Foreach and View

[eluser]Unknown[/eluser]
I'm new at this so thanks in advance for your help.

I've got a view which is displaying the data from my table.
I'd like to high-light the date when it changes, so what I'm doing is checking to see whether the last date is different than the current date. I've added some echo statements to help make things a little clearer but....

Controller: mylists.php

Code:

$data['mylists'] = $this->mylists_model->get_mylists();
    $data['title'] = 'My Lists';

    $this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
    $this->load->view('mylists/index', $data);
    $this->load->view('templates/footer');

View: index.php

Code:

<?php
$lastDate = '';
foreach ($mylists as $mylists_item):
  echo 'LD1 ' . $lastDate . ' : ' . $mylists_item['date'] . '<br />';

  if  ( ! $mylists_item['date'] == $lastDate )
  {
      echo 'LD2 ' .  $lastDate . '<br />';
      $lastDate = $mylists_item['date'];
      $line  = '<h2>' . $mylists_item['date'] . '</h2>';
      $line .= '<div id="main">';
      echo $line;
  }
  $lastDate = $mylists_item['date'];
  echo 'LastDate ' . $lastDate             . ' : ';
  echo ' Date: '   . $mylists_item['date'] . ' : ';
  echo ' Item: '   . $mylists_item['item'] . '<br />';
  $line = '<br />';
  echo $line;
endforeach;
?&gt;
    </div>   &lt;!-- end of main  --&gt;

Output:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Lists

Header
LD1 : 2011-11-01
LD2
<h2>2011-11-01</h2>

LastDate 2011-11-01 : Date: 2011-11-01 : Item: Item 1

LD1 2011-12-01 : 2011-12-01
LastDate 2011-12-01 : Date: 2011-12-01 : Item: Item 2

LD1 2011-12-01 : 2011-12-01
LastDate 2011-12-01 : Date: 2011-12-01 : Item: Item 3

LD1 2011-12-01 : 2011-12-01
LastDate 2011-12-01 : Date: 2011-12-01 : Item: Item 4

LD1 2011-12-01 : 2011-12-02 <--- I would expect a <h2> here?
LastDate 2011-12-02 : Date: 2011-12-02 : Item: Item 5

LD1 2011-12-02 : 2011-12-02
LastDate 2011-12-02 : Date: 2011-12-02 : Item: Item 6

LD1 2011-12-02 : 2011-12-02
LastDate 2011-12-02 : Date: 2011-12-02 : Item: Item 7

LD1 2011-12-02 : 2011-12-02
LastDate 2011-12-02 : Date: 2011-12-02 : Item: Item 8

Footer
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My guess is I'm missing something really obvious :-)

Thanks,