By Breanna Romeo

Today was an amazingly crazy day. One word to describe it would be incredible. I have never been so excited in my entire life.

The beginning of the day wasn't much fun. We had to wake up early to leave the hotel at 6:30 a.m. to go security, but when we got there we had to wait for the rest of our regiment to get in the same area, and for the regiment before us to finish.

Hurry up and wait

The motto of the day was: "Hurry up and wait," which was...for the entire time ‘til we were actually on the parade rout. We waited until 10:30 a.m. to go through security. Most people slept and some of the band played games.

After security we headed to the warm up area with the rest of the regiment. There were thousands of people around the buses as we tried to reach our location. It was insane; I've never seen that many people in my life. It was so surreal.

There were people everywhere

When we reached our destination we were told we had a 15 minute wait and then we would start. At that point, "hurry up and wait" came into effect. We started, and then all of a sudden we stopped for 2 hours, in the cold and wind.

Now you'd expect us Alaskan's to brave the weather and it would have no effect on us, but the cold isn't the same here – it’s a humid cold. It’s incredibly cold, the worst ever.

Huddle up

We had to wait around for 2 hours before we actually started the parade and later found out the delay was due to Sen. Kennedy’s health problems.

Then the parade went on and it was by far the greatest thing I have ever done. I could not have experienced any of this without the other people in the band. The way we work together and our attitudes towards each other are great. It really helps with big experiences like this.

When we passed President Barack Obama, I’m pretty sure everyone’s faces lit up - it was like this wasn't even happening. WE MARCHED RIGHT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! How many people get to say that? Slim to none. He was so close to our group, like a road’s width away and 10 feet up in a box, with his family and the Vice President. When we finished, all I could say was "he was so close to us, that was amazing!"

This was a once in a life time opportunity and I couldn't ask for any other way to close my senior year of marching band. This was one of the best moments in my life and will remember it forever.