Yes We Can!

This past weekend, our state held the presidential caucuses. Watching the politics play out in the early states, and super Tuesday, gave us the sense that something was really happening in America. We have some of the best candidates we've seen in a long time.

One of our biggest reservations about having children, was not knowing what kind of world we'd be bringing them into. In a world plauged with reactionary violence, and disrespect towards our planet and fellow humans, we doubted whether we could leave our children a world that was better than the one we'd inherited.

Lately, we've found new hope in one candidate with a positive, hopeful message. It is time to strive to become the best that we can be. And It is time to do what is right, regardless of whether it's the way that we've always done things. We believe that Barack Obama will be the kind of president that inspires us all to achieve greatness, and that we can, once again, leave a better world for our children than the world that we were left with.

So on Friday, we took the ferry over to seattle to try to go see Barack at the Key Arena.

While trying to get to the parking lot, we noticed masses of people migrating towards Key arena... then we saw a line forming near Mercer Arena, but going towards Queen Anne hill. (The line was so phenomenal that I thought it was worth a map to show just how long it was, you may need to click on it to see it well). We parked, and went over to see what the line was all about, and found out it was the line to get in (at that point we could see the line stretching about as far as the question mark on the map). Of course, where we once had seen the end of the line from the car (the # sign), was now wound all the way back up towards Key Arena, looping through the Fun Forest. We finally found the end of the line up by the monorail (at the X), but it was growing faster than we could walk.


Once we finally found the line, we had heard from folks with friends inside, that it was already nearly full. We decided to hang out a bit to see what was happening, then the police directed everyone in our portion of the line a different direction (the orange arrow on the map). Straight in through another entrance to the arena. Considering how far back we were, we were EXTREMELY lucky to get in!!

Here Reed and I are hanging out in line. It's hard to get a feel for how many people were there from this picture. It was really exciting to see how many people had turned out.

Reed and Cammy waiting for Obama to speak.

It was jammed packed, definitely over capacity, but we found a great little spot behind some folding chairs, and one really nice lady gave up her seat for Cammy and Reed. There was a little 'cave' underneath the stairs that Reed enjoyed playing in.



And he made all sorts of friends with the people jammed close to us. He was much more social than usual. Perhaps being in such close proximity with politicians, he felt he should practice his shmoozing skills.

After about two hours of waiting, and some other speakers including Governor Gregoire, Barack took to the stage.

I wish I had more to say about his speech, but it was so loud, that we only caught about 2/3rd of what he was saying. You could definitely feearakl the electricty and energy in the building.

So the next day, all three of us went to caucus. Thankfully, we're democrats, because republicans don't allow kids at their caucuses. Reed had lots of fun toddling around meeting our neighbors, and the overall theme of the caucus was UNITY. Our caucus eventually went 23-5 for Obama, but everyone was happy with both candidates, and there was real hope that real change was coming to our country.