Cold. Tiring. Crowded. Long. Early. Worth It.

- It lingered around 28 degrees all day long. Life lesson: Little hand warmers make a HUGE difference especially when you ignore the little warning and put them against your bare skin.

- Being on your feet for about 12 hours straight can actually decrease your ability to walk. Life Lesson: While Uggs are warm and snugly, if you expect to have any feeling in your feet at the end of the day, wear sneakers.

- Crammed behind a security gate with about 2,000 other crazy citizens who share your dream of seeing the president for about 10 seconds. Life Lesson: The coolest people that you will ever meet, you'll meet on a D.C. subway.

- There's really nothing like waking up at 12:45am and not crashing until 9:00pm after standing in the freezing cold for 12 hours. Life Lesson: You only live once and will have plenty of time to sleep when you die.

- Can't wait to tell my grand kids that I was at the inauguration of our nation's first African-American President, and saw Barack Obama walk down Constitution Ave. This is definitely one for the scrap books. Life Lesson: I'll be thawed out by 1/20/12, so why not go again?