My Name is Page

Last Tuesday, December 2,  Marcus and I had the opportunity to be an honorary page for a day with the representative from our district, Dan Brady, at our State Capitol in Springfield! Dad bought the package at the 2013 Fairview Haven Benefit Auction, and I will admit, I wasn't very happy with him:). I wasn't that excited about it, and it was definitely completely out of my comfort zone, but it ended up being really neat!! And in hindsight I can see that it was a great opportunity for Marcus and me! I guess it was a good  thing that Dad pushed us like that (if I must say so myself) :). 

The House was to begin session at noon, so we got to the capitol a little after eleven to meet Representative Brady and his assistant. Then we got our picture taken, got our badges and certificates and so on. We went into the House, received our instructions for the day, and waited for the session to begin. Dad sat in the gallery above the House and enjoyed all the debating :). Marcus and I sat on the bench near the Speaker of the House.

The whole day was completely not what I was expecting. For one thing, when the House is in session, it is definitely not strict conduct. People mingle all over the room, chat on their phones, work on their computers, have a nice long visit with another representative, and even bring their baby with them! It made it hard to pay attention to everything that was going on, but it also made us feel more comfortable :). Our first job was to distribute papers to each of the Representatives.

Next to our bench was a little map with each of the Representatives seats on it (actually we were just watching the Republican side). When a Representative needed something, they would push the 'page' button on their desk, their seat would light up on our map, and we would go see what they needed!

We made six runs to he cafeteria during the session. Most of the time it was for drinks but we also got lunch for two Representatives. One of the paid pages always went with us, as the cafeteria was a really long way from the House, but I think by the end of the day we could have done it ourselves.... maybe :)

In between our runs, we would listen to all the debating on whether or not to pass a certain bill. It was really neat to see how it all works!

the three of us with Representative Dan Brady

The session ended a little after 4:00 which gave us just enough time for a nice supper before music lessons in Bloomington. We got home late, tired and coughing, but it was worth it :). As for an update on our health, I think we had a couple of our worst days AFTER I wrote the blog post!! Marcus came down with a fever (again) and crawled back into bed (again). Lily and Kenan coughed in a coughing duet all weekend. Jared and I were the only ones well enough for church on Sunday. Oh, and Lily had some sort of stomach bug, which resulted in a lovely up-chuck episode at her violin rehearsal on Saturday, making a nice grand finale to this whole thing (we hope). We do actually appear to be slowly on the mend as of now but it is so capable of changing. Let's hope not! - Faith

PS Something we just found out yesterday: We brought home Dan Brady's business card with us last Tuesday so that we could email him and he could send us the pictures from the day. I drafted an email, and apparently started it with a rather informal greeting, so Mom, being who she is, changed it to something more proper, and sent it off. "Dear Mr. Rutherford" were here exact words. Mr. Rutherford is our State treasurer and his first name is Dan, but Dan Brady is the one we went and spent the day with!!! So here is looks like we can't even remember his name - how embarrassing!! Of all things. Thanks, Mom! :)

and here is the promised video: