13 Years part 2

Everyone,

Since Butterfly is enamored with Ariel right now, I thought I'd take a few moments and type up the conclusion to the first date story. You can read the first installment here (or just look at the picture again).


Our date began early at around 1pm that Saturday afternoon. When Juice told me, I had visions of having to haul my dress around in plastic in the car all day and changing at his house. And what would I do with my hair?! Juice must have seen the expression on my face and quickly explained what we would be doing. Since the first weekend in October is our church's big semi-annual conference, we were going to plan our date around that. The second session starts at 2pm. He was coming to get me before that, and we would have a picnic and listen to the session before heading off to the dance at the school.


1pm came, and I was ready. He came to pick me up in his dad's tiny white car, and drove me over to his best friend's house to pick him up. And then Max's date. (Alisha was her name I think.) We went back over to Max's house and listened to the session while eating BLTs. Now, I hate tomatoes. So I picked mine off and just had a bacon and lettuce sandwich. Yummy! Max was horrified that I didn't like tomatoes and then promptly ate mine. Juice confided in me that he wasn't a fan of them either but liked them on sandwiches and in things. More conversation about ketchup, spaghetti sauce, etc. followed. In between listening, of course.


After the session was over, they ran us girls home so we could get ready for the dance and the guys went to the men only session that evening. I had plenty of time to get ready. When Juice showed up (looking very handsome and tall in his suit), he met my dad at the door. I was coming down the stairs and Juice looked up and saw me and said, "Wow." He also took a step back and we all laughed.


Now, this is how I remember it. Juice says that he was sitting on the couch and stood up to meet me and sat back down because he was surprised at how good I looked. (And I did look nice!) My parents side with me so that is how the story is going to be written out.


Flowers were exchanged (with a lot of hand shaking on my part. I was nervous!) and he walked me back out to his dad's tiny white car. Max was in the back. Juice put his hand on my back and whispered that I looked really good as I got in the car. I'm sure my smile went from big to huge at that point.


We drove about 20 minutes back to Juice's neighborhood and picked up Alisha. She was also wearing blue. We all looked very nice together. Once Alisha was in the car, Max was very quiet and nervous. I think he liked her.


Back at Juice's house, the guys escorted us out to a table that they had set up in the field behind Juice's house. (Juice's parents own the field...think of it as an extension of their back yard but with grape vines and various fruit trees in it. Oh, and a duck pond.) Apparently the table had been decorated before they left but it was slightly windy and it had blown all the decorations all over the field. They managed to find the lantern and the table cloth. They spread the cloth (refusing any help from us), lit the lantern and left us to go get dinner. Alisha and I chatted about dresses and the boys for about 3 minutes. I knew her from band at school, but we had never really talked.

The lantern blew out. Suddenly, we were plunged into darkness. We gasped, "Oh no!" and started to laugh because we said it the same time, the same way. The guys were coming out with the food at that point and heard us. They rushed over, tried to light the lantern and couldn't. Then the table cloth tried to blow away and take the food with it. I was quick and grabbed Juice's plate (and mine too) and watched the table cloth envelope Juice and the lantern. Hehe...he struggled, balled up the table cloth and said, "Let's go inside." Yes please! It wasn't cold, but it was too windy.

Inside, Juice's new brother in law (who had just spent 2 years in Italy on his mission) was cooking pasta for us. It was delicious! I think his sister and bil joined us at the end, and we had a great time eating and talking and laughing. Then, we decided that it was probably time to go to the dance.

The dance was at the high school, only minutes away from Juice's house. We walked into the main hall, showed our ticket (I believe it was black with silver stars all over...I think I still have it) and went into the gym. We had our pictures taken, and then started to dance. I still remember the song we danced to, since Juice complained the whole time that it kept changing beats. (You can listen to it here.) We were so late to the dance, that we only danced 6 or 7 songs and then it was over. It was probably the shortest dance I ever went to in high school and I had one of the best times with it.

We dropped of me first (I think) and Juice gave me a hug on my doorstep. That was it. Who knew that this first date would lead to other things...such as being married, having a 2 year old and twins on the way. Juice really is a very thoughtful person when he puts his mind to it. And he was very thoughtful this date. It's probably one of the main reasons that I really liked him in high school. And still like him now. :)

Safire