Hope (squish) of America

We spent last night at an event called "Hope of America". Hootis' school class participated and she is found in the giant student filled flag, in the middle of the first red stripe, right under the blue section. While the show was nicely done, I have to admit, it was too long and most of our group didn't appreciate it. All the boys had a look on their faces that said, "I would rather be sitting on hot coals right now having my eyeballs gouged out and my fingernails pulled out one by one." When I say "all the boys" I mean the Dad too. He is already coming up with a list of bribes for the boys so we never have to attend again.

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Their misery (and mine to a degree) was compounded by the fact that Hootis had to be dropped off at 6pm, but the show didn't start until 7:35. So we sat in the teensy/hard/no leg room chairs for 1 1/2 hours before the show even started. Once the show began, the students sang all kinds of patriotic songs and various dance groups danced for another 1 1/4 hours. It was all fine but some of us were grumpy and squished. Who ever designed the Marriot center must have been 5' tall, those chairs are enough to send any tall person straight to the funny farm.

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Once the show ended we had to sit in the parking lot for a really long time just trying to escape campus with all the other families of the 7000 participating students. It was a long night. We did try and sooth our wounds by stopping at Stan's Drive In for shakes and fries. It helped. We didn't get home until 10:30 and the kids will probably be tired and grumpy today.

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Proto had the quote of the night, "If we ever come to this again, I'm NOT coming!"

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Despite our discontent, Hootis enjoyed it and I was able to pick her out in the sea of red. It was fun to watch her doing her thing. She learned some neat patriotic songs complete with hand movements. In a family, you do these things even if it only makes 1 person out of 7 happy.

It's just what we do.

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