CHAPTER 3 - SIXTEEN SIXTEEN

I survived Spring Break and was excited to see Thomas at school again. Even though the trimester and our seminary class had ended, he would still walk me to some of my classes throughout the day. One of those classes was Biology with Mr. Keele, since his Human A & P class was across the hallway. At the time it seemed like such an innocent thing, but a couple years later I found out that Thomas had Mr. Keele later in the day for AP Biology and I was somehow the talk of the class. I still don't really know what they talked about, but I finally understood why Thomas would get funny looks from Mr. Keele when he would drop me off. (If you were in that class with Thomas, I'd love to hear what you remember about it/me...)

Like most fifteen year old, LDS girls, I had been waiting for April to come for months. I was excited to finally be of legal dating age and to learn more about myself through dating. A few weeks before the big day, my dad asked me to reserve that Satuday afternoon because he wanted to be my very first date.

On the way home from our awesome daddy-daughter date, my dad said he had to stop by Elyssa's house to get a church manual from her dad since he was substituting for his class on Sunday. I figured I would go in and say hi. Her dad said Elyssa was downstairs and since that house was practically my second home, I headed down there. When I reached the bottom all the lights flashed on and a huge eruption of "surprise" literally knocked me off my feet. I fell backwards on to the stairs and was so surprised that I just sat there, nearly in tears. I don't think my brain registered what was going on for the next little while. We ate cake and ice cream, opened presents, (Thomas gave me the movie Sweet Home Alabama...how sweet) and visited with everyone there...but the whole thing seemed like a blur. haha.

After the party we all went to a movie...and Thomas and I enjoyed holding hands, again. I was pretty exhausted by the time he dropped me off, so I gave him a quick hug good-bye and went inside. For some odd reason, my two year old brother Riley was still awake. As I was sitting at the table talking to my mom about my day, he kept coming up to me and mumbling something or other. Finally my mom said, "He wants you to go downstairs." I didn't understand why, but I let him lead me to my room by my finger anyway. When I opened the door he ran inside and squealed with joy! It's no wonder since my entire room was covered in balloons that nearly engulfed him as he ran around.

I stood there, again, stunned at the surprise. I noticed a big poster on my bed with some flowers and shuffled to them:

I turned the poster over, and again...another surprise:

I was going to Prom with Thomas Park!!

The coolest kid I knew!

My sisters had climbed out of their beds to join us in the balloon-filled party room, who could blame them...it was my birthday-eve after all.