Hey, y'all!

Long time, no blog, right? ;) I've been super duper busy this semester. The online classes are kicking my ass, it's a lot harder keeping up than I had anticipated. I'm doing well in all of my classes, though, so that's good. I was also busy for a while helping to plan my sister's wedding. She got married on October 18. Hopefully I'll have pictures to put up soon! We haven't been able to get together to get the pictures since she got back from her honeymoon. It all went beautifully, though. We had a houseful the weekend of the wedding. My sister, her boyfriend, and my niece stayed with us all weekend. Then we had my other sister and niece, more nieces and nephews, my sister-in-law. One night, we had 14 people sleeping at my house! It was a disaster area by Monday morning.

My dad came to the wedding, and we visited with him some the next day, which also happened to be my birthday! So, I'm 30 now. I was kind of dreading it, but it doesn't feel any different than 29 or 28 or 27. I don't feel any different than I did when I was 18, in fact.

We went and voted today, of course. We took the kids, and I let Maggie press the button to cast my vote, then gave her my 'I voted' sticker. I printed out a map of the US and a chart of all the states and their electoral votes on it. We colored in the map, and marked off each state on the chart for Obama or McCain. I told the kids they could stay up as late as they liked and watch the returns with us. I told them however things turned out, this was an historical election and I wanted them to remember it.

Hunter stayed up with us for the whole thing. We skipped around from MSNBC to CNN to ABC, and even watched Comedy Central's Indecision '08 for a while. The whole thing was very exciting. I was more nervous and energized than I was in the previous two elections. I feel like the country got it right this time, especially in comparison to the '04 election. I was grinning like a fool after it was called. I actually enjoyed John McCain's speech. I felt he was very gracious in his words, and I believed what he said. I couldn't wait to hear President-elect Obama's speech, and I wasn't disappointed. Not only do I like Mr. Obama's ideas and policies, but it is nice to see him act like a person, rather than just a politician. You can see the love between him and his wife, and the love he has for his daughters.

I am very proud of my country tonight. It is an awesome moment in our history, and I'm so glad to be witness to it. Well done, everyone!