birthday!

june 14th, aka flag day, aka my birthday, has been wonderful! I spent the day on Lake Ottawa catching crayfish and collecting small-mouth bass eggs. The past few times we went to this lake it was cloudy and cold, but today was beautiful. The crayfish were easy to catch, the weather was incredible, and I got bumped by the father of the year bass who was trying to protect his eggs. So fun.

On the way back home, Ashley had the grand idea to stop by a casino for a quick birthday round. I had never been in a casino before and the whole process of it is kind of strange- spending your money to lose it. And there were so many old people! They wouldn't even go through the motions of pulling the slots levers. They all just had casino cards and would play round after round after round. But anyway, I had a good time... came out in the negative, but still had a good time. I was worried that I wasn't gonna get in cause I forgot my ID, but they didn't even card me! woo.

We got back late, and my roommates were lovely enough to plan a surprise pizza party birthday celebration for me! complete with decorations and sodapop and watermelon. A bunch of the other grad students from the apartments came over and we all hung out. We played some more weird games (so many weird games here), this time it was "pin the clothespins on eachother." basically, whoever could pin the most clothespins on themselves or your partner wins. woo!

AND I opened the packages that i've been holding on to for my birthday. Thanks Mom, Dad, Lena, Puffy, and Joey for the care package foods and WATERPROOF CAMERA!!! yey!

This is the first birthday in a long while that I've spent outside of Vienna/with my family so I was thinking that it was going to be a boring one, but my apartment-mates definitely stepped it up! Which is awesome considering that I've only known everyone for a little more than 2 weeks now.