Birthday weekend.

It was my birthday on Friday. The branch went kayaking at Coosa River in Wetumpka, AL. Here's right before I jumped off a cliff into the river...



My roommates and friends from school and church came over and we made pizzas. Becca Z (from church) made the dough and Esperanza (roommie) got the toppings. Oh, and we also had awesome cake that Esperanza made. Sweet, sweet friends.



Yummm.



I tried to make a cat pizza, because back in 3rd grade when we made individual pizzas for my birthday party, I remember I tried to make a cat. Mine's the one in the middle. Looks like I still got it...



Here's me sporting the birthday bow Emma sent me. :)



Would've been fun to spend time with my momma, since we share our birthday. But I had a good one, just the same.

How to Have a Crawfish Boil

1. Put the crawfish in a big pot of boiling water. The water must be boiling first, and the crawfish must be live until they hit the water. (This is important, I am told). Throw some cajun seasoning, potatoes, onion, sausage, and corn in there, too.

2. Throw down all the food onto a spread of newspaper. Assemble your friends and family. This is a social event--a conversation set to the soundtrack of slurping and shell-cracking. Choose your first delicacy. Hold up the crawdad with your fingers. Twist off the tail, as shown.

3. You can suck the juice out of the front half (the head--yummmm) if you've got the stomach for that sort of thing. Otherwise, peel back some of the shell surrounding the tail.

4. Pull the tail meat out of the rest of the shell.

You will have some guests who pretend not to enjoy the crawfish. Don't worry--this is normal. When they've got a mound of discarded shells the size of their head, it is safe to say they like the crawfish.

Delight.

Appetizing, no?

The second batch was a lot redder than the first. I guess that happens when your propane burner is working better and your water gets hotter and the crawfish get cooked better.

My sister is a rock star!

Huge Math Victory Leads to Free Frozen Yogurt

That's right, folks. Today's big story is one of triumph: it's about a girl who thought she was really bad at math her whole life just to find out, in one high-stakes, telling moment, that she's actually pretty stinkin' awesome at it.

Our heroine was out for a night on the town to celebrate the brightening light at the end of the tunnel known as "a semester of graduate school." She entered her favorite frozen yogurt joint, prepared to blissfully surrender 45 cents per ounce of the glorious substance. A sign caught her eye, which read, "Smoothies: Fill a cup 2/3 full with yogurt of your choice, and we will add juice of your choice and blend." Intrigued, she queried a roaming employee as to available flavors of said juice, who promptly went to see what sorts were available.

Upon returning, the lass regretfully informed our heroine that there was no more juice; she added, smilingly, that our heroine could receive her yogurt for but half of the asking price. Our heroine protested, as she had already determined to buy yogurt instead of a smoothie, anyway. However, the young yogurt peddler insisted, and our heroine was happy to relent.

There are so many flavors in a yogurt establishment such as this one: peanut butter, oreo, thin mint, cheesecake, fruit sorbets and at least 10 varieties besides. However, Thin Mint was quickly settled upon and our heroine advanced to the counter to pay, after securing a most generous portion of the Thin Mint cream.

At the counter, there was another sign which caught her eye. This one read, "Guess your yogurt's weight within .10 ounce and it's free!" Our heroine (who, remember, was never very sure of her aptitude for mathematics) creased her brow, tapped her foot, and felt the pressure of a growing line of customers waiting to pay for their yogurt. "Think, think, think!" she told herself. She knew that her yogurt generally cost somewhere around $5, and she knew the cost was .45 per ounce. The math seemed simple enough, but the growing line of customers made her feel flustered and frantic. And then, in a sudden burst of division skills, she knew the answer--or at least, a pretty good one. "9.5 ounces!" she wagered, expectantly.

The attendant's eyebrows raised as she weighed the yogurt and then said, "9.32 ounces. Not bad! I was gonna give it to you for half-off anyway, so I'm gonna give it to you for free."

Dun-duh-duh-DUN!! Triumph! Thank you, GRE prep class. Not only did you help me get into graduate school, you helped me get free yogurt. And for that, I will be forever grateful.

Note: Sorry for the weird writing style. As I mentioned, it is near the end of the semester, and taking longish breaks to use thesaurus.com and write ridiculous blog posts seems way more appealing than working on my final Stats memo.