Good Afternoon and Happy St Valentines Day..hug somebody&#33;&#33;<br /><br />There are varying opinions as to the origin of Valentine&#39;s Day. Most agree that it originated from St. Valentine, a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity. He died on February 14, 269 A.D., Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer&#39;s daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it &quot;From Your Valentine&quot;. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honor St. Valentine. <br /><br />Gradually, February 14 became the date for exchanging love messages and St. Valentine became the patron saint of lovers. <br /><br />In the United States, Miss Esther Howland is given credit for sending the first valentine cards.<br />Commercial valentines were introduced in the 1800&#39;s .<br /><br />So as Paul Harvey used to utter .. &quot;and now you know the rest of the story&quot;..... <br />We purchased our airfare from San Juan and found by flying out of LAX on the 16th instead of the 17th and by coming home on a flight January 1st after 6pm instead of the morning of January 2nd.. we are able to save almost 400 pp just on the flights.. althouygh we still went over what I had in my preliminary budget for flights by 150.00usd pp.. the good thing is i can know we will make it up but we won&#39;t on the hotel because the last night I would have saved now moved to the front of the cruise in a precruise stay..All in all the planning is coming along..<br /><br />Maria as always you and Ken are in our prayers,,,Jenn Enjoy Vegas... and stay away from Ed&#39;s furry friend Don.. you saw what happened to Crazy... <img src="http://www.cruisecrazies.com/community/images/forum/tr-emoticons/tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":tongue:" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" /> But Jackie even with all the headaches .. would you apply for this job again.. I really want to know if the other two straighten up....good luck..Carmen keep on sailing.....you lucky lady you...<br /><br />