Invited to The White House Tweetup? What?!? Me?

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Image by: Seansie

(Written by Brad)

A few days ago Jen and I were working together in our office while the boys took their daily nap.  I noticed on the Twitter feed that The White House was holding a Tweetup as a follow-up to President Obama’s jobs proposal speech tonight at 8pm.  They asked anyone who was interested in coming to the Tweetup to apply at a supplied link.

I asked Jen if she would want to apply.  We both kind of laughed about it, but decided to apply anyway with absolutely no hope they would pick her.  Last night at 8:50pm I checked our email and noticed a message with the following subject line: “Please join us for the Tweetup Briefing at the White House”.  What?  No, surely not!

I opened the email and it read as follows:

Congratulations! You’ve been selected to attend the White House Tweetup.

Please join us at the White House for the

Tweetup Briefing with Press Secretary Jay Carney

Friday, September 9th, 2011

The White House

We’re excited to have you for our Tweetup Briefing with Press Secretary Jay Carney (@PressSec) at the White House on Friday, September 9th. The briefing is a chance to ask your questions, as a follow up to President Obama’s speech on creating jobs and growing the economy to a join session of Congress. You can tune-in to the speech tomorrow, Thursday, September 8th, at 7:00 p.m. EDT on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

In addition to participating in the Tweetup Briefing, you’ll also have the opportunity to take a tour of the White House, as well as meet with the White House Director of Digital Strategy Macon Phillips (@Macon44) and US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra (@aneeshchopra).

We hope you’ll Tweet about the #WHTweetup, bring your questions and questions from your followers.

I was really excited for Jen that she had been selected for this event.  What an opportunity, right?  However, I was immediately struck by the problem that we live in Indiana, have limited funds, have 4 preschoolers, and less than 24 hours to make plans.  When I told Jen about it, she was blown away, but immediately said she didn’t think there was any way we could pull it off.

I was not about to pass on an invitation to The White House without a fight.  I jumped on the phone and in an hour or so, had tentative arrangements made with family and friends for babysitting.  (Thank You!)  However, in my next step of looking at the cost of flights, my bubble was burst by the sheer cost of booking DC tickets at the last moment.  I just could not justify such an expense, no matter how exciting the opportunity.

Just as I was coming to this conclusion, and praying that God would give me the wisdom to back away from spending this money on airline tickets if necessary, Jen got a message from a friend on Facebook who lives near DC.  She graciously offered to help with our airline ticket cost by donating some of her airline points.  Suddenly, it was all becoming a reality, we booked tickets in the wee hours of this morning, and we fly out this afternoon!

The obvious question is, why did they choose Jen for this event?  Honestly, we don’t know.  We assume they were just choosing a diverse group of people involved in social media.  We are a conservative family, so our ideas for job growth will most likely differ from those presented by President Obama tonight, but we are just honored for Jen to have the opportunity to ask direct questions of the administration tomorrow. 

Do you have questions or concerns that you would like to directly ask The Obama Administration about their job package?  Jen has not only been invited to ask her own questions, but she is supposed to ask questions posed by you as well!  Follow Jen on Twitter and tweet your question.  Be sure to include @quatromama in your tweet or she won’t see it, and also include the hashtag #WHTweetup .  If you are not on Twitter, feel free to leave a comment on this post asking your question, and we will select some to ask.  Jen will be live tweeting during the event with questions and answers which is scheduled to be over at 6pm Friday, September 9th. 

Please keep in mind that all questions that are asked in a disrespectful manner will be deleted or disregarded.  We respect the office of the President greatly, no matter what political affiliation they follow.

Brad