Valentine's Day

This is way overdue, but I wanted to give Beorn full credit for this one...

HE TOOK ME DANCING FOR VALENTINE'S DAY!

This was such a momentous occasion I had to document it with a photo:

You see... dancing is one of my most favorite things to do.  I started ballroom dancing when I was in High School.  My mom took it up after my parents' divorce and so of course, my dad had to take it up, too.  And I became his partner and took classes with him.  (For those who care... I was dancing silver in most dances, beginning gold in others).  I started teaching my guy friends and then they started taking classes and soon I had a whole big group to dance with.  We would ballroom at the stake dances and have group dates to the MAC.  I still smile to think of doing the polka with Jeremiah down the halls of the church and figuring out some AMAZING steps with Craig.  Ballroom dancing was just plain old FUN and it made me feel beautiful and graceful.  (And face it - there's no better feeling than cha-cha-ing so well you make it impossible for your partner to concentrate and he messes up.)  My friends really loved ballroom as well, several of them went on to dance on BYU teams.  Me, however, I went to USU where the ballroom dance "team" barely had school "club" status and there were no ballroom "classes".  So, since I couldn't afford the two grand to be on the "team"... I didn't dance.  No, really.  I didn't dance AT ALL.  You see, not only was I the dateless wonder (a story for another time), but whenever the guys who knew how to dance learned I could ballroom - they completely ignored me.  Wouldn't even ask me to dance.  They wanted the girls who didn't dance and would be impressed with their skills.  But the guys who DIDN'T know how... now, they loved me.  They wanted me to teach them how to ballroom.  I even gave "lessons" to a guy in my ward, so he could impress the girl he liked.  (He was pretty good, in the end - and my most favorite college dancing memory is dancing with him at a singles dance - doing one of our "routines".  Wow.  We looked good.)

Fast forward a few more dance-less years and Beorn enters the scene.  He didn't know how to ballroom, so as newlyweds we signed up for a Community Ed class.  We only went twice.  It made Beorn too nervous.  Dancing does not come naturally to him and being there with me and knowing how important it is to me... well, it only took a few minutes for him to be all tied up in knots and the whole thing to devolve into an argument.  Our first fight.  (And just for the record - I was ecstatic just to be dancing with him.  I didn't care that he was just learning.)  

Since dancing leaves Beorn very frustrated and upset or brings on a panic attack, we've only been a handful of times in our 14 years of marriage.  So... Beorn wanting to take me to a friend's impromptu Valentine's Blues dance... this was a big deal.  He managed the rhythm, survived the crowd, endured the heat, fought the anxiety and didn't have a heart attack when someone else asked me to dance. 

And yes.  Despite being blues (instead of ballroom) it was fun. 

Yay for dancing!