my first Valentine's Day with Jon.

So I'm really sad because when I got the idea to post about my first Valentine's Day with Jon, I was super excited, but then when I was trying to find pictures of our first Valentine's Day, I found ZERO! At first I blamed it on the fact that my external hard drive crashed, and I lost EVERYTHING, but then I looked on Facebook and found none, so we probably took none. Sad.

These are the closest pictures I could find for that date. They were taken in January 2011 before the International Student Dinner at Tech. I like making Jon take "prom" pics with me since we'll never get to go to prom together. 

Disclaimer: Prepare yourself for a lot of cheesy-ness. Anyway, Jon and my first Valentine's Day was the absolute sweetest. He planned everything, and that V-Day date is probably in my top 5 favorite dates with Jon. Keep in mind that we had only been dating for two months at this point, so there was still a tad bit of awkwardness happening (mostly from me) even though we had been friends for two years already.
All I knew about the date was that Jon had enlisted the help of my roommate, Mandy, for some of it. She was still doing secret stuff in her room upstairs when Jon and I left. When Jon and I were in the car, he said something about how we had to stop by the greenhouse to do something before we went to dinner. I think he expected me to get mad, but Jon is not a very good liar, so I suspected that there was something waiting for me at the greenhouse, and I didn't prove myself wrong. (Side note: Jon worked at the greenhouse on campus at this point, and there are a lot parts to it, but one part is just absolutely gorgeous, and that's where he took me to). 
When we walked into the room, there was a make-shift picnic set-up. It was a small table with a table cloth, set for two, and in the middle of the table was one of those trays with lids on it where the food hides. When he lifted the cover, it was a bunch of McDonald's food. Most people would be disgusted or disappointed, but we were living on a college budget, and McDonald's was pretty much my favorite. 
We ate dinner and talked and bonded and laughed and liked each other (we hadn't said "love" yet), and then he put on a song and when danced. Okay, major cheese, I know, but it was really sweet. We walked around the greenhouse for a little bit, and then we went back to my apartment. When I walked into the door, I saw there was a dry erase board on my door and it had Taylor Swift lyrics on it. I was excited for two reasons:
(1) There was a dry erase board on my door! I was the only roommate in my apartment that didn't have a dry erase board (minus the roommate that we didn't talk to), and now I had one! That was one of my gifts from Jon. (Side note: Jon and I believe in practical gifts that the other person will actually like. We shy away from the chocolate heart boxes and teddy bears.)

After the initial lovey-dovey-ness of the Taylor Swift lyrics, the board served other purposes, such as wars about Jon's sexiness and warnings of my naked-ness in my room. I like to air dry after I shower, okay? We were a close group of friends.

(2) This was the first clue to a Taylor Swift scavenger hunt! At this point in my life, I was obsessed with Taylor. This was circa "Speak Now," and I just loved all of her music. Don't judge me. Or do. Don't care. But this is why Jon enlisted the help of Mandy. Jon doesn't listen to Taylor Swift on the reg, obviously. 
The clues/lyrics were set up all over my apartment. Some led to other clues and some led to gifts. In addition to the dry erase board, he also got me the movie Valentine's Day and the external hard drive that I killed last year (R.I.P.). 
After I finished the scavenger hunt, we got comfy and watched the movie. It was a fabulous night, and the perfect first Valentine's Day. None of our other V-Day's have been that elaborate, but they've all been special. This year, we're celebrating by going to an opera on Saturday! I can't wait.