Too Much Excitement for One Post

There’s only so much excitement one post can hold, so I will only post about one thing, then later (either today or tomorrow) I will post about the other. I’ll start with my exciting news, mainly because it has been overshadowed by Joe’s exciting news and I want to tell everyone about it.

So Tuesday night my good friend Beckster helped me cross an item off of my life list. Becky took me to the White House Christmas party and I got to meet President Bush and the First Lady. When my parents were here last week, my mom and I went shopping for a new dress. We came away with a red one, which perfectly went with Becky’s blue dress, and the Red, White and Blue theme. Both of us really hoped Laura would be in white so that she could balance out the trio, but alas, she was in green. She looked beautiful nonetheless.

Becky picked me up for our date at 6 and we headed straight to the voting booth (more on that tomorrow). After casting our ballots, we headed to the White House. Of course it was pouring rain and freezing, and of course the closest you can park to the White House is across a big park, and of course I was wearing a silk dress, and of course I forgot my umbrella (thank heavens that Beck had an extra one in her trunk) and OF COURSE there was a huge line waiting to get inside! By the time we got in our feet were wet and our toes were numb…but we were in and man did everything look beautiful! I have been in the White House before on the standard visitors tour. During the tour they let you walk through the hallway but have all of the special rooms roped off. They tell you about the furniture and how old it is and that no one is allowed to sit on it (Beck confirmed that even when they are in the rooms for a meeting they bring in special chairs for the press because they are not allowed to sit on any of the furniture). But for the Christmas party, there are no ropes and you can sit on any piece of furniture you would like! I took advantage of that and sat in several very important chairs!

The first thing we did was go get our picture with the Bush’s. It wasn’t very glamorous. We stood in line and when we got to the map room (a room full of maps where they planned strategies for WWII) they took our purses. We continued to wait in line through another room where the Bush’s were. Just before meeting them we were accompanied by a Marine. I think she was mainly checking to see if we were drunk (which we weren’t, of course), then she introduced us as “Becky and Katie.” Now, President Bush doesn’t know me from Adam. Becky, however, is a different story. He knows her and even acts like they are actually friends. In fact, the person in line before us told him that it was Beck’s birthday (Happy Birthday Beck), so the President gave her a special birthday kiss (on the cheek…it was in front of Laura and he’s not that kind of guy). How cool is that? I did get to shake hands with both President Bush and Mrs. Bush and we got our picture taken. It was the best 15 seconds of the night! Hopefully I look ok in the picture, and even if I don’t, I at least get to mark “Meet the President” off my life list.

The rooms were decorated beautifully! I couldn’t help but wonder who has to go through and water all of the trees. I think my favorite was the tree with all of the ornaments from each state. I searched for Wyoming but wasn’t able to find it. I think they probably put it at the top of the tree since it’s such an important state. We did find Virginia, Texas and New Jersey.

The food was wonderful! The beef was great, the salad was great, but I think my favorite was the grits! Leave it to a Texan to have a good southern dish like cheese grits. I promised myself that I would try everything on the table, so I did. The food is set up in two separate rooms, so we ate dinner in one of the rooms, then we had dessert in the other room. Dessert was the BEST, mainly because they had bread pudding which is my absolute favorite! I did bring home a Barney cookie for Ella. I didn’t sample all of the desserts, just about half of them, but I did try the egg nog. Apparently the egg nog is made with some really special rum mixture from way back in the day. It was good…strong, but good. I only had half a glass. I had promised Becky that I wouldn’t stand on a table and dance with a lamp shade on my head, and any more than a half a glass of egg nog and that probably would have happened.

It was such a fun party to attend. I am so thankful to have a great friend like Beck who was willing to take an old, married lady to her office Christmas party. And for the record, I would still be friends with Beck even if she didn’t take me to the White House just because she’s nice, but the White House was definitely a perk. I was the stereotypical tourist all night, at least until my camera ran out of battery. Then I started taking pictures with my cell phone. If you want to hear Beck’s side of the story, you can check it out here.