Friday, August 17, 2012

A HUGE "Thank-you!"

In April of 2007, I remember driving up to church in the early morning, the Wednesday of Spring Break, to drop my sister off.  The youth group was heading down to Nagshead for a long weekend retreat and I was JEAL-OUS!!!  I had already committed going to something else, so I wasn't going on this trip (which was rare, because I used to go on just about EVERY youth trip!!).  However, later that day, Mom, Dad and I were driving down to William and Mary to tour the college.  This was the first college tour I was going on, so yes, I was excited, but I was still really bummed about not going to Nagshead.  I did take Mom's laptop with me so I could watch Cars on the way there (and back).  [Sidenote: I had just gotten the Cars DVD for Easter the previous weekend, and I watched that movie every single day of spring break. haha!]

Touring William and Mary was great, I remember having a fantastic tour guide, but fast forward to today and you'll Obviously find out that William and Mary wasn't the school for me and I went on to become a tour guide at the best school in Virginia: Longwood, of course!

So the Friday of Spring Break came around, and what was I doing? Meeting at SCHOOL with some of the coolest people ever to go to Key Club Convention!! I had been the year before so I was totally stoked to go again!  It was awesome being in a great organization with some of your best friends and being able to do so much with them! :)  All of the Key Clubs from Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and Delaware (oh pleeeease don't tell me I forgot someone, haha) were there, so we made it our mission to meet as many people as we could over the weekend!

That first night of Convention, there is a casual dance/mixer for ALLLLLL of the Key Clubbers to go to, before a full Saturday of sitting through various sessions!  I remember sitting in one session next to my good friend, Allison, and some other Key Club member, who I really only knew of, but I didn't know much about them.  But that's what I loved about Convention, and Key Club in itself--you can go there not knowing many people, even from your own school, and quickly become a family over the weekend.  Anyway, even though I didn't really know that person, they shared their M&Ms with me! haha

Saturday evening is a formal banquet where we were served a nice plated dinner and awards were presented to various Key Clubs for different contests we could enter.  I'm pretty sure Varina always did pretty darn good in the scrapbooking category ;) I remember long afternoons sitting in Ms. Dick's room working on those pages to make them PERFECT!  After this banquet, there was a formal dance for everyone! I remember dancing in a group with Allison and two other friends that went, Ashley and Chelsea, but I kept wondering where that guy was--the one who Allison and I sat with in an earlier session.  For the rest of the night, I kept scanning the room, but I never did see him.

But, oh well, because four years and four months later, that guy finally asked me to marry him.  And exactly one year later, I'm sitting here writing this, loving the fact that I committed going to Key Club Convention before I knew about the youth retreat.  Becuase I most likely would not be 295 days away from marrying the guy who I didn't really know yet, but he was kind enough to share his M&Ms with me (I should've known then!).

And I'm glad I've gotten to spend the past 5+ years with him, because I've been able to find out different things and interesting facts about him, like where he was that night during the formal dance... :)

P.S. Thank you to whoever finally convinced me to join Key Club!

No comments: