesday morning to find a complimentary usa today at my door
and barack obama on the cover smiling from ear to ear.  it made me smile too.

the boys followed the race from home and before they went to bed,
finn and scoutie gave me the update over the phone and also shared they
got to 'pretend' vote at school that day.

scoutie told me he voted for obama because we were an obama family. *grin*
yesterday when i came home and was going through his past week's schoolwork,
he showed me this:

he was so proud of it.
i tucked it away with a copy of yesterday's paper and put in his keepsake bin.
before we went to bed, finn said "mom, if malia was a few years older,
she could have voted for her dad."

he was referring to president obama's daughter.
finn was in kindergarten when she and her younger sister, sasha,
moved into the white house. the girls were 6 and 9 then.
he seemed very interested in the young residents then and even
told me the day their family got a puppy. the girls are 11 and 14 now,
and when malia's father finishes his 2nd term as president,
she'll be of voting age but won't be able to vote for her dad since
his time will be over.

i dug up a photo of the obama family celebrating 4 years ago.
look how young sasha was. poor girl looks frightened.

and here they are yesterday, all smiles and so much more grown up.






i'm an optimist and am excited about the next four years.
{in 2016, my hope is to see a strong woman candidate on the ballot}.