A Personal History- Valentines Day 4

And now the end of the saga. My most recent Valentines Day.

My current situation: living in a house with 4 amazing roommates. I have wonderful friends all around from various circles of my life (freshman/sophomore roommates, EFY, Jerusalem, high school, etc.) and of course I am still single {and enjoying it}

Highlights from February 14, 2012:

This was probably my busiest Valentines Day by far. It started with school and homework which was definitely not a high light but I digress. My real Valentines Day started with a Respite Night at Clear Horizons Academy. CHA is a special school for kids with autism- most of these kids are not high functioning and many have difficulties communicating. Respite Night was a chance for the parents of the students at the school to drop off all of their children (whether they're on the Autism spectrum or not) and just have a night off- a rare treat for parents of children with Autism. There were probably 50 volunteers and about as many kids that showed up. My special valentine was a boy named Fawkes {yes, like Guy Fawkes}. I help my friend Ryan watch him on Mondays while his mom is teacher her class. {Ryan says he looks like an Ewok... not sure if I entirely agree but I actually just looked up what an Ewok looked like because I didn't know what they looked like...**} So Fawkes and I were kind of buds before respite night but like any relationship we had our rough patches. For the most part though Fawkes and I had a great time playing with puzzles and flash cards- well Fawkes played and I watched and assisted when called upon by my little darlin. At the end of the night we were both just as happy as could be which is what I call a successful evening.

After respite night I dashed over to my grandparent's house to eat a delicious late dinner {my second dinner of the night} of enchiladas and other delicious Mexican foods. The special thing about that- and the reason why it was so late- was because my uncle John came into town.

Needless to say it was a fabulous Valentines Day. I got to play with kids all night and do a bit of service while doing it and I got to eat dinner with people who love me {even if it's just because they're biologically obligated to}. So not your typical Valentines Day but most definitely one to remember. New Valentines tradition? I think so.

**yes that was probably something I should have kept to myself- hide face in somewhat shame

A Personal History- Valentines Day 3

Sorry I'm a bit behind on this little series but here is the story of my 3rd real valentines day.

Sophomore year of college, living in King Henry {it was just a phase}. The weekend before Valentines day my roommate Taalin and I just spent the morning/early afternoon together. We went to Target and found this wonderful little place called Pizza Pie Cafe Express. It's basically Pizza Pie Cafe but to go and super cheap. We got 5 dollar pizza and a cheese bread and cinnamon bread and had a little picnic on our living room floor. It was so delicious and cheap, yum. I ended up getting a valentines day package from my mom that day which included lots and lots of candy and a letter from Dan. Best mail day ever.

The Elders Quorum even decided to buy all the girls in the ward flowers

{still the best idea I think I have ever heard- everyone should get flowers on Valentines Day}

The Monday of Valentines Day our ward had been invited to a dance. I ended up going with my roommate and some guy friends from my ward. The dance was actually really fun until they started playing this dating game activity. It was like mystery date where you'd have one boy and three girls and questions and all that jazz. It was painfully long and awkward and the speakers weren't working and we were all ready to dance again. {No need to have another reminder of how single we were and how desperate our bishops were to marry us off} They ended up doing 4 rounds (2 boys and 2 girls) and on the last one they were calling up thelast three girls and I hear "Katie Robison" faintly over the speaker. I about died. Out of the hundreds of girls names in that bowl of course my name was chosen. I walked up to the stage {none too thrilled might I add} and took my proper place as "contestant #3" {or #1, no one really knew} Because the speakers hadn't been working properly the entire time it was impossible for anyone to hear including the people on the stage. So after answering questions like "what is your best Halloween costume?" and "what's your best pick up line?" and no one being able to understand it was basically put up to a vote from the audience. AKA dudes, tell me which girl is hottest. So awkward {the feminist inside me was slightly raging at this point} In the end the lucky man on the other side of the curtain declared he had rightfully picked for what I'm sure his bishop had hoped to be his eternal companion: "contestant #3". Yes ladies and gentlemen, I was the prize date {I should put that on my resume... 'prize date for 28 year old single Belmont dude'} Our joint prize? a 25 dollar gift card to Red Robin. After awkwardly meeting for the first time on stage in front of our peers we went off to the side to exchange numbers so that he could call me and we could potentially fall in love and graduate from our respective singles wards.

