throwback, 'first date' edition

As far as I know, this was the first picture ever taken of Matt and I together. It was January of 2006. We had been coworkers for about 5 months, and it was safe to say there was some mutual crushing going on. On this day, we'd been at a work-related conference and decided to spend the lunch break at a local playground with our mutual friend Catherine.

We didn't officially begin dating for another month, but I remember how nervous and excited and happy I was to be spending time with Matt (with the safety net of Catherine, of course!), to ride in his disgustingly nasty Honda, to see how gleefully he played on a kids' playground. 

And God bless Catherine for spending the afternoon with two crushing goobers.

 I thought Matt was so cute. Ohmygosh. And despite his obvious hunk status (I mean, at any given time, he was dating one girl and had 14 girls not-so-secretly lusting after him from afar), he would go to a playground and goof off on the monkey bars? Swoon.

The great thing is, eight years later- he isn't so different. He dresses a lot better (gee, I wonder who we can thank for that?). He drives a significantly less smelly car. He gets most of his exercise done in a gym and not on a park playground. 

He still spends many afternoons hanging around (upside down or otherwise) with me and Catherine.

I still think he's the cutest guy ever, and I still can't believe he picked me.

For no particular reason except that I came across the pictures and they made me smile-- happy Thursday, Mattie. I think going to the playground for our lunch break that day could have been one of the most important trivial decisions we ever made.

And this picture was taken about a month later. This is a face he's probably much more accustomed to seeing from me. ;)

I may be Not Amused, but I couldn't love him any more.