OBAMA!! OBAMA!! OBAMA!!

Good Morning America!!!! We were up at 6 am and flipped on the news. It seemed that many of our closest friends had already jammed the metro and were already at the Mall. We ate a quick breakfast, put on our layers, and stuffed our pockets with our cameras, handwarmers, and protein bars. We set off on our trip. Erica estimated it to be about 2 miles to the Lincoln Memorial and then about another 1 3/4 to where we ended up standing.

This was the view from VA near Arlington Cemetary before we crossed the icy Potomic. It was about 22 degrees when we left.

People were already getting comfortable. We did take this opportunity to stop at the almost unused port a johns. Not too bad yet. We decided to go in for a closer seat.

The beautiful reflecting pool. We stood in the approximate area that Bono and U2 (who aren't even American--can someone explain that to me??) performed.

Another sunrise shot. Those little blue dots are the jumbo trons that were everywhere.

Here we are around the Washington Monument. Right about when my mom and dad called. The people still weren't too bad and we were thinking we would try to get to 7th street, approximately a half mile from the Capitol building.

Then we met up with all our friends. This is as far as we went into the crowd. We thought we would be smart and stay near an exit (12th street), but they ended up closing that exit and when we left, we had to go down to 18th street. Anyway, more on that later. I put my camera up in the air to see what we could see, which was a lot of people.

All our friends in front of us. We were positioned near 12th street (about a mile from the Capitol Building. Where we were standing, we couldn't even see the building, but we could see a jumbotron and hear everything. We arrived at our spot about 8:10 and then stood there watching TV. We basically watched the CNN coverage that you all saw, except we were outside.

Check out our blinged out hats. Probably the best thing I bought all weekend. Not particularly warm though.

Here's Joe Biden taking the oath.

And the reason we all came. I have to say, I was expecting a lot more tears and a lot more chanting, but what we experienced was more like church. There was silence as people watched and listened. There was alot of shouting out AMEN during the closing prayer. This was the calmest mob that I have ever been in. Getting out was a pretty big nightmare because of the very limited access points. We were like cattle in the shoot. It was well past the Washington Monument before things got spaced out. Otherwise, we were fearful of someone tripping and getting trampled. I have to say that the security was tight but the people were all very respectful. Obama's speech was very inspirational and stirring. I truly believe that if the nation can continue to have hope and believe in this change things will happen because me and 1.8 million of my friends are all inspired to make our nation a better place. Today, I felt what it means to be American and proud to be with my fellow Americans on the Nation's Front yard. I'm glad I went.

It took us 1:25 to get down there and 2:45 to get back. I wore a pedometer and we took approximately 19500 steps.