FLORIDA PRIMARY, A ROMNEY RALLY

Dear Family.

Well down in Tampa Florida with John and Kaley.  They had the RepubIican primary election while we were here.

The TV adds were brutal and non stop.  It got quite tiresome every minute you turned on the tube.

But while we were down here, Bryan up in Michigan. got a call from Kevin R. in Naples.  Kevin is a long time friend of Doug and Bry.  He invited him to come down and join the extended family at the potential winning rally.  So Bry flew down and came to John and Kaley and we had a mini reunion. We went to a great restaurant aunt and had some great gulf food.

On Tuesday, we went to Busch Gardens with the boys and had a ball.  Bryan and Kaley rode the "Cheetah" while we watched the kids.  They took Grant on the water ride and we just had a ball. We went back home.  John of course is working like a dog at his law firm so he could not come down with us.  We drove to the Convention Center and there were a ton of media, TV crews and supporter of all the candidates.  There was this long line of people waiting to get into the Romney room but ou had to be pre-registered and they were checking photo IDs.  Then we saw Kevin R. and Christine R., Bruce and Jane's daughter.  They put special tags on us and we bypassed the 800 waiting to get in.  We also saw Ronna R. and it has been hears since we last met her.  So we had a good time chatting about old times.

We went into this special room where they served hot dogs and big donors from Florida were there along with Miss Florida.  There were these huge TV screens which began to broadcast the primary results as they were tabulated with a chorus of cheers.

We were then ushered into this other great room where all the supporters had been seated but we got quite up front.  I saw Scott R. (our old Bishop) and his kids and waved. Mitt was announced victor and they brought in his family.  They all did a great job and I thought the victory speech was appropriate.

Here is a shot Bryan took.  Mom said hello to Ann R. The  secret service people came past us and ushered Mitt and his family out.  I hope the Republican party can come together finally behind this candidate although the process is not not over yet.

It was a surreal experience.  There were people there from Florida, Michigan and Salt Lake.  Some big car dealer from Salt Lake comes up to me and says, "I see you a lot on TV!"  "You never see me on TV"....then I thought maybe the Joseph Smith Papers interview that is shown pretty often... it was a surreal experience.  Well just down here enjoying the action of the moment. We would not have come if Bryan had not come down and invited us in.

All the Best, Mom and Dad