Epilogue:

How did the date go you ask? Well turns out homeboy belmont {no I don't remember his name- should give you a clue as to how it went} didn't end up calling me until the first week of March {a month later if you were wondering}. We went out on a fabulous Thursday night date to an almost empty Red Robin. We ate burgers and talked {though he actually was never facing me during the date... awkward}. We successfully spent the $25 on burgers and a sundae for two {well it was more like for 10 but you know}. He dropped me back off at my apartment and we went our separate ways never to hear from each other again.

Mystery Letter

So today we as a house received a mystery letter. When this happens we usually let it sit on our counter with the rest of the mail and just wait for it to get up and walk to it's intended owner instead of us actually doing something about it. But we noticed today that this letter was a little different. It was in this super cool envelope {do you say Eh-nvelope or Ah-nvelope?} and was from the Domincan Republic so we assumed it was from a missionary. Two of us having a current or former missionary felt for the intended recipient of this letter- what a tragedy to not receive a letter from a dear friend from abroad. Well upon further investigation {seriously it took us until 9:00 to realize this- the mail gets here at noon} we realized that it was from 1993 ummm... that was almost 20 years ago! I don't even have memories from that year! So in my immediate curiosity {well actually my friends immediate curiosity} I/we facebook stalked the recipient of the letter and it turned out that a good family friend of mine was a mutual friend {gotta love modern technology}. So of course I messaged this mutual friend and told her the story and asked if she could contact this woman and find out if this letter was actually intended for her.

I'm not really sure what I expected. I thought that at best in a week I'd find out that this woman was in fact the recipient and then I'd mail it to her and then nothing else... Or something along those lines. Well I actually heard back from the mutual friend tonight! Turns out she was a roommate of the recipient and just called her and she did live in the same house that I'm living in now! The woman that sent her the letter was a woman she taught on her mission and got baptized. She lives close to Provo now and I got her number and will be able to get her the letter soon.

Seriously, what are the chances that a letter gets lost for 20 years and once it is finally sent there is someone in the house {that has probably had over a hundred residents since 1993} there is someone that has a connection to the intended recipient. I'm telling you I have a good feeling about this letter-it's important and has it's own purposes of this delay. I can't wait to figure out what it is/if it does.

To be continued...

Welcome to....

Phoenix!

So our flight plans had us going from Phoenix to Philadelphia to Tel Aviv but we landed in Phoenix and ran to our gate to find that our flight was delayed an hour. Hoping that we would still be able to catch our flight to Tel Aviv we were all pretty chill and waited for about an hour at which time they told us the flight was canceled and there were no open flights until Friday or Saturday. Long story short- we are now being put up in a hotel until we can leave. The plan now is that we (all 50ish of us) will leave next Tuesday but faculty/travel agents/US Air people are currently trying to find a way to get us there in smaller groups if necessary so we can get there ASAP.

I know this sounds like a tragedy but in all honesty other than a few moments of panic today has really been full of miracles. We have all been relatively calm, we're all bonding together, and people really are going out of their way to help us get what we need. Everyone has their luggage, everyone has a bed to sleep in, we're getting 2 free meals a day, I could go on. Basically what I'm saying is that there are definitely blessings coming to us here in Phoenix and we all greatly appreciate the prayers from family and friends.

lots of love from Phoenix!

sorry mom but this was actually the best picture of us this morning and it showed feelings adequately
ps. just so everyone knows my mom is my best friend
and the best mom in the world, so there.