tales of a young mamma: Witnessing history! And Obama called my son cute.

Probably anyone reading this blog knows we live in Denver. And most of you ( I hope!) know about the presidential debate that took place here last night. What you might not know is it took place about 1.3 miles from our front door, at Denver University, were Drew and I both went (but I didn't graduate from there.) There was of course very limited seating inside the debate, but they had a Debate Fest on campus right outside of the Richie Center- where the debate took place.

Drew was able to register for tickets for alumni to be at the Debate Fest and won tickets! Only 600 alumni were able to get tickets- the rest were only for VIP's, students and professors. We found out a couple of weeks ago we were selected to attend and I've been super excited ever since! And how exciting for Jasper and Tindra to get to attend as well?

Quick side story. Obama was in our tiny Iowa home town of 8000 when he was campaigning at the end of 2007 and we were in town for Christmas and went to the rec center where he was speaking, with 5 month old Jasper. After he spoke he told the audience he would be taking 3 questions. Drew was holding Jasper, and Obama called on him by saying 'Hey you with the cute kid' and Drew asked his question about health care. Photographers and reporters went kinda crazy snapping pictures, I think they smelled a story. Young (20) year old dad with his baby asking health care questions? Yeah. In the middle of answering Drew's question, Obama smiled and said "I hope you realize you will be in a lot of newspapers tomorrow!" Afterwards reporters asked our names, relationship etc. and there are pictures floating around of that day. There's an especially cool picture, I should email the photographer and see if I can have the picture since it's copyrighted, of Obama facing Drew just a few feet away, with Drew's back to the picture and Jasper over his shoulder looking right at the camera. Anyway I think it's pretty neat Jasper got called cute by the future president at 5 months, then at 5 years got to be there right outside for the debate for his reelection. And Tindra got to be there as well and is now 5 months!!

The interstate that runs right next to DU and all streets around the campus were shut down, so obviously we decided to walk. I've never walked to campus but surprisingly it only took about 20 minutes. And that's with a stroller and 5 year old. I don't think I realized just how of an even this was! There were more police officers, on bike, foot, horses, even in riot gear everywhere. And secret service agents! I don't think I've ever rubbed shoulders (literally, the sidewalks are narrow) with secret service agents. Jasper got one of them to smile by whispering something loudly about why they were all wearing sunglasses and frown faces.

There were protestors (not really sure exactly What they were protesting) groups of people with Fire Obama signs, and another group who cleverly had taken the Fire Obama signs and made them into ReHire Obama. It's hard to tell if there were more Obama or Romney supporters. My feeling is that there were more Romney supporters outside of the fenced off campus, but more Obama supporters inside the campus.

Inside their were food trucks ( I had the Best pizza) yard games, tons of booths everywhere, and huge screens showing what was going on right inside. And live music! I had heard there was music playing but had no idea who.

We were sitting down on a hay bale with our food truck purchases listening to music and waiting for the debate to start when the band played one of my current favorite songs out by the Lumineers. I was singing along while bouncing a happy baby and told Drew it sounded a lot like the Lumineers. And then it clicked- it WAS them! They are from Denver so of course it made sense!! I felt pretty silly that I was like 20 feet from them and didn't even notice. Whoops!

All in all it was such an exciting night. You could just feel the electricity in the air. We all realized we were witnessing history being made and I'm so glad we got a chance to go. I will probably never get this experience again!

We ended up leaving at about 8, the kids were getting tired and cold!! It dropped from 78 to low 50's and windy in about an hour. Plus we had been there since 4 and we still had to walk home, but still such a good night!!

Did you guys watch the debate? Thoughts? It's kind of funny watching it with Drew since we differ a lot in our political views, definitely keeps things interesting though!