Saturday night was a date night for Kevin and I. We left home around 3:30 in the afternoon and headed straight to the Coliseum for the SARAH PALIN RALLY!!! I was beyond excited and so thankful that Kevin was able to pick up the free tickets for us earlier this week. They were available on Thursday morning at 10:00. He got there at noon and the tickets were gone by 1:30.
Here is a picture of her arriving in Fort Wayne on Saturday evening just before the rally.
As we pulled in the parking lot at the Coliseum a little before 4, this is what we saw. The line went out to the road!! The next day, we read in the paper that this was the longest line Fort Wayne has ever had. My mouth dropped open and I commented to Kevin that it had to be a line to get into the building. He didn't believe me at first and said it was for something different...I was right. :)
When we finally made it into the building, we were standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people. It was tight and warm. Not too far from us, we spotted a Sarah Palin looka like. I wanted a picture with her so badly and was contemplating asking her when an older woman fainted beside us. The Sarah Palin look a like came over and tried to help (I guess she was a nurse). I was tempted to take a picture...would that have been inappropriate? Kevin said yes, so I didn't. Police officers, fire fighters and EMTs squeezed through the crowd to help the older lady and ended up taking her out on a stretcher. I felt bad for her. She didn't want to leave because she was afraid she would miss seeing Sarah Palin. I didn't blame her!!I told Kevin about ten times that I was so thankful we didn't bring the kids! He got two extra tickets in case we wanted to take them along...so glad we decided against it!! We were able to find someone else to take the tickets on Saturday morning.
One by one we filed through a security gate manned by Transportation Safety Administration personnel. Then we moved to another area where, with arms outstretched, we were scanned by Secret Service members with a security wand. We emptied our pockets and they went through my purse. We made it to our seats by 6:00...two hours from the time we got out of our car in the parking lot!!!
Hank Williams Jr. revved up the crowd with some music.
Sarah and part of her family walking out on stage
The coliseum was packed with over 15,000 people.
It was sooooo worth the wait to see Sarah come out on that stage with her family. My sister asked me what some of the highlights were for me. I loved seeing her family with her. She was genuine and real. I loved her spunk. When she talked about her stand on the value of innocent human life, everyone rose to their feet and the crowd roared...that was my most favorite part of the speech.
Here's a short video of Sarah at the beginning of her speech.
This man so wonderfully completes me. I can't imagine life without him. We've both grown sooo much in the past twelve years...especially me.
When we arrived at the park, there was a wedding taking place in this area (notice the chairs set up in the background and a few remaining members of the wedding party). I was worried we wouldn't get to take pictures in this area, but we hung around long enough to be able to thankfully. Such a perfect spot for a wedding! Why didn't we have ours here?
Here are some pictures of the kids falling asleep in front of the TV(Caedmon hadn't taken a nap that day and so it didn't take long for him that afternoon)...pitiful isn't it? I feel like a guilty parent even posting these. Yes that is what I resorted to for a short time while Kevin was gone. I don't let them watch much TV at all, but I needed some quiet time..!! 
My mom convinced us to spend the night and the kids were very excited about sleeping at Grandmas. Kevin's flight was supposed to come in on Friday evening at 6:15...more delays because of weather. I was so disappointed and bummed because he was still in Iowa when I talked to him at 9:00 pm and there was a chance he would not make it home until the morning. We had a very full day planned on Saturday and this would have really messed up the day. God did answer my prayers and at 3 am on Saturday morning he finally crawled into bed with me...very tired to say the least. 
After lunch we went home for naps and when the kids woke up they were dropped off at Grandma & Grandpas. AHHHHHHH! We were in desperate need of a date and what an AWESOME time we had! The past week has been a bit stressful with Kevin being gone and all the study time he has needed for his CLU course. His test is next Monday (the final one of eight...YEAH!), so another difficult week lies ahead and on top of that another business trip to Chicago this time on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday...like I said we were in desperate need of a date.
There are a lot more to come! There was a wedding at the park that day and it was so fun to get a peek. We had dinner downtown at Tuscani's Pizza then went to Jefferson Pointe Mall and saw another wedding party taking pictures in the courtyard. I found a formal dress at Old Navy for $2.99. Lovin' that price! We also used a discount coupon for ice cream at the Cold Stone Creamery. We watched Narnia after that which was free with a gift certificate we had. Loved the movie! There are so many parallels to the Bible and I was really encouraged and inspired after watching it.
I don't think I've ever seen a one-year-old dig into a cake as much as he did. And as you can see our son was helping too.
Notice my sons hand again getting a big scoop of frosting.
It was nice to be at the park for the party...a hot day, but the river helped everyone cool off a bit.
My lovely sister-in-laws...Sarah & Krista (who just found out she is having a BOY at the end of October!).